She really should have expected it; they had hitched an unwanted ride with him before after all. All those times back in Snowdin when Chara had been working on giving him that impossible scar had been rife with unwanted teleportation. Yet when she took his hand she still ended up being caught off guard by it.

It felt similar to experiencing a reset but the void they passed through felt… different. There was a lot more to experience physically since their body was still intact. There was a snap of static, the strong smell of ozone and then the world turned dark. She felt herself being pulled forward in a sensation not unlike all the times Sans had flung her around by her soul. The void whipped past them, howling yet breathless. Then in the blink of an eye the darkness pulled itself open like curtains being flung aside and Sans stepped out into the depths of Waterfall. Rain was dragged through the opening with much less ceremony.

She gasped for air. “Oh my god warn me nex-”

He jumped again.

While resetting felt like falling backwards into a pool of light, these jumps felt like being dragged forward through a closing doorway.

They emerged in Hotland near his unmanned sentry station.

“God dammit I wasn’t ready!”

“one more.”

“Hold on give me a second to-”

When they emerged from the darkness for the third and last time, Rain collapsed onto the polished steel colored tiles of a hallway she had never seen before. The walls were off-white and naked. The floor was slightly warm to the touch and the ceiling hung a little lower than she would have liked.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position and took a few deep gulps of air. She sent him a withering glare he pretended not to see. Eventually she gave up and looked up at the glaring lights overhead. A few of them flickered in their struggle to hold on to life. The air was stale.“Where are we?”

“well for safety reasons if you haven’t already guessed then it’s probably best that you don’t know the exact location. if you come back later on less friendly terms we’d like to keep this place on the down low. i’m sure you understand.”

She slowly pushed herself to her feet, leaning against the wall and looking down a long hallway. “I guess.”

Sans wandered down the hall, glancing into a few open entryways until he found the one he was looking for. “here we are. this one is yours.” He gestured to the doorless room behind him.

She slowly made her way towards the room. He waited in silence while she struggled to limp over to the opening. Her mussels were seizing up and making it hard to move. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand twitch and his brow-line soften. He looked he was struggling with whether or not to offer her some help but when she accidentally locked eyes with him his gaze slid off to the side and he tucked his hands back into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

Her lip twitched in an attempted smile that died young and she lowered her eyes.

Well, she appreciated the thought. She knew this couldn’t be comfortable for him. It certainly wasn’t comfortable for her.

Chara growled and backed up against the confines of their mind like a wary cat when she saw the room. It was small. Just a few paces wide on either side and painted with the same colors as the hallway. It had a small bed with a faded mulberry blanket in one corner of the room and a metal desk tucked away in the other. It took some effort for Rain to force her body to cross the threshold into the cell-like room.

“have you saved yet?” Sans asked to her back as she crept inside.

“No.”

“well, now would be as good a time as any.”

She eased herself onto the bed with a sigh. It was a little on the lumpy side and had a strange smell to it. “Oh. Well, I kind of need some motivation to do it.” She leaned forward and perched her chin atop her steepled fingers as she tried to think of something.

He rubbed the back of his neck in thought. “you saved undyne and didn’t hurt anyone else, right? doesn’t locking that scenario down fill you with determination?”

“Kinda.”

He cleared his nonexistent throat and looked at the floor, leaning against the doorway and thinking for a moment. The words sat between his teeth for a while before he spat them out. He didn’t want it to sound like a promise. “what about the prospect of getting help? we could finally figure out what’s making you tick. don’t you feel determined to find answers?”

She closed her eyes. “That helps.” She remained quiet for a moment longer, kicking off her shoes and focusing on the warmth of the floor and the distant electric hum of the lights. “Ok. Got it.”

His eyes slid off to one side again and he folded his arms. “ah.”

“What?”

“nothing. just thought that maybe if i paid close attention id be able to sense it or something, the save i mean. sometimes i can feel the reloads.“ He shrugged. “anyway, thanks for being so cooperative. guess i can bring her down here now.” He snapped his fingers at her-or rather he clacked them- there didn’t seem to be much difference. “i will bring down some new clothes for you too. i want my coat back. i didn’t expect you to wear so many holes in it so fast.”

“Sorry.” She droned without much purpose.

“eh. better a coat than a person i guess. be right back.” He pressed a button on his side of the entrance then flitted away again in a haze of smeared static.

Both Rain and Chara soon noticed that a strange hum he filled the air, running along the walls. It was soft and electrics stronger than the drone of the distant lights. Chara bristled. “He just locked us in again.”

“I’m not surprised.” She had expected as much. It seemed to be an ongoing thing with this guy- with the Underground in general really. Her world had become one where the question was not so much whether or not she was going to get walled in, but whether or not she could find a way to cheat her way back out when it happened.

“Mark my words Rain, you are going to regret this. You are either going to end up strapped face up on a metal table with your guts in a jar, or the walls are going to start closing in around us like a giant trash compactor.” Chara sent distrustful glances at the walls, which felt too low, too close and far too featureless to be trusted.

“Well if that happens then it will be on me, wont it? You will get to go dive into a dream and leave me to deal with it on my own.”

“They are either going to use you or betray you.” She warned with a hum.

“That’s alright. Haven’t you already done both?” Her words dripped with bitter sarcasm. “If that’s the case then I may as well sample all the flavors of cruelty life has to offer. But I don’t think Sans would go through all this trouble just to kill me. He wouldn’t want me to reset when his friends are finally all in one piece.”

Chara snorted in disbelief. If an oily cloud of darkness could roll its eyes, she’d be rolling them hard enough to disconnect from this version of reality right now. “Fine. I will let you see how this plays out. I’m patient. You have the rest of your life to mess up. I’ll let you see where this goes. It will be a nice break from the repetitive monotony we have been stuck in anyway.”

Rain batted her eyes, words dripping with poison honey as she settled in to her new cage. “Oh wowie, thanks Chara! You are the epitome of kindness!”

***

Sans took his sweet time in showing up again. Rain began to wonder if maybe he really had simply ditched her in a cell. She was teetering on the border of falling asleep by the time she heard the soft click and patter of someone coming down the hall again.

She didn’t even realize she had curled up on the bed until she had to crack an eye open to see who was coming and realized she wasn’t sitting upright anymore.

Sans was standing by the door with a small pile of folded clothes in his arms. Her view of him was distorted by several bars of dancing energy that only seemed to become visible when someone approached the exit. She was given the impression that whatever this new type of barrier was, unlike the other shields she had come across, hitting it would probably damage her more than it would damage the device.

“well, that’s her.”

She sat back up. Sans seemed a little surprised that she was still awake.

“O-oh. Hello.” A tentative voice greeted.

Her eyes drifted off to the side where a second monster had gone previously unnoticed, only half visible between the dancing bars of energy. She inched into view a little more, coming out from hiding behind Sans and waving a clawed hand. She reached for something on her side of the door and the energy shielding switched off.

Sans tilted his head in the new monster’s direction. “i assume you have already met dr. alphys before?”

Rain’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Oh! No, actually.” She turned to look at the new monster and offered a friendly smile, hands tucked neatly against her lap as she took in the sight of the fabled Royal Scientist: the most cunning and elusive monster to have never been seen.

She was a reptilian creature. Her scales were a pale yellow and she had a three pointed bony crest running down the back of her head. Her short, thick tail seemed to wrap itself around her leg in a nervous manner. She wore a white lab coat covered in faint soup and coffee stains. The clothes she wore underneath her coat were the same boring shade of stained white.

After having gotten used to having to crane her neck up to look at all of the looming monsters of the Underground, Alphys’s short, chubby stature almost felt odd and out of place to Rain. She was probably only a head taller than Sans, but her poor posture made her seem shorter than she really was.

Alphys offered an awkward smile. “T-that’s ok. I guess I haven’t really done anything of note yet. M-my projects are still in development and I don’t get out much. S-so you probably just…overlooked me?” She crept into the room and offered her hand in greeting.

Rain took it. “No. I know of you. I just never…found you. You’re a, um, a hero you know. You saved a lot of monsters.”

Alphys blinked in shock, stuck somewhere between being disturbed and flattered. She fidgeted with her glasses. Her smile made her front teeth stick out. “I-I did? Me? A hero?” She laughed. “Wow. That’s um, that’s not something I expected to hear.”

Chara scoffed. “This is their Royal Scientist? Asgore’s standards must be slipping.”

“Be nice.”

“Look at her! She’s a wreck! I bet she sleeps in that coat.”

“Have you seen what we sleep in?”

“I can’t believe this is the person who outsmarted me.”

Rain realized they had been shaking hands now for an awkward amount of time now and finally let go. “I’m Rain, by the way. Or Chara. I guess. Depending on which ah, ‘mood’ you catch me in.”

Alphys seemed to pale a little. “Oh, yeah. Y-you think it’s the um, the Dreemurr’s kid, right?” It was blatantly obvious that Rain’s claim made the scientist uneasy and at least a little doubtful.

“Oh I know it’s her.”

“R-right. Sans told me about that.”

Rain tried to look Alphys in the eye but every time she did, Alphys started staring at the floor. She cleared her throat. “And do you uh... believe me?”

She started fidgeting with her fingers. “W-well. I um, I don’t- we don’t- we really don’t have a lot of information on the effects that s-soul absorption c-can have on d-different parties. You know? S-so…” she adjusted her glasses again and looked at the floor, “So I won’t know what to think until w-we run some tests?”

Rain blinked, not quite sure how to discern that last part. Was it a question of whether or not the tests would be worth it, or her attempt to ask permission to preform them?

“Oh. I get it. We are in that lab of hers aren’t we? Curious.” Rain felt her eyes stray around the room as Chara took everything in with a new layer of interests. “I didn’t know there was more to that ugly building. I suppose we overlooked something in our other runs. Maybe this is where she’s been hiding all this time.” Chara grinned, a sinister shade of gleeful black streaking across Rain's mind. “I bet you could hide a lot of monsters down here, couldn’t you? I guess this run won’t be worthless after all. Thanks, Rain.”

Rain swallowed hard and cursed herself. “Ok. Yeah. Do whatever you need to do.”

Alphys smiled, relived and a little more confidant. “G-great! I should have everything up and running in a few days. I have been getting things ready ever since Sans told me about you.” She looked over her shoulder, seeming to stare through the walls and focus in on a project left at a distance. “W-we have never really had to uh, had to deal with a human soul still contained within i-its b-body before.” She tried to look Rain in the eye but couldn’t quite do it, her gaze flitting around the room while her claws worked together in a guilty fit of nervousness.

Rain took in a sharp breath through her teeth, remembering that her best friend’s disembodied soul had probably been on this woman’s counter before.

The noise made Alphys flinched away a little, head ducked in momentary shame. “S-so it’s going to take a while to modify my equipment. You know, s-so you will be ok.”

“I told you, you were going to end up either on a table or in a jar.”

Rain rubbed at her temple. “Fine. Whatever you need to do, do it. I will cooperate as much as I can. I’m sure you will do everything in your power to help me figure out this mess.”

Alphys’s smile returned. She looked quite determined now. “I-I will. I Promise.” She looked around the room, observing its meager furnishings. “Oh! Sorry, I almost forgot.” She stepped back into the hall and returned with a box that contained a few extra pillows and a pair of slippers that probably were not Rain’s size. On top of the box sat a few takeout containers. Rain’s mouth began to water. “Sans said you can heal really fast if you eat. S-sorry for not getting this to you sooner. Looks like you really n-need it...”

“If this tastes even remotely as good as it smells I will forgive you.” Rain excused, snatching up the nearest container like a wolf descending on a helpless fawn. If Alphys had not shoved a plastic spoon right under her nose she would have started using her hands. Everyone watched her eat for a while, not exactly sure what to do. “Keep talking I’m listening.” She said between the mouthfuls of rice and vegetables she inhaled.

Alphys scratched at her frill. “Um, well that’s kind of it for now. S-sorry that the room is so bare. I kind of had to throw something together on short notice.” She narrowed her eyes at Sans. “And my help disappeared as soon as I mentioned cleaning anything.” She brightened a little. “But hopefully you won’t have to be here for long.”

Chara scoffed at this. “That’s a lie. There is no way they can “fix” you in a couple of days. They don’t have the power to help you. They are just too afraid to admit it because they don’t like knowing they are helpless.”

“We will see.”

Chara made another disappointed noise. “I still can’t believe that this is who they chose to replace the old Royal Scientist. You should have seen the monster who was in charge when I was alive. Now they knew how to get things done! Who knows. You may have even had a chance with the old one helping you!”

“Oh yeah? Who were they? What was so great about them?”

Chara poised herself like she was about to take a deep breath and spew out a long list of reasons and stories about this previous scientist but the words just sort of faded out of thought. “I…don’t actually remember their name.” Chara scowled internally. “Actually, I can’t remember exactly what it was they were working on when I was alive. Guess I was too young to understand. But they got stuff done. I know that much. And they were…tall. Intimidating.” Chara withdrew into herself, puzzled and a little unnerved that words and memories that had been sitting on the tip of her tongue had suddenly dissipated into a cloud of fog the second she tried to bring them to the surface.

Rain let her stew. Good. Now Chara knew how Rain felt about half the aspects of her life that had been erased from her mind. With Chara no longer there to distract her, she realized she had spent the last minute or two in a somewhat rude kind of silence, having once again forgotten that no one else could hear her internal conversations.

“Well, I-it was nice meeting you, Rain. I need to get back to work now b-but if you need anything I should be able to hear you over the speakers.” She pointed a claw at small panel and a speaker up against the far wall. “I-I’m going to have to lock you in here for safety r-reasons now... sorry.”

“I understand.”

Sans winked at her. “yep. can’t let you go wandering the halls alone at night. sorry. it’s a bit of a mess down here. wouldn’t want you to get absorbed in a sticky situation.”

Alphys tugged at his sleeve and hissed “Sans!” through her teeth.

“sorry.”

Alphys looked over her shoulder and gave Rain one last forced smile before scuttling away.

Rain frowned. “What was that about?”

Sans shrugged. “s’nothing. guess it was more of an inside joke now that I think about it. sorry.”

“I bet he’s hiding something.”

Rain snorted. “He’s always hiding something.”

“Well this was something big enough that he thought we would have already known about it by now. Don’t you see? He was testing us. Mark my words, Rain. People don’t have secret underground-underground labs unless they are hiding something.”

Sans cleared his throat to catch her attention when it became obvious she had stopped paying attention to the room again. “anyway, got you some clothes. just a bunch of old stuff Papyrus and i don’t wear anymore.” He gave her a friendly wink. “i apologize in advance for the colors. my style isn’t as cool as my bros.”

She accepted the bundle of overly bright sweaters and mute, wrinkled t-shirts and shorts. “I’ll pull it off somehow.” She droned with a dry smirk.

With that Sans excused himself and locked her away again.

She changed into a blessedly clean, if somewhat poorly matched, set of clothes and promptly finished inhaling her meal so she could heal herself. She sighed in relief as the pain ebbed away like a receding tide.

She checked her legs. Things had scarred pretty bad this time. It was all ugly and twisted looking but she didn’t really care at this point. She had long since gotten past her vanity.

With the pain no longer there to keep her awake, she made a nest for herself on the floor and promptly fell into the oblivion of a deep sleep; relieved to finally, at long last, have a chance to rest without having to worry about waking up someplace else covered in dust. The electric hum of the locked door was a good as any lullaby.

***

She could hear them laughing before she even rounded the corner. She could also hear the all too familiar sound of his sniffs and stiffened sobs.

“N-no! Don’t say that! How can you say that?” He whimpered.

“Oh geez, is he crying again?” A voice chided. “Lighten up Dreemurr. We were only joking.”

“Yeah. Toriel would never let it happen.” Another voice piped up. “Even if it would be better for the rest of us.” They added under their breath.

Chara picked up her pace, jaw set and hands balling into fists. Her dozen keychains and books jingled and thumped against her back as she rounded the corner. “Hey!” She snapped, spotting a ghost, a slime and a spider child standing over her crying brother. “Leave him alone.”

At first the small group tried to bunch together, arms crossed to try and look tough. “Oh yeah? Or else what?”

“We didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not our fault he’s a crybaby.”

“We are not afraid of you!”

She did her signature creepy face, her eyes just as wide as her smile. “Well you should be.” She slipped her backpack off her shoulder and unzipped it, grabbing the first thing she found, which happened to be her aluminum thermos, and clicked her tongue. “It’s been a long time since I have had to give anyone a Lincoln Memorial Special.” She tilted her head, smirk going all the wider. “Oh, do they have those in the Underground? It’s a method I picked up from the human warrior tribes up on the surface after all.”

The monsters began to look uncertain of themselves.

“Chara, n-no!” Asriel sniffed. “No leave them alone. They are- they are right. I’m just being a big crybaby. Don’t hurt them! You promised you would try not to get into fights anymore after the last time.”

The slime monster made nervous squishing sounds, its single eye darting back and forth in fear.

The spider girl made an exasperated sigh and tried to flake out without making it look like anyone had scared her into retreating “Come on guys. Let’s go. I've got better things to do than deal with the crybaby and his weirdo sibling.”

“If they are supposed to be the future of human and monsters, I’m scared.” The ghost whispered as the gang hurried off.

Chara rolled her eyes and went to help her brother up off the ground. “Are you ok? Did they hurt you?” If they did, there would be hell to pay.

He rubbed at his eyes and accepted her hand. “No.” He mumbled.

Chara made a disgruntled noise of annoyance. “Then why were you crying?” She snapped.

“They were saying mean things about you again. And mom. And dad…and me.”

She gave him a long-suffering shove off in the direction of home. “Come on. Let’s go. Crybaby.”

“Sorry.” He dabbed at his eyes again and put on a brave face even though his lip still quivered.

“You've got to be tough, Asriel. How are you going to be a good king if you let everyone bully you?”

“Dad is a good king and he’s soft.”

“No. Mom is a good king.” She snorted.

He was quiet for a moment. “You weren’t really going to give them a Lincoln Memorial Special, were you? That sounds really bad.”

Chara giggled to herself, perhaps sounding just a shade too dark and gleeful. “No. I just made that up.”

“So… there are no warrior clans of humans living around our mountain?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “God no! Just a bunch of stupid religious nuts.” Her expression darkened and her mouth snapped shut. She had never told anyone more than the absolute basics about her life on the surface. She had told them that she had no longer had a home or family to go back to, and that and she had fallen into the Underground while trying to take shelter from a storm. That was it.

She handed him her thermos. It still had juice in it and he looked like he could use it. “But if they had hurt you, I was going to smash them over the head with this and call it whatever the hell I wanted to.”

Asriel ducked his head nervously. “Please don’t do that. You know I don’t like it when you hurt people for me. And… And don’t swear.” Asriel pleaded, gladly taking the juice. “Mom got upset with me for saying that the other day. She thinks I learned it from dad.”

“Are you going to rat me out?”

He looked a little guilty and ducked his head a little more. “Of course not. We are best friends, aren’t we?”

Chara gave a group of monster kids across the street a warning glare as they hurried off. “Yeah. Yeah we are friends. So I’ll say whatever the hell I want and will trust you not to tell anyone. That's what friends do. They keep secrets.”

Asriel groaned but didn't object.

They put several more streets between themselves and the school before they started talking again. “So what did they say to you anyway?” She heard him make a little stifled noise as he tried not to cry again. He looked at the ground as they walked, causing his long ears to droop out in front of his face and hide his expression from her. She trotted ahead a few steps so she could watch him. “Asriel?”

“They said that it was selfish of mom and dad to adopt you.” He said; his voice a soft whisper. “They said that if dad was any sort of good king he would have used your soul to cross the barrier and go get more humans so he could break the barrier!”

Chara blinked in surprise. Asriel sounded…angry. His small fangs came in and out of view as he tried to keep his lips from drawing back. He was rubbing at his eyes again, trying not to cry. “How could they say that? It’s not true! It’s not selfish. You are the hope for humans and monsters. We are going to grow up and be ambassadors. Its… it’s just not true!”

Chara sighed in exasperation and gave her brother a rough hug. “Stop crying you idiot.” She ordered. “No one is taking me away.”

“But how could they say something like that about you?” He repeated.

She nudged him along. If they were late getting home someone would be a worried, fussy mess when they got there. “Well, they are right you know. I mean, I’m glad dad didn’t do it. But I’ll never understand why he chose not to.” She stuck her hands in her pockets and kicked a pebble across the street. “He should have. He should have taken my soul and saved all the monsters down here and let them enjoy the surface instead.” Her expression darkened. “And then he should have shoved all of the humans underground where they belong.”

Asriel looked absolutely horrified. Instead of hurrying along like she wanted, he latched onto her again with all his strength, forcing the air out of her lungs with his hug. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that! We love you Chara. We love you so much. We would never hurt you.”

She pried him off of her and looked away. “Yes. I know. I don’t understand why though. I’m not a good person.”

“Yes you are. You are good! I know you are. You look out for me, don’t you?”

She was quiet for a moment .“I suppose. I guess you will be stuck living with me looking out for you forever then, won’t you?”

No one had ever said it. No one had ever exactly implied it but Chara knew why everyone called her the future of all monsters. Monsters lived much longer than humans. The Dreemurr family would still be enjoying their nearly eternal youth long after she had grown old and died.

No one could cross the barrier without both a monster and a human soul yet their parents continued to teach both of them about the duties of being an ambassador to the humans living up on the surface. It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines. Asgore didn’t need to kill her himself. He would let time do it for him. Then Asriel could absorb her soul and they would return to the surface with all of these supposedly lovely stories about the kindness of monsters to share with everyone.

Asriel didn’t seem to realize they were being used. He did not understand that the only reason Chara was important to the Underground was because of how useful she would be when she was dead. He was too busy being enthralled by the romanticized idea of being able to spend the rest of his life with his sibling and best friend to notice the details.

Chara wasn’t exactly sure what she thought of the idea yet. She didn’t exactly like it but she assumed that this was her penance. This was how she would redeem herself. So she kept quiet about it.

The rest of the walk home was uneventful.

***

Their parents were in a meeting when they got home so they played in the garden for a bit before wandering into their room. Chara lounged around on the bed, looking up at the ceiling while Asriel remained stretched out on the floor, coloring. He kicked his legs back and forth as he scribbled. “Almost done.” He looked over his work with a critical eye. “Hmm. I think it needs some more blue. And orange. Maybe some green.” He twisted around to look at her. “Can I barrow your orange crayon? I can trade you for my red.”

She chucked her crayons at him without getting up. “Free of charge.”

“Thanks!” He returned to his work. “So, what about you? How’s your drawing coming?”

Chara looked at her drawing. She had started a picture of her own but had lost interest in it. She didn’t think she should show him this one. “It’s done.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

“Oh. Ok.” He worked for a few minutes more before proudly declaring his work of art finished. He shot up to his feet and presented it to her like a proud puppy who had just retrieved a stick. Chara sat up attentively.“I call it:” he made a grand gesture with his hand, “Dreemurr reborn: the Absolute Hyper God of Magic!”

It started out as a hiss and a snort but soon Chara fell over laughing, legs kicking at the air as she clutched her gut. “Oh god! Did you seriously name it that?”

He looked flustered and taken aback. “Y-yeah! of course I did. It’s supposed to be us when I absorb your soul, see? We will be super powerful so we can protect all the monsters and stuff. I already know what all of our bullet patterns will be called and everything!”

“Dare I ask?”

“W-well there um, there will be one called Galactica Ablazing and-”

“Stop! Just Stop. Kill me now!” She wheezed, falling off the bed. “Asriel, there is no way in hell I’m going to be shooting rainbows out of my eyes like we are in that drawing.”

“Well then what would you want to shoot out of your eyes?” He huffed, crossing his arms.

She paused for a moment then grinned. “Blood.”

He shuffled back and forth, looking uneasy. “That…that’s really creepy, Chara. It would scare the humans.”

“So? They deserve to be scared.” She crawled back up onto her bed and flopped over. “Besides, if we looked anything like that,” she pointed a lazy finger at the drawing, “they would still think we were a demon and try to kill us.”

“A demon?” He had heard her use this term before. “But… this kind of looks like me. Do…do I look like a demon?” His brow furrowed in worry.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You look like a monster. Most people don’t even know what real demons look like.”

“Oh. Do you know what they look like then?”

Past accusations and threats rattled around in her head. Labels that had once terrified her, labels that she had gradually gotten tired of running from. They seemed to echo all too loud in her mind amidst the questioning silence. For a brief moment it hurt. Then she grinned her signature creepy smile and embraced it. “Yeah. They look like me.”

“Chara…don’t say that.” He crawled over to her and gave her a hug.

Why was he always so clingy? She had to make him stronger somehow. If he was this weak when she died the humans would kill him.

“You are not a demon either, Chara. I promise.” He mumbled.

Her smile softened a little. The darkness faded from her eyes and she hugged him back. He was soft. Everything about him was like a big squishy teddy bear. For the first time in a long time, she doubted all those accusations she had grown up with. “Are you sure about that?”

“Positive.” He swore.

She looked at her own drawing and thought for a moment. “Asriel, did I ever tell you why I climbed this mountain?”

“No.” He let her go and sat down next to her, worried by her sudden change in demeanor.

“I will tell you if you want. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else, ok? It has to be a secret. Not even Mom and Dad can know. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

She took a deep breath. “I was running.”

“Running from what?”

“My sins.” She drew her knees up against her chest. She looked haunted but still a smirk tugged at her lips as she stared at the drawing. “You see… I killed my parents.”