Wholehearted Saga: Origins

First Day: 3.1

Chapter 3: Ransacked

A few days have passed. It's a new evening.

Asriel walks and looks up and down and all around. Darkness swarms around his little body. He takes a few steps forward, brow sweating. "Where am I?...What's going on..." he whispers. After another moment of walking, he shouts out, "MOM! DAD! FRISK! Are you there?!"

Like a shot out of a cannon, a small human child apparates in front of him. Back turned, her chocolate brown hair blows in the wind as her chunky little body slowly turns to the goat child. Asriel gasps, with joyful tears appearing in his eyes as the child's rosy cheeks glow for him. Asriel runs forward and hugs the child tightly.

"CHARA!" Asriel exclaims. "Chara...I can't...you're here, but..."

Chara chuckles. "Greetings, you crybaby. Would it kill you to toughen up?"

Asriel rubs his eyes and bites his lip. "You're right. I don't mean to be a baby, but I can't help it."

Chara raises an eyebrow and places her hand on her hip. "Aren't you 11 now? You realize that big kids don't cry, right?"

Asriel's pupils sharpen, and he shakes his head. "I can't get over it."

"Why?" Chara asks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Asriel raises an eyebrow. "Wait, you don't remember...the plan?" he whispers.

Chara sinks her head and chortles bitterly. "That's why it's so unfair, especially how it failed."

Asriel's heart drops like a rock. "...What's unfair?"

His sister's limbs tremble. She marches up to him and grips his shoulder. "How you got to live again, and I didn't."

Asriel steps backward, hands shaking like leaves in the wind. "Don't say that! I did resurrect...but... 'Flowey' was the name I called myself. And you don't know what being Flowey was like," he counters. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy!"

Chara pushes Asriel away, face twisting and fists clenched. "You're an idiot. You got to live while I died..."

"I got killed, too!" Asriel exclaims.

"No," Chara says sharply. "Both of us know your demise doesn't count. You were resurrected while I'm still in the ground. Then, you got your real body back while I have no body at all. Now, do you see why it's not fair?"

Asriel glares at Chara's ghost, shouting. "YOU AREN'T LISTENING TO ME! I wouldn't..." He lowers his tone, and his voice falls back to a whisper with tears falling. "I wouldn't want my sister to go through what I went through! You were my best friend forever...I loved you."

Chara clicks her tongue and waltzes up to Asriel, narrowing her blood-red eyes. "You're pathetic. And now you're all about Frisk, huh?"

Asriel hangs his head. "This isn't like you. Sure, you would tease me, but you were never this mean! What happened?!" The sniffling and sobbing spikes from the goat child. "T-this isn't the Chara I k-know! And you haven't been replaced."

"That doesn't matter. I'm dead," Chara spats.

Asriel's head pounds. "So, you don't care about me enough to answer my questions?!" Voice boiling over, he screams, "ANSWER ME!"

Chara chuckles. "I don't have to answer you if I don't want to."

Asriel snorts. "No, I'm the one asking questions. I'm the one in control!"

Chara's chuckle turns into a laugh. Her eyes bleed black tar, and her smile turns wicked. "Really now? That's funny...since when were you the one in control?"

"Chara...listen..." Asriel pleads.

Evil laughter covers the expanse. Chara pulls out a knife, and Asriel snaps backward. His crying increases as he runs the other way, with the ghost girl floating after him. The screams shift, and her voice fizzles as a familiar voice comes into Asriel's ears. He looks behind him, and vines and flowers shoot up around Chara as she inches closer and closer. "No...no...that's not Chara's laugh..." Asriel listens closer, and a sense of dread shakes his soul. "...that's my laugh. Flowey's laugh."

Asriel trips and falls to the ground, skinning his knee. Chara's head morphs into a golden flower and yells, "big bro...let's play!" Asriel cries out...