****HEAD PHONE USER WARNING ON THE VIDEO ABOVE! TURN DOWN YOUR VOLUME, YO*** Also, welcome to a taste of my music. Enjoy~~***

Froggit attacks you.

"Uh....Frisk?"

Frisk looks determined. But not in a good way. He raises his stick.

"Frisk! What are you doing?!"

He brings the stick down in a downward arch.

"FRISK!" I try to jump in the way as he hits the Froggit, but Frisk just passes through me.

He hits it and the Froggit turns to dust. Tears cling to his face, but he still looks determined.

*YOU WON! You earned 10 XP and 20 Gold.
*You're LOVE increased.

"Frisk, what have you done?" I say in quiet horror.

The dream dissolves and I'm plunged in another memory.

*The wind is howling.

*(You're filled with determination)

I don't say, 'you're filled with determination,' that loudly because if I'm going to be honest, Frisk looks terrified.

"Hey, Chara?" He asks, his voice shaking a little.

"Yeah, Frisk?" I answer, standing on the ground next to him instead of floating.

"I'm scared."

The phrase feels like a punch in the chest.

I put on a brave face, even though in my head I'm hearing all of the other times I'd heard those words.

"Chara, I'm scared." A little seven year-old girl says to me, her lip trembling as she fights to hold back tears.

"It's okay, Patience. It's okay to be scared. That's how you know that you're alive. I get scared, too sometimes."

"Are you scared right now?" She asks me, looking up at my face with wide, terrified eyes.

I know I can't tell her the truth. That I'm terrified for her. That Undyne will probably kill her and there will be nothing I can do to stop it.

"No." I say, with a smile. "I'm not scared because I know I have to be brave for you. And besides,I'm already dead."

I tell Frisk what I told her, the first one to fall after me, all those years ago.

"It's okay to be scared, Frisk. That's how you know you're alive. I get scared, too, sometimes."

God, please don't let me be staring into the face of another dead kid.

"You just can't let that fear control you. Don't let it make you do something you'll regret."

The world fades away and another memory takes its place.

Oh god. Please, no. Not this room, not this fight.

I back myself into a column in the Last Corridor.

"Heya."

Nononononono.

"You've been busy, huh?"

"So, I've got a question for ya."

"Frisk, reset, please." I plead to the scary kid beside me that I can't recognize as the Frisk I met in the first timeline.

"Do you think even the worst person can change...? That everybody can be a good person, if they just try?"

"SANS RUN! PLEASE!" I scream. "WHY CAN'T ANYONE HEAR ME!!"

Frisk takes a step forward.

Sans laughs. "All right. Well, here's a better question. Do you wanna have a bad time?"

"'Cause if you take another step forward....You are REALLY, not going to like what happens next."

Frisk takes another step forward, dragging me with him. Whatever Sans says next is drowned out by the screaming in my head.

"It's a beautiful day outside..."

I start to cry, because I know what happens next.

"Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming..."

"On days like these, kids like you..."

"Should be burning in hell."

Frisk screams loudly in pain.

The dream changes again.... and suddenly I'm the one with the knife....and...and Sans... then Asgore....

And then Frisk...

Change

At the end of the pacifist route. We had made it to the nearest town. The villiage elders started arguing with the older monsters.

"You're not taking my children!" Toriel says fiercely. She pulls me, Frisk, and Azzy closer.

"They aren't yours!" An old man with a beer gut says, just as fierce.

"Says who?" Sans says, glaring at him.

For the first time ever, I actually wish he would go all 'bad time' megalovania on someone.

I can't go back. ever.

"Says me!" the old lady beside him retorts, "And says the fact you aren't even of the same species!"

"That doesn't matter! They're family!"

"You don't even know what that word means!" She says. Next thing I know she grabs me. "Come now, little one, I know your real mother is still alive."

Anything else she says is lost as I start to freak out. "NO! MOM DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME!!" I try to slip my wrist out of her grasp, but she just scoops me up and carries me. "FRISK! AZZY!" I thrash in her arms and try to bite her.

In the corner of my eye I see Frisk trying to get out of the beer gut man's grasp. "CHARA HELP I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!"

I wriggle around enough to see Toriel looking hopeless and frantic. And everyone else looking frustrated because they know they can't attack. And Sans just looks horrorstruck.

"SANS HELP," I cry. "I CAN'T GO BACK! PLEASE! I'M SORRY!"

And he just stares at me.

***

"NO!" I scream myself awake. I sit up in my bed, ducking at the last moment before knocking my head on the bunk above me as i remember where I am and where I sleep.

I look around the dark room, practically hyperventilating.

I listen. I can hear Azzy's and Frisk's even breathing. I try to match their's and my breathing slows. I reach over to the nightstand and grab the picture frame. I feel under the pillow for my penlight. I click it on and aim it at the picture.

It's of us. All of us. The picture was taken right outside the house the second day we stayed here. The sky is blue and the sun bright in the background. I somehow made it in the center of the picture (probably because I'm the shortest). Azzy and Frisk are on either side of me, using my shoulders as armrests. All three of us are caught in mid laugh. Sans is behind us, giving me and Frisk bunny-ears and smiling widely at the camera. Toriel is right beside him, with her hand on Azzy's shoulder. Undyne and Alphys are beside her, holding hands and grinning. Papyrus is on Sans' other side, grinning with his arms around Sans' and Asgore, who's beside him, shoulders. Asgore looks happy despite him and Toriel not being together. Mettaton's standing at his side, smiling.

I stare at the picture for a while, lost in my thoughts. I try to remember my nightmare, But all I can remember are the bits and pieces above.

I remember that last part. It didn't happen like that. In real life, I mean. I flash back.

***

Sans doesn't sit there. He reacts, moving towards the front of the group. He uses his telekinesis and scoops us both out of arms. He brings us back to his side so fast, Frisk doesn't even have time to scream. As soon as our feet hit the ground, he shoves us behind him.

"No." He says quietly, looking and sounding scary.

"What was that?" Beer-Belly-Man asks, equally as terrifying.

"They. don't. want. to go." He says, "They're staying with us."

"They are children," He scoffs, "They don't know what they want." He starts forward, reaching for his side.

I lunge forward just as he brings out a pistol, "NO!" I stand in the way, my arms open wide. I stand in front of the whole group, as if I would be able to protect them with just myself.

"Move aside, girl." He says, taking aim.

"I won't let you hurt them." I tell him, my eyes blazing.

He fires, and something happens in that moment, but i don't know what.

The air kinda shimmers, and the bullet races toward us...and then stops abruptly, without any hint of slowing down.

At first, I think that Sans did it, but he was looking at me in shock. He couldn't have done it. He doesn't even know what a gun is.

Afterwords, Azzy and Sans said they could sense some serious magical energy around me at that moment. I didn't feel any different. I couldn't understand what happened. I still don't know what happened that day.

Either way, I wasn't scared to die for them.

I ' m s t i l l n o t.

After that, the man and the lady were speechless with shock. "Demon child," the lady says, fanning herself with her hand. "Those red eyes..."

I match her glare with one of my own. "Yeah. 'cause I've never heard that on before." I say sarcastically. "I'm not scared of you anymore." I hiss.

At that moment, I'm not sure who I'm talking about; them or just people in general. One thing's for sure; I'd defeated my demons and confronted the monsters around me a long time ago.

I'm not scared anymore. Of a n y t h i n g.

A nicer, but just as old lady came up from behind him and said, "I'll take care of this, thank you," She says waspishly, "Before you end up killing someone." She glares at them. "Be glad I don't call the police."

He says nothing, mouth still open in a comical 'O'.

She turns to me. her face looks kinder, and kinda familiar. "Why, hello, Chara. You almost look  the same as the day you left. My name's Annie. Do you remember me?" She holds out her hand to me. I don't shake it.

***

I shake my head, as if that would get rid of the nostalgia.

I wipe my face, surprised to feel tears there. I wipe the tears off the glass of the picture, too. I put the picture back on the nightstand and grab my phone. I unwind the earbuds, stick them in my ears, and play my loudest playlist. I grab the bone pillow Papyrus had gotten for me one year (Long story; remind me to tell you later). I bury face in it and let myself cry.

***