The Mountain East (An Undertale Fanfiction)

Chapter 35

He left by night his stately keep. His prison, however, did not limit his physical body. He was imprisoned by his mind, his actions.

He didn't know what to do.

What to say. What to feel.

The resemblance of remembrance was almost mocking.

He sat, his empty head yearning to be filled, his heavy brain wishing to be relieved. The last two nights had been too much. He had stumbled into the unknown of his soul, the nothingness, and had gotten claustrophobic from the sheer overwhelming weight of oblivion.

He stared up at the black sky, how it so resembled his heart. Could they have been littered with comets and stars and everything he had seen in his breathtaking dreams, hoped for in his wildest fantasies? The moon and the sun shining bright in the sky, shepherding time as they moved across the abstract portrait of the landscape?

He was lying to himself, really. He told himself he wanted to feel true sunlight. Because that was what she wanted. And he would be lying to himself had he blamed her for cowardice. Even though it was what she wanted.

That day, the rivers of men and monsters met at a confluence, only to pull themselves apart. Like they always did. But it wasn't the only thing that split in two.

Asriel threw on the spare jacket he always kept locked in his closet. The right half of his face was covered in an ebony veil. The light that did reach his other half was filtered drastically to emit only a low, pale olive glow.

As he shuffled around, the soft groans and pulling of covers stopped him in his tracks. Asriel turned back, his paws grinding on the carpet, embedding his footprints as an autograph for all to see. He walked up to the trembling mass of fabric and flesh, and slowly put a paw over her head.

Asriel sighed. The fever was still holding strong. Being monsters, the documentation of human maladies had been out of practice ever since they were banished. He felt so helpless, not knowing what to do, what to say. The limited advice Chara could give was less than helpful, her expertise far from the medical field herself.

"Chara. Shh." Asriel stroked her forehead slowly. He looked down at her sadly. She, too, had gone through so much. Though she may never muster the strength to reveal everything, from start to finish, to empty out the slimebucket of lies, Asriel still believed in her. One day.

He carefully adjusted the lopsided position of her locket. The slight shift of cold metal on skin made her squirm and kick her legs in a sudden fit of fear, but she was soon pacified by the calming massages Asriel gave to her forehead.

"Why would you ever go out there in the night, Chara?" Asriel mused. To do what, to ponder? To further engulf herself with self-loathing? Last night, when she went missing, Asriel had tried to cry himself back to sleep. Asgore and Toriel were worried, for sure. They sent search parties and task forces, the royal guard, themselves, on a task to find her. Asriel's vehement pleads to assist were overridden by Asgore's more adamant refusal. He locked himself in his room, tearing his own fur out, knowing exactly what had caused her to leave. Something he could never tell anyone. A promise held to his throat.

When she came back, her clothes wet and hair dripping, she seemed so indifferent to his cries of relief. Ignoring him completely, she stumbled into her bed and collapsed. Though she showed no signs of physical wounds, whether it be inflicted from herself or others, her eyes showed only fatigue. She looked... she looked as if she had just eaten a bouquet of buttercups.

He laughed and he cried about the cruel irony of it all. And at her behest, he tried his best to lie, to lock her away, as she commanded. And for one day, he did. He fell victim to her animosity of no other but herself, his idolization of her doing only harm to them both. He told his parents Chara did not want to see them. He funneled her words through his mouth, a messenger of sorts. And when they protested, he politely told them to fuck off and leave her alone.

...This wasn't him. Nor was it her. Is this constant game of cat-and-mouse meshed with keep away what friendship is about?

Hahaha... the thought terrified him.

... It terrified him because of how real it could be.

He sighed, his hands caressing the golden letters transcribed on his own locket.

Friendship and family really are two vicious heads of snakes tied together. And he was the knot, unable to let go of either, forever doomed to be stuck in an endless dilemma.

"I can't keep this charade going, Chara. I... I can't." Asriel sat on the edge of her bed, his paws covering his head in a fetal position. His fingers trembled slightly as he exhaled. A single piece of fur fluttered down and landed atop Chara's nose. Despite this, she did not acknowledge its presence and continued in her small shivering.

"We have to tell them. Tell everyone. They're... they're demanding answers, Chara. Just like we did." His whispering did not put a dent into her uneasy sleep.

"...What do I do, Chara? I... I don't even know what I want to do anymore." He laughed slightly, and his hollow voice and mannerisms were soon to be accompanied by tears. "No more innate sense of right and wrong. I... don't want to disappoint you, Chara..."

He looked at her features gleaming ever so clear in the passing moonlight, "But it hurts me to see you like this. It hurts so much, Chara." A single tear finally broke free of his ahold and landed on her neck before sliding down to meet the mattress. "Chara... why can't we just go back? Go back to when you were happy? When everyone was happy?"

He looked down upon her frail body, his eyes clouded as were his mind, his senses arrested and direction wayward. There he was. At a crossroads. Just like so many before him, he was to make a choice. Was there a right one? That was up to him. And he would never forgive himself if he chose wrong.

Asriel sighed.

"I'm sorry, Chara."

"But I can't stand to see you in such pain."

He stood up, a strange sense of finality, of obstinacy in his eyes.

"Forgive me."

And as he strode out to finally open the gates of two, he swore he could see a dark hood emerge from just behind the ashen windowsill, before sinking back into obscurity.

He breathed. Whatever happens now, he will take it. No matter the consequences. No matter the promise. He pleaded to fate, to destiny, for the locket to forever remain in his hands, and hers only a metre away. Forever and ever.

...

But destiny only ran of his own accord.