Dimensions

Chapter 2: Hopes and Dreams

"You doubt my words?"
The glitched skeleton quickly shook his head in response. The ominous voice continued. "It seems you do. You do not think you can acquire another SOUL this way."
"I...I'm not like you.." The skeleton started, apparently talking into thin air, in the darkness he was surrounded in. "People see me, they know who I am. Timelines will know."
"So it is not me you doubt, but you doubt yourself." The voice started. "You, who has the power to travel to different worlds. You, who can restore balance. You doubt you can save the life of a single friend..."
The skeleton clenched his fists in response. "I just...I just want to bring her back without them fighting me."

It was silent for a moment before a very eerie and sinister chuckle came in response. "Error... Allow me to make you an even better offer. An offer I am sure, you will be unable to refuse..."

~~~~

"Chara, I don't like this. It's too quiet here. Shouldn't there be something going on? Some kind of noise?" The god-like creature thought, it was best not to voice his opinions aloud for the moment.
Yeah...There used to be so much going on when I was here. Just...remember what I said. There's at least one human you need to watch out for, okay?
"The really loud one, right?" He asked.
Yeah. Be careful Asriel. There's a lot we have to do.

As he was initially instructed to, Asriel gently placed Chara's body on a bed of golden flowers on the outskirts of the village. It was her hope that this would now prevent him from being seen as a threat to humans, by not carrying her around. He slowly made his way into the village, each step was silent, he needed to find out what was going on without being seen first.

Asriel wait! Don't you feel that?
He stopped in his tracks, outside the window of what appeared to be a small hospital. "I do, someone nearby has a strong SOUL!" He thought, to respond to her.
Is that...? It can't be...
"Chara..?" He started, looking in the window. Inside, a young man was seemingly just waking up, or too tired and possibly falling asleep. He couldn't tell. But their left eye was scarred, Asriel himself assumed the young man could no longer see out of it, and that maybe...no, there were bandages on him. A lot of bandages. This person was just in a bad accident it seemed, and he was lucky his SOUL was so strong. Asriel felt it, he felt that Chara wanted to help him get up, but she was also hesitant to move. "Do you know him?"
I...Let's...
"I can help him, we can bring him to Doctor Alphys. She can do something, I'm sure of it!" He offered. "I mean, look at us, we did the impossible didn't we?"
Yeah...Yeah, we did! Be careful not to hurt him.
"You're gonna tell me who he later, right?"
I will, I promise you Azzy.

Quietly, he climbed in through the window, just enough for his long arms to reach the young man, gently lifting him up and out of the hospital he was in. He'd fallen out of consciousness while they were working on getting in, but his SOUL was still there. The village was still eerily quiet, Asriel himself wondered if there was honestly any more humans left in this place as they began to leave.

"Y-you MONSTER!"
"Murderer!"
What?! Asriel, run!
"I..I didn't! He's not dead! Please don't!" Asriel pleaded, trying to back into the forest to escape.
"Behind it! There's another one!"
"Let's kill it before it kills more of us!"
Their attacks were swift, and they all hurt the same.
Fight back! Azzy, they're gonna kill you! If you aren't going to run, you have to fight back!
He didn't fight, he finally saw an opening and took it. He ran, he ran all the way back to their home.

Wounded, limping, he carried the young man's body back with him, collapsing onto the garden before turning to dust.