Soul Matter (Chara x Asriel)

Chapter Nine ; What We Won't Remember

Darkness. There was no sound, no light, no freedom.
It felt like this darkness had been expanded into almost a day in time. A day of wandering mentally in blindness
One hand on a nonexistent wall, the only light in the world was red and illuminating from their chest, before Chara felt coldness against their back, some sort of sticky paper against their chest in various locations, pain in their right arm, and they heard illegible chatter between someone speaking a language Chara hadn't heard before and Toriel, as well as the sound of someone next to them.
They could hear the faintest of breathing.

Chara opened their eyes, but they were immediately greeted by blinding light.
They scrunched up their face, before blinking a few times to adjust.

Asriel smiled,
"Oh! Thank goodness, you're alright!" He grinned.

Chara turned to look at Asriel, eyeing his tearstained face,
"I told you I was fine." Chara murmured,
Though Asriel seemed relieved.

Chara's shirt was missing. They didn't care too horribly, but it was a bit hard to not notice.
Their arm was hooked up to an IV with a clear liquid flowing into them.
Odd.

Chara noticed the other two people in the room. Toriel discussing with a thin man of medium height. Skeletal, with a purple-ish glow to what seemed like his pupils.
He wore a lab coat, and had two missing parts in his hand. Circles.
The rest of the room was like a standard doctor's office, but they were only in a small part of the lab. This is what seemed to be a section dedicated to medicine. Meanwhile, if Chara looked around, they could see different things in different areas. Multiple tests happening at once.

There was a chalkboard with a fancy device sketched onto it.

The man looked to Chara for a moment, before turning back to Toriel and saying something in an unintelligible language.
Toriel frowned,
"I don't think I completely understand," she murmured.

Chara whispered to Asriel,
"What are they talking about? Where are we?" They asked quietly.

Asriel smiled,
"We're in Gaster's lab. You fell asleep on the way here and we couldn't wake you up, so mom carried you here. Doctor Gaster took you in and pinched your hand, before saying you were...
De..hi.. draged—"
Chara interrupted,
"Dehydrated." They corrected simply.

Asriel nodded,
"Yeah, that. He explained how seventy percent of a human body is made of water, and that when you were low on water, your body decided to stop working. And every time he tried to wake you up to give you water, you wouldn't move, so he put a tube in your arm that's hooked up to a bag with water in it! I think it's water, anyways.

Since you're here, he wanted to run a few tests, so the sticky things on your chest are measuring your heartbeat, though he says it's really odd because your heart rate isn't normal. But he thinks it's because of your water disease." Asriel said.

Chara smiled and giggled slightly,
"It's not a disease, Asriel." They said.
But come to think of it, they were feeling a little bit better. Their mouth wasn't dry, and their headache wasn't as bad. It was easier to ground themselves.

"Other than that, I think mom is asking about your health stuff. You're pretty unhealthy, apparently. The doctor said that humans hardly ever live if they don't have water for three days and apparently you haven't had any water for about two and a half days, and when you did, it was dirty water, so it upset your stomach and you lost even more water." Asriel tried to remember what Doctor Gaster said.