Reunitedtale

Prologue

(Chara's view)

Red. Red, the color of eyes that could smile warmly down at you one moment and in horror and fury the next, the color of the moon that glowered down pellucidly upon the world once upon a time, the color of the fluid that is a human's life. Everything was red, as far as the eye could see. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was the blood. The world dripped with it, the drops echoing plink-plink-plink onto cold, lifeless stone that had, just moments ago, been stood upon by a smiling, genderless human, who had held out their arms for an embrace of love and peace. That had, just moments ago, had held the hope of monsterkind on it. That had, just moments ago, witnessed the final death—murder—of the Underground.

I stood there breathing heavily through my nose, my pale hand clenched even paler around the hilt of a stained knife. My hair was a tangle of thorns and my eyes flashed with triumph and hate. But above all that, there was my grin. A grin of exhilaration, that was the outwards sign of my heart beating fast as a snail in Thundersnail's music, that was the result of the murder I had just committed. The cobwebs that had been in my head when I was trapped in the cold, dark earth had been cleared by it, and the thrill of the kill had excited me more than any of Mom's butterscotch cinnamon pies.

I stared in triumph at my vanquished enemy, the one I had fought for control for so long. Frisk had been a happy-go-lucky human, one of those that was amenable to love everyone and everything, and make friends with all who were willing—and some who were not. They had made the Underground happy again, but over time, they grew bored—and then I came in. It started with an experiment. A simple, childlike curiosity, to see what power they held, and then I was in—I had complete and total control. But as I forced them to fight that no-good, lazybones Sans again and again, and lost again and again, they tried again. And when they finally got past him (but not without my help) and killed Asgore and Flowey, they escaped. I had gained a body through the other souls that I had collected, and I'd let them escape. But now it was too late for them.

And it was too late for the rest of the Underground as well. I had taken control, given them pain, bit by bit for the pain they had inflicted on me, no longer blissfully ignorant of the agony that I had writhed through in the darkness of the ground.

I wiped my knife off on the leg of my pants, knowing that I had other pairs—and it didn't really matter if I stained my pants. I didn't care, and there was no one else to judge me now. I shoved the knife back into my boots and raked a bloody hand through my hair, trying to tame it into something that wouldn't obscure my vision. Alas, my hands alone didn't work, so I pulled a faded hair ribbon out of my pocket from the Ruins and tied my hair back. Time to get to work.