Home | Undertale | Standalone
Summary
You were alone, in the middle of nothing.
And then the human child appeared.
aka the author just wants Chara and Gaster to be void narrator buddies.
You were alone, in the middle of nothing.
A fitting punishment for someone who wanted everything, you thought.
Icarus came to mind. The man who flew too close to the sun and melted his own wings, falling to his doom. It was strange. You didn’t remember much about yourself, not anymore, but this was seared into your mind.
Icarus? You could picture him, crystal clear.
Yourself?
You felt muddier with each passing moment.
All you had left, really, were fleeting impressions.
You must’ve been someone grandiose, determined. Perhaps a little bit too much.
You were fairly certain you deserved this fate.
And so you were alone, in the middle of nothing.
There was a human child.
Something about that fact was unnerving, but you couldn’t quite pinpoint what.
What you could pinpoint, was that they were loud. Loud and yelling, screaming, begging-
You tried to catch what about. But you couldn’t. Because it was too much, too loud, you wanted your emptiness, silence back, it felt like it was threatening to split your very soul in two-
They found you a sobbing, incomprehensible mess. Curled upon yourself and just wishing it would all go away.
“You can hear-”
You flinched to your very core. They quieted down, thankfully.
“Sorry,” they whispered after a while. They must’ve sat down in front of you, judging from the change of direction. “I didn’t realise-”
Both of you sat in silence. Eventually, it even felt like it.
The child’s quiet shuffling wasn’t going to tear you apart anymore. It was just there.
“It’s just,” they sounded so small, so unsure, “Nobody else seems to even notice me.”
Ah. That was it. Your mind was playing tricks on you, after all this time, it decided to do you in for good.
You raised your head, looking down at the child. “Nobody. We are alone in this place.”
They wiped their eyes and froze. “What.”
You wanted to scream, to yell at this illusion for giving you false hope. But they seemed so… shocked, and you were still too raw. Too open. You were afraid that if you opened your mouth, your very being would spill out and then there’d be nothing left of you. “Nothing. Nothing but nothing. Darkness,” you threw out your hands. Why don’t they understand? “Photon readings negative!” Darker, yet darker-
“We’re sitting in the middle of Hotland.” They frowned at you, and leaned to a side, as if to look past. “I can see at least four other monsters running around.”
They looked at you as if you were mad.
You wondered if you were.
“You can’t- You can’t see them?”
You… shook your head.
“Oh.”
See what? Hotland? What did Hotland even look like? It rang a bell, oh stars, it rang a bell but it was just out of your reach-
“Would you… Would you like me to describe it for you?”
Would you? You had the strange feeling you were about to cry. There was- there was something out there? Something you couldn’t- And they would- Maybe you could-
You buried your face in your hands and nodded.
“Well, then let’s go, mister- Ah.” They paused, mulling something over. “My name’s Chara. What’s yours?”
“I don’t-” Your voice broke. “I don’t recall it. I don’t- I don’t recall anything. Anymore.”
“Then let’s go jog your memory!”
It turned into sort of a game. First, they just nudged you around. Eventually, they were dragging you by the hand, a spark of excitement in their step. A child is a child, in the end.
Hotland. Waterfall. Snowdin. They were little more hesitant in what they called Home. And then back.
Hell-bent on showing you everything.
You were fairly certain your memory wasn’t coming back. But they seemed happy, so you played along.
And it was nice to not be alone for once.
“You enter the Golden Corridor,” they- Chara spun around, face bright. Few little dance-steps. “The shiny tiles make an almost twinkling sound under your feet. Except you don’t have feet! They twinkle anyways. Pillars line the long hall and- On your left.” They gestured and you obediently turned your eyes towards a different part of the nothingness. “Windows, as tall as the ceiling! There’s a door at the end. What do you do?”
That was your signal. “I…” There wasn’t much here this time. “I examine the windows?”
“Yes! Good! Okay-” They looked up. “It’s a mosaic window, stained glass. A Delta Rune sits at the very top. Through it, light - probably the very last bits of sunlight down here - shines through. The color almost makes it feel… like the real thing.”
The drop in their mood was palpable.
“Should we continue?” You tried to think of something to cheer them up, but came up with nothing. “Forwards?”
“Yes, let’s- Let’s do that!” Chara perked back up and led you.
Their skip slowed. And then stopped.
“It’s the garden.”
There was nothing else.
“Are you alright?”
After a moment of hesitance, they nodded.
“I’m just…” Their voice turned small.
They bolted past you and- Ah.
They had the forethought to get far away from you before they started screaming, this time. You were fairly sure they were crying too. They just didn’t let you see.
And so you waited for them. What else would you be doing, anyways. In the nothing.
Might as well give a kid the time to let out what they needed to.
Chara didn’t talk about their past. You didn’t have one. It was a fair arrangement.
So you just kept each other company. And thanks to them, you even knew what day it was! And, for once, with the passage of time, you didn’t feel… like you were dissolving. You felt stable.
“I…” They were sitting next to you now, observing you carefully.
“Come on, you can do this. You just imagine a room, and describe it!” they grinned.
“Y-you are standing in the middle of a- a room,” you wrung your hands. You didn’t seem to have much of an active imagination.
“That’s a beginning! Now, add some details!”
“A machine… A machine is…” You weren’t good at this.
“Alright, I examine the machine.”
A tap, two on your chin. “It is a box - a booth. The outside is covered in little lights. You have no knowledge of their function. They blink on and off and- and…” Ah. That was it. You felt yourself wilt.
“Hey, you’re getting better! One day, I’ll be playing with you and I won’t be even able to tell that you’re making it up!”
You tried to smile back. You certainly hoped so.
You weren’t much of a cheerful companion otherwise.
“Something’s wrong.” Chara was pacing around and, most importantly, visibly nearly crying.
“Are you alright?”
“Am I- No, I’m- There’s-” They stopped in their tracks.
“What is it?”
“A human- A- Someone fell, mister, I need to-” And back on the move they were, alarm climbing into their voice, “I’m sorry, they’re- I need to-”
And they were gone.
Vanished into thin air.
You cried, you tried to yell their name. You searched everywhere you could.
Chara was nowhere to be found.
And so you were alone again, in the middle of nothing.
Weeping.
Were you ever not alone?
You couldn’t remember.
You’ve given up trying to remember a long time ago, actually.
As you did on most things, and yet your soul kept on, somehow.
So you just laid there, in your little patch of miserable darkness.
And then came the human children.
Two of them. One not quite there, and the other… familiar.
And at the sight of you, they cried. They cried, in front of you, and they were smiling.
“There you are, stars,” they said, voice barely holding up, “This is where you were all this time. We found you. We finally found you.”
Chara.
They reached out a hand.
“Let’s get you out, doctor Gaster.”