Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You don’t remember how long you’ve been running. You just know that it was starting to get dark. Good , you think. Maybe they wont find you so quickly this time. You just needed some time away. They were so overbearing, constantly unhappy with anything. Everything needed to be perfect and it never was. Subconsciously rubbing the yellowing bruise on your arm, you slowed your run to a walk. With the darkening sky meant it was also harder to see for you. You stumble a bit over a rock. 

Panting, you find a small overhang to sit under to catch your breath. In the distance you can see the small town down the hill start to come to life as the windows glow with dull orange light. Didn’t seem so bad from here. But you knew better than to believe that for long. Looks can disguise easily, something kind and inviting is just as dangerous as something outwardly opposing. You look at a beetle on the ground by your foot. A prime example of your current thoughts. Beetles look scary, but they don’t really do much. You watch it walk into the dense grass and disappear to go do whatever beetles do, wishing you could do the same.

Instead, you got up and walk a bit more. You looked up the ever steepening hill you were on, a thought coming to your head. Pretty high up . You weren’t scared of heights. It was more of an observation. You’d heard stories of workers who built tall buildings falling. It usually didn’t end very well. You wondered if a mountain could do the same thing to a person. Considering it was so sloped, probably not.

A dull light hitting your eye interrupted your musing. Flashlight . You didn’t want to be found yet. So you started running again, up and around the mountain. Not looking where you were going since you couldn’t see much anyway. Bringing your attention to your surroundings again, you noticed it had gotten darker. Much darker. It was supposed to be a full moon, shouldn’t it be brighter than this. Then you heard your heavy breaths echoing around you. Ah, a cave. How convenient. 

You waited, watching the flashlight’s bright white light swipe across the grass for a while. Then you held your breath as it entered the cave. 

“Come on out, kid,” a dark figure said from behind the light. You had positioned yourself behind a rock, so maybe he didn’t know you were there. However, you could see some of the light spilling onto your arm, he’d find you if he kept going in. So, in a crouch, you -very- slowly inched your way farther back into the cave.

The light flickered out, “Come on you bastard,” the voice said gruffly, hitting the flashlight against his other hand a few times.

You took your shot to get a little further without fear of the light. The man tried a few more times to get the flashlight working again before it seemed like he gave up. His silhouette turned a few times, before he left the cave.

You let out your breath quietly. Then it hitched as you tried to standup, only to find your foot trapped in vines, knocking you off balance and fell. But you didn’t hit the ground, panic rising in your chest as you watched the tiny bit of light the moon allotted in the dark cave get farther and farther away. You had fallen much farther than you thought you would of.

Your instincts took over as you curled in on yourself, wind whipping in your ears, hair lashing around your face. Guess you can fall from a mountain like a building. You think, and a short hitched laugh exits you before–black.

—

Pain. The first and only thing your mind screams at you as your consciousness comes back to you. Your eyes are heavy, so you don’t try to open them. You try to take a deeper breath than what your body naturally was doing, but it only brought more pain, halting any breathing for a few seconds, then you let out the breath in more of a hiss. You hands clenched into fists, and you realized that you were laying on a patch of grass probably. Then as your brain slowly unfogged a bit more realized you were face down in said grass, the taste of dirt and blood apparent.

You head a noise. The man with the flashlight had probably heard you. A primal instinct rose up inside you and you pushed yourself up slightly, eyes opening a fraction. 

“It sounds like it came from over here…”

That wasn’t a familiar voice. High-pitched and curious sounding. You looked around where you were, trying to ignore your body screaming at you. There was more blood than just in your mouth, something was wrong with your arm, and you were pretty sure your leg was broken but you didn’t want to test it.

Another noise, your head whipped towards it, nearly knocking you unconscious again as the feeling of being stabbed a thousand times in the eyes came to you. You fell back down as a white blurry figure entered the room.

“Oh!” Quick footsteps followed the exclamation, getting closer to you. You used what energy you had left to curl a bit more into yourself and open your eyes a bit more.

Well, maybe you hit your head a bit harder than you originally thought. The figure that peered at you from above seemed to be an animal, reminiscent of a goat based on some things but it was honestly hard to tell and you weren’t much of an animal person anyway.

The figure gave you an inquisitive look, somehow. “You’ve fallen down, haven’t you?” it asked as it looked up at where you believe you came from. Quite the distance, you remark. How you were alive was beyond your mental power at the moment, as the mere thought sent spikes into your eyes again. You screwed your eyes shut quickly, curling in on yourself more.

“Are you okay?” the voice asks. You’d laugh if you had the ability. Did the excessive blood give it away? You shake your head a miniscule amount hoping the goat thing will get the message. At least it spoke a language you understood.

“Here, get up,” it said. You felt it grab at your arm. Your eyes snapped open and despite the pain all but threw yourself away from the creature, landing roughly with your back against a wall. Ow.

A clarity had come to you finally. You looked at the creature from the new distance. He looked –offended? He raised his hands in what resembled surrender, then flopped backwards to sit down.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “Maybe we should do names first. Mom says introducing yourself is always a nice way to meet someone,” he continued. 

Your eyes raked over the boy, at least he seemed like a boy, who knew really. You took in his appearance, white fur sticking up all over, green and yellow striped sweater and blue pants. He looked like some of the kids in the village, minus the goat part. He had long ears–you guessed– hanging down on the sides of his snouted face, which also sported small fangs peeking out.

You thought for a moment. What the hell. 

You opened your mouth to speak, clearing your throat after your voice catches on all the blood.

“Chara.”

The boy perks up, ears rising slightly. He moves to kneel and crawls a bit towards you. “Chara, huh? That’s a nice name,” he says with a smile, which reveals a few more teeth. “My name is–”

“Asriel?”

A new voice, you jolted at the sudden sound. A wave of nausea taking over and you slumped a bit against the wall. The goatboy turned around at what you presume was his name being called. From this distance and dim light you couldn’t make much out– or maybe your vision was blurring again– but it looked like a bigger version of the boy standing in a doorway.

“Mama! I found someone. I think they fell,” you hear the boy say. You want to stand up–stand your ground. However, the moment you try to push yourself up a shock of pain shoots up your arm and a pathetic whimper escapes your mouth.

The edges of your vision darken, and you fight for consciousness for as long as you can. You can see the larger figure slowly approaching you, the smaller one behind her looking timid now.

Just as the large figure kneels down to you and her hands hover slightly over you, you black out.

—

You find slight consciousness a few times, not long enough to understand what was going on though. You catch glimpses of buildings, a multitude of different types and colors. Once you heard–and felt– a deep voice say something softly, but your mind gives up again before registering what it said.

The next time you wake up you can’t see anything. At least for a few minutes until your eyes adjust. Slowly turning your head and feeling around, you come to the conclusion that you’re in a bedroom. The bed you were on is soft and smelled nice. There wasn’t much light in the room but a sliver under the door. There was a nightstand next to you, on it a lamp and a glass of water.

You slowly try to sit up expecting more shocks of pain, but find only dull aches. You prop yourself up on the headboard and take the glass of water, eagerly drinking it all. You set the glass down a little harder than intended and freeze. You see a shadow move quickly over the light under the door and hold your breath.

Theres a soft knock on the door before it pushes open a few inches, warm light flooding in, momentarily blinding you. You raise a hand to block it as a dull headache makes itself apparent, and squint at the door.

“Ah, you are awake. I’m glad,” a soft feminine voice says, it sounds vaguely familiar. The silhouetted figure continues to open the door and then walks in. You eyes adjust to the light as she approaches the lamp on the nightstand and turns it on.

Ok. Maybe I did more than just hit my head, you think as you take in the woman before you. The memory of the goatboy from earlier flooding back, she looks like him, just bigger and more feminine.

Your face must have relayed your thoughts as she gives a bit of a chuckle and sits on a chair next to the bed.

“You seem confused, little one. Why don’t we start with introductions, hm? My son tells me your name is Chara, is that right?” she looks at your with reddish brown eyes, a kind smile on her face.

Not trusting your voice to make you sound scared–though you were–you nodded slowly. 

The woman’s smile widens a bit, “Well, it is nice to meet you Chara. My name is Toriel. I’m assuming you are…unfamiliar…with monsters.”

Monsters? “I know what monsters are,” you say, voice hoarse.

“Perhaps the human version yes. However, it’s been such a long time since us monsters have been on the surface, I doubt the correct depiction of them remains,” she says gently, though you can pick up a note of something else in her tone. “I am a monster, as is my son, and husband. Do we seem to you like the same kind of monsters you know?” 

Well I don’t have much to go off of do I?

A laugh interrupts your thoughts. Whoops, you said that out loud.

“No, I suppose not. Allow me to give you some more information. My son found you after you fell, I’m not sure how much you remember. He told us you were hurt, so we took you with us back to our home,” she gestured to the room, “and I did my best to heal you, though as I said it’s been a long time since humans and monsters have interacted so my skills seem to have waned on human biology. How do you feel?”

You quickly surveyed your own body, a twinge in your leg showed that perhaps it was still broken a bit. But, besides a headache and overall aches you seemed much better than you had felt before.

“...Okay,” you answer, she looks at you a bit expectantly, “um…my leg hurts a bit, and I have a headache.”

“As I expected, it may take a few more days for those to heal up, they were the worst of your injuries,” she says. She looks over to the glass on the nightstand. “I will get you some more water, it is important to keep you hydrated.”

A small shadow appeared in the doorway, you looked over to it to find the goatboy from before. He startles as you notice him, then he waves slightly.

You don’t know what to do, so you just wave a bit back. The woman next to you watches, turning to the door with a confused look. She hums a bit in annoyance. She grabs your glass, “I’ll be right back,” she goes to the door, shooing the young boy, “go back to the kitchen, we don’t want to overwhelm them.”

The door closes with a soft click. You sat there staring at it for a while. What an interesting day this was turning out to be. You think about your leg, remembering that it certainly was not in good shape the last time you saw it, and pulled the covers off of you, looking at it. And saw–

Nothing. Well, nothing out of the ordinary at least. It didn’t look broken, maybe a bit of bruising you could just make out in the dim light from the lamp, but it looked fine for the most part. 

The door opened again and Toriel walked back in, a full water glass and a plate in her hands.

“I’m not sure if you’ll be hungry so soon after waking up, but I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I brought you a piece of pie,” she set both items on the nightstand, “Do not feel pressured to eat if you do not feel like it though.”

You looked at the pie, then back to her. “...Thank you,” you say quietly, a bit shocked at her niceties.

She smiles at youm “Of course, my child. Now, you should get some rest.” She starts walking to the door.

“Mrs. Toriel?” You call. She stops and turns to you.

“Yes?”

“Um, how did you–uh,” you gesture to your leg.

“Hm, that is a bit hard to explain, and I do not wish to confuse you more so soon. Once you are more healed I will gladly explain more to you though.”

You blink, brows furrowed as she leaves. You take a breath, a cinnamon smell filling your nose. You look over to the pie on the nightstand, suddenly aware of how hungry you were.

Interesting day indeed.

—

You wake up again, finding yourself without much to do but sleep and eat whatever food appeared in your room while you had been sleeping. That had been your routine the past however many hours. There was no clock or window in the room so you just gave up trying to figure out how long it’d been. Light was coming in through the door, which was open.

That’s new . Usually the door was closed. You sniffed and rubbed sleep from your eyes, groggily sitting up and looking around. You nearly fall off the bed as you jump from seeing the figure a few feet away from you. A small yelp escaping you, eliciting one from the boy next to you as well.

“Sorry!” he said in a harsh whisper, “I didn’t mean to scare you, or wake you up.” He had a sheepish look on his face as he rubbed his arm and looked down.

Recovering from the scare, you exhale, feeling bad at the look one his face. Why do I feel bad? He’s the one spying on me! Something about his face stops you from voicing this thought. You look at him a bit closer, this being the first time you can properly seem him after your first meeting while you were only semi-conscious.

He sniffed absentmindedly as you studied him, he put an arm out towards the nightstand. “Mama told me to bring you some food for when you woke up,” he said, a little awkward.

You eyed the bowl on the nightstand, the smell coming from it immediately making your mouth water. You slowly grabbed it, though still keeping your eyes on the boy. “Thank you.”

You took a bite of the soup, feeling it warm your insides. Whoever made all the food you’d had over the last however long was a really good cook. 

After a few more bites and silence, the boy rocked on his feet. You eye him a bit warily, unsure of what he wanted. He meets your eyes then blurts out, “I’m Asriel.”

The outburst makes you huff out a laugh. “I know,” you say.

Another moment of silence, he looks like he’s going to burst if he doesn’t say something.

“I’ve never met a human before,” he finally says, finishing with a breath like he’d been holding it the whole time.

You look at him a moment, not sure how to continue this conversation, if you could call it that.

“Mama says that you should be able to walk around tomorrow,” he continues. You brow raises at that. That was promising, maybe then you’d get some answers on what exactly was going on. You were finding it harder and harder to just go with it, less and less in belief that you were dreaming.

“Thats nice. It’s getting boring in here,” you give a small laugh hoping to fill the awkward silence. The boy lights up at your words.

“I have an idea!” he exclaims, still in hushed tones but you doubt it was doing much to conceal his voice. He runs out of the room. 

A few moments later you hear thundering footsteps approaching the room again. You placed your empty bowl on the nightstand as Asriel all but explodes into the room, a bundle of papers and containers in his arms.

He flops on the ground, placing everything in a pile. You noticed that it seems to be charcoal pencils and colored ones.

Asriel sits crosslegged by all of his items and looks up at you. “When I’m bored Mama tells me to draw,” he says arms spread to point to all the paper. You notice some of the paper has drawings on them already. You feel a small smile on your face, you liked to draw too, whenever you had a moment to yourself where no one would care what you were doing you’d go off and find a pen and a scrap of paper without too much printing on it.

“Here,” Asriel states, sliding a piece of paper towards the bed along with a pencil.

You slowly swing your legs off the bed and hesitantly lower yourself to the floor.

The two of you end up drawing for a while, mostly in silence. Sometimes Asriel would show you what he had drawn with pride, and you’d laugh at his childish scribbles of what could only be an older and cooler version of himself. After a bit, he came and sat next to you to draw, the new angle providing him with a visual of your own drawing. You weren’t really thinking much about what you were drawing, letting your mind wander to recall what exactly the last day or so had been for you.

“Wow! You’re really good at drawing!” Asriels voice breaks you out of your thoughts. You looked over to him, your face feeling a little warm. His eyes sparkled as he looked at your drawing, which once you looked as well was of the village, a crude version of the scene you had seen prior to falling down here.

“Thank you,” you manage to say to him after a few seconds.

Theres a soft knock on the door along with a quiet chuckle. “Well, I should have expected you’d be here,” Toriel stood in the doorway. Asriel looked embarrassed. “Come on Asriel, we should let Chara rest.” 

You wondered if she was angry, her son had done something he wasn’t supposed to. But, even as Asriel grabbed all his things, leaving you your drawing and a pencil, Toriel had as smile on her face.

Asriel waves to you when he reaches the door, which you return again.

Toriel comes over to you, offering a hand to help you up, you quickly test your weight on your leg, finding that you can stand on it fine.

“Your leg seems to be almost healed, thats good,” Toriel says as you climb back onto the bed. “I am sorry if Asriel disturbed you, he is very excited to have someone around his age here.”

“It’s okay,” you say. Then after a moment, quietly, “It was fun.”

“I’m glad, I’m sure being stuck in this room is not the most entertaining, but perhaps if you feel up to it tomorrow, you can explore the house.”

You give her a small smile and a nod.

Chapter Text

You wake up to knocking and the door opening again. Toriel enters, and you sit up, feeling a lack of fatigue that had plagued you since this whole thing started.

“Good morning, Chara,” Toriel says cheerily. She goes over to the wardrobe in the corner and starts to pull out a few things.

You mumble a groggy response, still waking up. You watch her as she opens different drawers and pulls items out, questions popping up in your mind.

Finally, she turns around and places the small pile at the end of the bed. “I thought it was time to get you out of those clothes, dear. These are Asriels, but I think they should work well enough for now.”

You look at the pile, noting the bright colors, lack of tears and stains. What?

Your face must be showing your thoughts as Toriel sits gently by your side, large paw resting on your leg. “You can’t think that we’d let you continue to sit in those dirty clothes for even longer? I’m going to run you a bath as well. Do you feel able to walk around?” She stands and holds a paw out for you. You take it and stand, testing your leg. Remarking on how normal it felt, you give her a nod. “Splendid, follow me then.” 

You grab the bundle of clothes as Toriel leads you to the bathroom, she runs the faucet and throws in some soap. “Will you be alright by yourself, child?” Your face burns a bit at that, pulling the bundle of clothes in your arms closer to your face to hide it, and nod. A chuckle comes from the woman, “Very well, if you need anything do not hesitate to call.” She leaves, door clicking behind her. You set the clothes down and lock the door.

—

The clothes are too big, much too big. But you make it work, rolling up sleeves a few times, tucking in the sweater to make for the lack of belt. The clothes are warm, and smell nice, and they feel soft, not something you’re familiar with.

You look at yourself in the mirror, standing on your toes to see as much of yourself as possible. You smooth your hair out, to no avail, it wasn’t long enough to do anything but stick out at odd angles, loose curls falling into your eyes.

It’d been a while since you had a nice, uncracked and clean, mirror to look in. While not someone to care much for their appearance, every once in a while you had to remind yourself what indeed you looked like. So, you hopped up on the counter to get a closer look. Red-brown hair, too many freckles, brown eyes. Hm.

A knock on the door nearly makes you topple off the counter, catching yourself at the last moment and knocking the faucet with your foot. You quickly scramble down and turn it off.

“Chara? Are you ready?” Toriel's voice calls through the door. You gather your old clothes in your arms and open the door, a bit jerkily.

“Oh! Well, don’t you clean up nice,” she says with a smile, making you blush a bit and look away. “If it’s okay, I’d like to wash those clothes of yours,” she motions to the pile. You nod a bit and hand them to her.

“Great, the others are in the kitchen down the hall, if you’d like to join them for breakfast. I’ll be right there,” Toriel says as she walks away.

You stand there for a bit, hands wringing. You hadn’t really been out of the bedroom until now. So you slowly make your way down the hall the opposite way Toriel went, observing the house.

You find a small bookshelf with a few framed photos on it. They’re of the goat family, the three looking happy, the boy of varying ages. You took a glance at some of the books. 101 Snail Facts . You didn’t know there were so many snail facts, you’re shell- shocked. 

You chuckle quietly at your own joke, continuing down the hall.

You hear Asriel before you see him loud voice echoing through the house, “But thats so boring! I wanna go to the ruins again, what if there’s another human there?” 

There’s a deep laugh, “I doubt there would be another human so soon, if ever, son. But maybe we could visit the ruins sometime soon. Today is for work.”

You reach the threshold to the kitchen, keeping yourself mostly behind the doorframe.

“Maybe for you, I’ve got plans of my own,” Asriel replies, he’s standing on his chair, fork pointed triumphantly at his chest, his other arm resting on his hip. You feel yourself cock an eyebrow at him.

“Ah, it seems our guest has arrived,” the larger, and you mean larger, version of Asriel says from his seat, looking at you. While not too different in anything but size from Toriel, with yellow hair and beard, he certainly had a different air about him.

You grip the frame of the doorway as you stand there, not knowing what to do. Asriel waves to you, “Hi, Chara!” He grabs a forkful of food and stuffs it into his mouth, continuing to stand on his chair.

You give a timid wave back, keeping the bigger goat in your vision. He had a smile on his face as he sipped his tea.

You feel a hand–paw?–on your shoulder. You jump a little and look up to see Toriel giving her son a bit of a scolding look.

“Asriel sit down, Chara why don’t you sit down and I can get you some breakfast,” you nod as she passes you to go into the kitchen. You take a step forward as Asriel jumps down to the floor, he runs up to you and takes your hand, pulling you over to the table.

“You can sit by me,” he says pulling out the chair next to his. You sit down, continuing to fiddle with your fingers under the table.

“I realise we haven’t been introduced, Chara,” the large goat at the head of the table says. You look up at him. He gives a smile that flash his teeth, fangs and all, though theres a genuine warmth to it. “My name is Asgore Dreemurr, King of Monsters.”

…King?

Okay, okay. Let’s just say that you’ve moved on from the Monsters thing and thats…as normal of a thing as it can be. But, King? Alright, he was a bit intimidating but, from all the things you know about Kings and monarchies, nothing else feels right. This house for one, felt like you were in some backcountry ready to fend off the land, not some castle with servants ready to attend these peoples every need.

“You’re a king?” you ask. Your tone was a little…accusatory, lets say, but come on, he’s got to be joking.

He gives a small laugh, “Indeed I am. Perhaps not the same kind you are familiar with, but I keep the citizens of the underground as happy and healthy as I can, and they in return look to me for guidance.”

Huh. Fine.

“That also means I’m a prince!” Asriel says to you, looking extremely proud and like maybe he doesn’t fully understand all that that means but he’s got the spirit. You smile at him.

“So, what exactly are your plans today, young prince?” Asgore says to him. Asriel launches into a monologue that you can’t follow as Toriel places a plate in front of you, full of food that smells like heaven. She takes a seat opposite Asriel, next to Asgore and listens to her son talk about what he wants to do. 

They look like a happy family.

—

Asriel had a lot of interests. That much was evident as he continued to think of things he liked and would run off to some other room in the house and come back with something representing it. You sat on the couch in the living room as he placed a camcorder down on the table in front of you.

“This is my parent’s old camera! It doesn’t work anymore, but I’ve been trying to fix it,” Asriel says as he fiddles with the buttons.

You smile and say “Cool,” like you have been for the past half hour or so.

“What do you like to do?”

The question catches you off guard. You’d come to terms with this family being royalty and now thought of yourself as some kind of court jester. Something to oggle at and treat as an audience, like Asriel was doing right now, or so you thought. Why was he asking you about yourself? Why did he care?

“Oh, um.” What did you like to do? Your mind was blanking a bit, but you thought back to what you used to spend time doing pre-this whole mess, and something came to mind.

“I like looking at the stars, and studying them,” you say, excitement bubbling out in your voice.

Asriel gets a melancholy look on his face. Shit. What did you do? Messed it up already?

“I love the stars too. At least, the ones I can see sometimes, it’s kind of hard. But Mom and Dad are good at describing them,” He says. 

You look at him. He takes a moment, as if daydreaming about said stars. Then jerks back to reality, looking at you. “Oh right! You don’t know all about the Underground.”

“Well, maybe we could teach them,” Toriels voice comes from behind you. You spin around to look at her, carrying a few books and reading glasses perched on her snout.

She walks over to the large armchair adjacent to the couch, “Would you like to learn about our history, Chara?”

Asriel runs up to the couch and jumps to sit next to you, jostling you a bit. He looks excited, so you nod.

“Great, I promise I’ll just go over the basics for now, no need to overwhelm you so quickly,” Toriel continues as she cracks open one of the books, a bit of dust falling from the cover.

Toriel begins recounting some of the history of humans and monsters, which ends up being much more detailed than you thought, it was also pretty brutal and horrible from the monster perspective– which surprised you less, you knew first hand that humans can be quite nasty beings if allowed.

To best remember the important bits, you gave yourself an abridged version:

Humans and monsters used to both live on the surface, until eventually humans did what they do best and ruined everything and declared war, the monsters lost and were sealed underground forever by sorcerers–(still working out how thats possible but whatever) and only seven human souls can break the barrier keeping them stuck here. But, a monster could leave if they absorbed only one human soul–

“Hold on,” you said, interrupting Toriel. “How do you get a human soul? I thought that was just some kind of spiritual thing that some people believed in,” you question.

Toriel gets a strange look on her face, seemingly trying to come up with an answer. I think that’s all the answer you need .

She clears her throat quietly, “Well, perhaps a demonstration could help me explain.” She very gently moves to kneel on the ground in front of you and Asriel. “You can tell me to stop as soon as you wish,” she says.

Well, that makes you feel great.

She reaches her two paws towards your chest, and you instinctively lean back a bit, before feeling like you were being pulled forward.

You close your eyes expecting pain. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels like it should, like something’s being ripped out of you that really should stay where it is.

You open your eyes as you hear a small gasp from the boy next to you. The room seems like it’s gone completely void of light save for a bright red light in front of you, blinking as you looked at it you noticed it’s heart shape, ironically not an actual heart, just the one people draw.

You look at Toriel, and she continues to cradle the object–not touching it but close enough.

“This is your Soul, Chara.” You can’t stop the expression on your face, this feels like some elaborate prank. You huff a laugh, and hover your own hand over it–fighting the urge to see if your hand will phase through it.

“It is quite vulnerable outside of your body like this, so I suggest we return it to its place,” Toriel states, voice quivering just a bit out of what you guessed was nerves.

Asriel seemed to be holding his breath. His eyes reflecting the bright red glow.

Your disbelief was quickly fading away. So you nodded to Toriel and allowed her to gently coerce the red heart back to your chest, where it phased into your sweater and disappeared, a heavy sigh involuntarily leaving you, and light returning to the room.

“Your Soul would present itself in that form after you die for a few moments, leaving it able to be…taken by a monster and absorbed,” creating a new being with new power, including the ability to leave the Underground,” Toriel explains.

You…didn’t know how to feel after that. But one thought came to mind, “So, if you got a human soul, you could leave?”

“Whoever took the Soul could, yes. Nobody else here could though.”

“But if whoever took the Soul came back with more…” 

“If they did they could break the Barrier, allowing everyone else freedom as well,” Toriel had a distant look on her face. “But, I think that is perhaps a conversation for another time. This lesson has already gone past what I thought it would,” she says as she stands and puts a slightly stressed smile on her face. “I think I am going to make some pie, why don’t the two of you continue to play?”

Toriel quickly leaves the room, leaving you and Asriel sitting on the couch a bit bewildered.

Asriel watches his mother leave, then looks at you and shrugs, going to play with some toys he left out on the floor.

If all they need is one Soul to make everyone able to leave, why not just kill me?