Chara Chapter 6

Asriel woke up that morning as if he didn't care about his fight with Chara the previous night. He realized that he had hurt his brother, and wanted to hold hands and cuddle, but Chara just pushed him away all morning. Asriel didn't understand, and Chara couldn't explain it. He just said that he didn't want to be close because it wasn't enough, that he wanted to do MORE, but that the goat boy didn't feel the same way. This just made Asriel more confused. They went to school walking side-by-side but without talking or looking at each other, and came home the same way. Asriel went off by himself to play in the forest, while Chara stayed in their room and compulsively drew flowers and sobbed over not being able to kiss Asriel or sleep with him anymore.

The boys' cold behavior toward each other did not go unnoticed by Toriel. Before dinner, she sat them at the table and asked them to explain. Neither of them would say anything about what had happened, or what was causing the divide between them: Asriel because he didn't understand it to begin with, Chara because he was too ashamed to admit to his own mother that he was in love with Asriel and now realized he wanted to do dirty, adult things with him.

Finally, Toriel sat down across the table from them, and started to tell a story. She told them about how when she was a little girl, she used to fight a lot with another girl in school. They were like rivals. Chara found it hard to believe that Toriel had ever been anything but kind and loving, but she explained that she used to be "quite the hothead", and she summoned some fireballs above the table for dramatic effect. The boys were transfixed; Toriel was a very good storyteller. She told them that the teacher one day, fed up with their quarreling, took them aside and made them do some cooking together. The teacher had said that this would help them be better friends, though she had not believed it at the time. However, it had worked perfectly, and the two of them became life-long best friends over their shared love for cooking, almost like sisters.

So she took Chara and Asriel into the kitchen, brought out her recipe book, and started to look through the cabinet for something to cook. To her horror, she realized they were completely out of snails!  She had just that morning promised to make Asgore a plate of Snail Casserole for dinner. Toriel told the boys to stay put for a while, and ran off to do the shopping; she would only be gone an hour or so.

No sooner had she left, Asriel went to the cookbook and started thumbing through the pages. "Let's have something ready for when dad gets back," he said.

"Mom told us to wait," Chara complained.

But Asriel, bold and adventurous as usual, shook his head. "I don't wanna wait, okay? We can just do something simple. Like a pie. Mom makes pies all the time, so they must be easy!"

He picked out a handwritten recipe card from the section marked "desserts" that was clearly still a rough draft as it was all scribbles;  some ingredients had been scratched out and replaced. It was titled, 'Butterscotch pie var. #14 w/vanilla'.

"Let's do this one," he held it up proudly.

Chara decided to go along with it, partly because he loved butterscotch pie, and partly because he didn't want to wimp out and have Asriel think of him as a crybaby. They were both smart kids; they could figure out how to make it if they had a whole set of instructions to follow. He had no idea what kind of flavor 'wiva-nilla' was, but so long as it didn't have snails in it, the pie must taste good.

The two of them got started. Asriel read off the list of ingredients while Chara fetched them from the cupboards. The goat boy was a little more practiced at reading Toriel's handwriting. The crust was a simple graham-cracker crust with some honey to bind it together, and the boys carefully broke apart some crackers and pressed them into a pie dish with the honey. So far so good. They went back to the recipe.

"Okay, now for the filling," said Asriel. "Vanilla, two teaspoons."

Chara got out the bottle of vanilla extract and set it on the counter.

"Brown sugar, two cups."

Chara found a box of brown sugar as well.

"Butterycup."

"...what?" Chara was confused.

"I... um, well, that's just what it says." Asriel showed Chara the card.

Sure enough, the recipe read, in barely-decipherable scrawl, just below the brown sugar and above the milk: 'Butter I cup.'
"Butter-eye-cup?" asked Chara.

Asriel nodded, saying: "Yeah! Butterycup. It must mean a buttercup flower. Just one, I guess."

Chara knew that the flowers were actually kinda bitter, as he'd once absentmindedly chewed on the edge of a petal forgetting that it wasn't a Golden Flower from back home, and spat it out immediately. But cooking was a big mystery to him, and maybe it combined with the other ingredients and made everything taste better.

Suddenly, however, Chara was struck by inspiration. If he used a LOT of those flowers in the pie instead of just one, then gave it to Asgore, it might taste so bad he would get sick. Then, then! Chara's mind was racing so fast he could hardly keep control of himself. He knew once when a kid at his old Home had gotten very sick with something called "scarlet fever", he had to be kept apart from the other kids in a room by himself for a week to keep everyone from getting sick. If Chara got their dad sick, he'd have to be kept away from everyone else, including mom! It was so perfect that he was almost dancing for joy. They wouldn't be able to talk together, or take walks together, or eat together, or nuzzle-noses, or anything. THEN! Then Dad would understand what it was like to have to be apart from someone he was in love with. Then he would tell Asriel that he should still sleep with Chara because Chara loved him and needed to be with him.

The 'what' part of his plan crafted, Chara just had to figure out a 'how'. That was simple, though. The flowers were outside in the yard. He smiled with devilment and turned away so Asriel would not see the crazy look on his face.

"I'll go out and get the buttercup, an' you start mixing the rest," Chara said.

"Okay."

Chara grabbed a bowl, and a knife saying "I'll cut the flower petals up so it will mix better," and Asriel said that was a good idea. The knife felt very comfortable in his hand.

He went outside and looked at the patch of flowers, thinking how he would be able to sleep with Asriel again very soon, thinking about another way he could explain his feelings to the goat boy. He knew he needed a BUNCH of flowers if he really wanted to mess up the recipe, so he stripped petals off of a lot of them. He decided on twenty-four, though he wasn't sure why that number came to him. Satisfied, he cut up the petals into a paste with the knife. He was almost violent with the activity, scratching the bowl and bending the blade of the knife, and he realized just how angry he was. His rage was practically oozing out of his hands and into the bowl.

Once the filling was put together, the recipe told them to heat it all in a pot for five minutes, which they did on the stove. They carefully poured the thickened mixture into the pie crust, popped it into the oven, and set the temperature at 325 degrees. Surprisingly, they hadn't messed up anything, and were it not for Chara's sabotage, it would have tasted pretty good, if not very buttery.

Asgore came home when the pie was done and already cooling on the rack. The boys told him they had made it themselves, and Asgore decided to spare Toriel the horror of their first cooking attempt. He'd try it, himself. Sure enough, the monster king found the pie was quite bitter (had they used salt instead of sugar??) amid the flavors of graham cracker and vanilla. Nonetheless, he beamed at the boys and told them if they were good they could have some after dinner. He put down his plate, took two steps toward the dining room, and collapsed with a CRASH onto the ground without so much as a whimper.

Asriel screamed.

Chara stood wide-eyed in shock. He hadn't expected this. Dad had fallen over as if he really HAD punched him with a fistful of Determination, and he couldn't figure out why. Asriel knelt before his still body and was shaking him, sill screaming. Before Chara realized it, he heard himself screaming, too.

Toriel picked that moment to open up the front door and walk in, arms laden with groceries. It all smashed to the floor.

                                                                             * * *

As Chara had wanted, Asgore was ill and bedridden for several days. His sickness went deep, deeper than the poison in the buttercups, as if his SOUL had been attacked directly. Not even a hundred bicicles could cure that, only time could. However, Toriel had stayed at his side the entire time, tending to him and bringing him food and water. They were only apart for short periods, which was the opposite of what Chara had wanted. Eventually, Asgore recovered, and he and Toriel seemed closer than ever.

Ashamed, broken, defeated, Chara rejected Asriel even more than he had before, and took to wandering alone in the forests. He didn't care any longer if some bully monster burst out of the trees and ate him alive. That feeling, that old sensation he hadn't felt in a long time, of wanting to feel nothing, had returned. But all the same, he still loved Asriel, and he still wanted something important to come of his life before he ended it.

One day, he was sitting alone in the Ruins on top of a broken piller. He had just about figured it all out, when he heard a voice behind him. It drifted along as if on the wind, echoing through the forest, and it was a song. The tune was familar, the words peculiar:

"Sing a song of Regicide,
A child full of lies.
Four-and-twenty buttercups
Baked in a pie.

"When the pie was bit into
Poison began to sting.
Was that almost the last thing
Eaten by the King...?"

Chara's back prickled, but he then heard very familiar footsteps. The sound of slippers crunching on sticks and leaves. He knew only one monster that wore slippers. He sighed, not wanting anything to do with this.

"Heya, kiddo. That's the expression of someone who's already died once, and is considering doing it again," it said. "Mind if we talk a little while about it?"

Chara turned around to see Sans. He scoffed. "I don't wanna talk to you."

"If you go through with this," said Sans. "You're really not gonna like what happens next."

"Are you saying I'm gonna have a BAD TIME?" Chara said, heavy with sarcasm.

Sans lowered his brows, saying: "Heh. Good joke... Maybe I'll use it on you someday."

"Just go away! You can't help. Not unless you can break the barrier."

"Sorry," Sans said with a shrug. "My SOUL isn't any stronger than your little brother's. Besides, I'm not HALF THE MAN I used to be! Eh? Eh...?" He winked with his right eye. "That was a pun; you're supposed to laugh."

"Whatever."

"Look, kiddo. I'm not your dad. I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life. Or die your life? Kill your life? ...You'll have to help me with that one... Just know that this won't make you happy."

Chara turned away and said nothing.

"Well, I tried," Sans said. "I get the feeling we'll meet again either way. See ya." He was gone before his last words reached Chara's ears.

Chara went back to sulking on his own. Then, as had happened several days in a row now, Asriel showed up, acting like a goofball trying to cheer him up. Usually, Chara had ignored him or run off, but this time he turned to see.
Asriel had his camera out and was filming him. Chara rolled his eyes.

"Howdy, Chara!" said Asriel. "Smile for the camera."

Chara did not smile, but Asriel continued just the same. "Hah! This time I got YOU! I left that cap on... ON PURPOSE. Now you're smiling for nooo~ reason!" He laughed and made goofy faces.

Chara realized that now was as good a time as any. This day was as good as any. He said, very softly: "Asriel, remember that pie we made last month?"

"Oh, yeah, I remember," Asriel said. "When we tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right? The recipe asked for cups of butter, but we accidentally put in buttercups, instead."

"Remember what happened?"

"Yeah! Those flowers got him really sick. I felt so bad. We made mom really upset."

"Well, I was thinking—"

"I should have laughed it off like you did..."

Chara cringed. He'd laughed alright, but it was an extremely nervous, guilty laugh when Toriel asked them about what they'd put into the pie.

"Um, anyway," Asriel said, scratching his head, "where are you going with this?"

"I'm getting to that, but first, turn that thing off."

"Huh? Turn off the camera...? Okay."

Chara took the camera from Asriel and opened up the compartment in the back. He slid out one of the rechargable batteries and held it up. "You know what a battery is, right?"

Now it was Asriel's turn to roll his eyes, and he said: "Yeah, duh. We learned about it in school. Energy from the CORE travels in wires to our house, and then gets put into a battery so it can power the camera even when it's not plugged into the wires."

"Well, I've been thinking about my SOUL, and why Gaster said it has a lot more power than a monster SOUL," said Chara.

"That's because you're human."

"Yes, but WHY does a human SOUL have more power...?" Chara said with a note of suggestion in his voice.

A flash of realization crossed Asriel's face. He said: "Because a human SOUL is like a bigger battery! It can store more power." He took the battery from Chara and looked at it in wonder.

"Yeah," Chara said with a smile. "Which is why I've been thinking. When we break the barrier, I've got to put my SOUL into your body. It won't work the other way, 'cause I can't do magic. But with my SOUL, you'll have lots more power, so you can do lots more magic. We'll be unbeatable!"

Asriel still didn't understand, though. He dismissed it entirely, putting the battery back into the camera and closing it up. "Aw, but that's not gonna happen for a really long time, until we're grownups and can figure out how to combine our SOULs safely. Remember? Gaster said you'd have to die for your SOUL to come out."

Chara nodded his head, saying: "I know. We're doing it today. If I eat enough of those flowers, I'll die, and then you can take my SOUL and break the barrier. For everyone. Then we'll be so strong nothing will be able to hurt us."

"B-but why??" Asriel was starting to cry. "Why?! I don't understand! I don't want you to die." His hands shaking, he accidentally turned the camera back on. "I... I don't like this idea, Chara."

"Just listen to me. Are you afraid it won't work?"

"Wh... what? N-no, I'm not..." Tears were running freely down his face.

"C'mon. What did you tell me about crying?"

"...big kids don't cry. Yeah, you're right."

"I know you're strong enough. Do you think I'm not strong enough?"

"No! I'd never doubt you, Chara... Never!"

"Then we'll be even stronger together." He reached out and held Asriel's hand, for the first time in a long time, and both of them felt good.

"Y... yeah! We'll be strong. We'll free everyone. I'll go get the flowers."

Asriel put the camera into his backpack and scampered off to gather a fistful of buttercups. When he returned again, he had the flowers, but his face was a mask of worry and indecision. He sat down next to Chara, and said nothing for several minutes.

Finally, he said: "Chara. Wh-why are you REALLY doing this? Do you really want to d-... die?"

"I don't want anything anymore," Chara said after a long pause. "I don't even want to eat anymore. I'm gonna die anyway. I just needed to figure out how to make the best of it."

"But dying doesn't help anything!" Asriel yelled.

"You're wrong," Chara said firmly. "I've weighed the value of my stupid, useless human life against the value of your life, and mom and dad's life, and all the other monsters. You know what I found?"

"...wh—"

"I found my life is worth a lot less!" Chara said. "This is the only reasonable thing to do. Please, Asriel. I hoped you would understand. The prophecy. You're the one that will break the barrier; you're the Angel. It's not meant to be me. I'm not meant for anything. I can't even make you understand how much I love you."

This seemed to prompt something in Asriel, and he returned to his backpack, and pulled out a little box. He gave it to Chara. "Maybe I don't. But this is how much I love you. I got these for us."

Chara opened the box. Inside were two identical necklaces. On each of them was a heart-shaped locket. He pried one open; the inscription said 'Best Friends Forever'. Chara figured the other must be the same. It was very nice, but he realized that it wasn't what he wanted. He had no idea what he wanted the lockets to say: 'Lovers Forever'? 'Boyfriends'? 'SOULmates'...perhaps? but he knew that it wasn't going to happen. Asriel just didn't feel the same way, and never would. He had no reason to live anymore, so all he could do was make his death meaningful.

"We can wear them when we combine our SOULs," Chara said. "Then we really will be together forever. I'll always be here, inside you." He reached out and put his hand on Asriel's chest, feeling the warmth and pounding, frightened heartbeat. "Then all we have to do is cross the barrier, take six more human SOULs, and we can break it forever."

"Okay," Asriel said.

He walked over to the flowers, steeled himself, and picked them up. Maybe it took Determination to poison a monster, but just a plant could kill a human if it was toxic, he knew. He just had to eat enough, and Asriel had brought dozens. Trying to ignore the horrid taste, trying to ignore the tears running down his cheeks, he stuffed them in his mouth and at them by the handful.

It took several minutes before Chara collapsed completely, in terrible pain. He threw up twice, and the second time the vomit was bloody. Asriel was off to the side crying and pacing. At last, he could take no more. He picked Chara up, slung him over one shoulder, and dragged him to a shortcut that led back to New Home. He wasn't going to let his brother die!

                                                                             * * *

Chara lied in his bed in the boys' room, wasting away. Nothing any of the monster doctors could do could help. Gaster might have, but he was long gone and Asgore had yet to find a suitable replacement for the position of Royal Scientist. He and Toriel prayed, and Asriel begged to the world that Chara would somehow get better. While their parents went out scouring Underground for anyone who might be able to help, Asriel stayed with Chara. Unable to think of anything else, he went back to acting goofy with his camera to try and keep his brother's spirits up.

Asgore came back while Asriel was doing this. Neither of the boys had ever seen him cry so much; his beard was soaked, his eyes red and bloodshot. He reached out and held Chara's hand, saying: "Chara... Can you hear me? We want you to wake up... Chara!"

Chara said nothing, still unconscious.

"You have to stay determined! You can't give up... You are the future of humans and monsters...," he said, but by the end of it his voice was strained and cracking. He knew his future, all of their futures, was at an end. Unable to take it, he let out a sob and left the room.

Asriel set the camera on the dresser, and knelt down next to the bed, grabbing Chara's hand in his own. He said: "Psst... Chara. Please... wake up. I don't like this plan anymore. I... I..." but he couldn't say any more, he was crying so much.

The hand stirred in his grip. Chara opened his eyes as much as he could under the crust of blood surrounding them. "...y-you still think... 'm not strong... 'nough?" he could barely speak.

"...no, I said... I said I'd never doubt you."

"G... get the... SOULs... y'have t..."

"Six, right? We just have to get six. And we'll do it together, right?"

Chara squeezed his hand a little tighter. "...t'gether..."

Asriel nodded, sniffling. Chara's grip suddenly went slack. His lips moved as if to say something, and then hung open. The boy's whole body seemed to settle into the bed as if it became heavier. He stopped breathing. It was over. Asriel cried out, a long moan, but behind his closed eyes, he then saw a light. A red glow like a fire.

He looked. Above Chara's body, a red light, sparkling like the world's most beautiful jewel, was floating. It was like a cold fireball, like magic and wonder, and Asriel was transfixed. The crimson light danced across his fur, shimmered in his eyes. Without realizing it, he reached for the ball and touched it, grasped it in his hand.

The bedroom window exploded. The door flew off its hinges and crashed into the wall across the hall. A rush of pressure sent everything flying into a tornado. Rainbows and stars melted and oozed off of Asriel's fur, surrounding him and penetrating him and then flying off, breaking holes in the walls and ceiling, setting toys and curtains on fire with multicolored flames.

"Oooohh, gross!" Asriel moaned, the power flowing through his entire body, almost violating him in the way it coursed down his limbs and spread through his stomach. "I... I can feel it wriggling inside me...!!"

With a burst of willpower, he managed to contain the energy inside him, just as Toriel and Asgore came to the door. They could only watch, in horror and dread, as the power swelled and expanded inside their son, his body mutating and boiling around itself, pushing upward like the peak of an erupting volcano, growing to the size of an adult. The mass of bubbling, melted something seemed to stabilize. It suddenly reformed itself into an attractive young adult, like an androgynous, beardless version of Asgore. He was wearing nothing but a necklace and a locket, but on his naked fur, a regal robe appeared out of thin air. This new creature breathed in sharply, let it out slowly, clenched and unclenched his paws, and then relaxed. He bent down and picked up the body of Chara, and then turned to face his parents. He was grinning like a madman, rows of sharp teeth glistening.

Asgore stepped forward, his arm outstretched in front of Toriel. But he was shaking, and both of them backed from the doorway in fright as the being walked toward them. They couldn't even pretend to stop him as he headed down toward the basement, toward the barrier and the Surface. He turned back, still smiling but somehow also sad, and said: "Mom. Dad. Goodbye."

The two of them were confused. Even considering he had somehow made himself older, that hadn't been Asriel's voice at all.

                                                                             * * *

Chara had not been expecting to wake up after dying inside of the body of a god. He knew Asriel was there, yet somehow so was he. His essence, his mind and self, seemed to have absorbed into Asriel along with his SOUL, and he found himself in control of the new being which had emerged from their combined powers. Asriel was still there, too. Chara just wasn't letting him do anything for the moment. Carrying his own corpse, the heart locket swinging from its neck, he walked onto the dirt of the Surface for the first time in what felt like several lifetimes. It was dim and dreary and cloudy, but in the middle of the day.

He still couldn't use magic. He tried but it didn't happen. He thought magic came from a monster's body, but maybe it came from their essence, instead. Asriel would have to do the dirty work of harvesting the six other human SOULs, as Chara knew a Determination punch wouldn't hurt a human very much. But before that, he was going to walk in this new body a while longer.

He headed down the mountain, into the town of Ebott, the back way that nobody about knew but him, knowing exactly where he was going to have Asriel take the SOULs. And not just six, but dozens. Everyone who had ever hurt him, who had ever called his name and made him cry. All of them would soon understand what it was like to be powerless before a superior being. And he laughed. He strode into the Home like he had never left it, walked to the outside eating area where all the orphans were all having lunch, tossed his corpse down where it THUMPed into the dirt and rolled into a patch of Golden Flowers, and laughed.

"This is how all of you will end up!" he yelled. He pulled back his consciousness, feeling Asriel rush into the mind of their shared body like a person sliding into the driver's seat of a car. He said to Asriel inside their mind, 'Now! Kill them all! Burn them all!!'

Silence. The children were all dumbstruck, the adults even more so. Several of them dropped their food. Nobody moved or spoke. In the distance, a soft rumble of thunder rolled over the hills.

"Wh—...what IS that thing...?" said the headmistress. "A monster??" She looked down at the body in the flowers. "I-is that... CHARA?!" Her eyes went blank in shock.

One of the older kids spat. "Guess the freak went to Hell and found himself an ugly friend."

"Any friend of that faggot is an enemy of mine," said another, who tossed his milk carton at the monster. It splashed over his robes.

Several of the other kids began to throw trash in response. Slimy vegetables and balled up papers and half-eaten hamburgers splattered all over him, and Chara silently fumed inside. What was going on? Why weren't they scared? He had thought they looked pretty threatening, and besides, they were a goat monster! Wasn't that enough?

'I don't care!' he said to Asriel. 'Just kill six of them and then we'll transform into something even bigger and scarier!' and he was thinking of a robot monster with crazy wings and a cape while he did so, knowing that Asriel would understand his vision since their minds were one.

'You didn't say we would have to hurt kids,' Asriel responded to him.

'What does that matter?! You're the only one who can use magic. Kill them so we can break the barrier! We need the SOULs to break it, to free everyone,' Chara said.

Several of the children had stood up now, unable to hear the monster's internal struggle, and one said: "Look at that big sissy! He can't even fight back."

"Yeah," said the one who had thrown the milk. "Let's show this guy what we do to friends of Chara!"

A lot of them stood up and started to approach the monster. Even the ones who were previously afraid now realized they weren't going to get hurt, and joined the group. The adults barked orders, but nobody obeyed; they tried to hold back the children, but could only grab onto the arms of a few. There were dozens more.

'What are you doing?! These are the ones who ruined my life, who beat me up day after day. We're stronger than they are now. Kill them!' Chara yelled.

'No,' Asriel said. 'This is all wrong, Chara. Revenge isn't the answer.'

The children grabbed at the robes of the monster, and started punching and kicking him, whooping and hollering, tearing our chunks of his fur. It didn't move. What Chara had never realized was that all of them had felt as helpless as he had, and all of them were filled with rage at their worthless position in life. Now that an adult had appeared before them, all the orphans' frustration and anger against the authority figures of the world was spilling out onto him, unstoppable. Thunder boomed from the sky.

'Don't talk like that!' Chara said. 'Don't be weak. Don't be a... crybaby! You can't reason with them. The only way to get anything done in this world is to fight! In this world, it's kill or be killed!'

Asriel shook his head, and so did the monster. 'Violence isn't the only way to go through life, Chara. I wish you could understand that. You never understood that. How is my life, our life, worth more than their's? I won't let you take control.'

The fever pitch of the boiling mass of children had reached the fervor of a prison riot. Several of the boys had grabbed rocks and sticks and were using them to beat the monster. More ran into the kitchen, overwhelmed the cooks, and came back holding butcher knives and pots and pans. They laid into the monster with a vengeance. The headmistress fainted dead away, and several of the adults turned away from the scene in helpless horror.

'N-no! Asriel, please fight back!' Chara screamed. 'They're going to kill you! Please!'

Chara tried to take control by force, by Determination, by anything, but the strength of his brother forced him back, and he couldn't even twitch a finger. The monster stood and was beaten by the pots, stabbed and sliced with the knives, bashed by the rocks.

'Stop! Please!! Fight! Run away. P-please! Don't l-let them kill you! PLEASE!'

'I'm sorry, Chara.'

The beating continued. The monster's life began to slip.

'ASRIEL! We're g-gonna die! I won't let you d-die! PLEASE FIGHT! I d-don't want y-y-you to die! I LOVE YOU!!'

'...I love you, too...'

The beating stopped. The orphans seemed satisfied. They stood back, panting, covered in bits of fur and absolutely dripping with blood and chunks of rent flesh. A few of them were smiling, but the rest of them were not. The faces of many of the kids fell into an expression of horror and disbelief. Some backed away, some ran inside, some looked down at their bloodstained improvised weapons and tossed them away as if they were burning their hands. They looked at the monster, who was slumped over and near death, but who hadn't so much as raised a hand in defense or attack. They looked at their feet in shame, held their heads, trembled. Several started to cry and wail.

It started to rain.

With a great effort, the monster stepped forward. It stumbled to the ground, picked up the body of Chara into shaking arms, and stood back up. The resigned, peaceful smile on the monster god's face was Asriel's, but the tears running down his cheeks were from Chara.   Without so much as a backward glance, he turned and walked back toward Mt. Ebott, back to the barrier, back to the Underground. He walked in the rain up the mountain.

"Come on, Chara," he said. "Let's go home."