Chapter Text
A long, long time ago, 2 races ruled over the earth: humans and monsters.
The 2 were at peace…
But peace could only last so long.
Fearful of the monsters’ unique powers, the humans declared war on them.
After a long, dusty, one-sided battle, the humans were victorious.
Using a magic spell, the humans permanently sealed the monsters under a large mountain and saw to it that they would never see another sunrise again.
Many centuries later, monsters eventually faded into obscurity and became the stuff of myths and folklore.
Legend has it that those who climb the mountain never return...
…
In a spacious valley under the massive Mt. Ebott, there lay a small village like any other. It was small, yet spacious, with tilled paths leading to every tiny wooden house in the deceptively cozy village. It wasn’t much, but hard work was put into making it stand. Clearly, they were going somewhere. The people who lived here seemed like your average, ordinary people who were just trying to get by in the small time they had to make a difference in the small world they lived in, but 1 person knew their true nature. She was the only one aware of their hidden cruelty and witnessed and experienced it firsthand. The truth about these people?
They were not what they seemed. They were not kind, truthful, or caring. They only had her around to use and abuse her because they knew that there was nothing she could do about it. She had no family or life to go to when things got bad, no mother to hold her and tell her things will be okay, and no money to be independent of everyone else.
Her name was Chara.
Chara was but a small, pale orphan child with blazing scarlet eyes and auburn hair that would always fray and split, no matter what she did. She always wore a green, oversized sweater with a large cream horizontal stripe through the middle, the only shirt she had. She had no money, so getting new clothes was impossible. Even if she did somehow pick up some loose change somewhere, she knew she would end up spending it on chocolate.
She grew attached to the sweater anyway, no matter how damaged or dirty it got. She felt it was the one thing that defined her, the only set her apart from every other loser that she lived with, despite the fact that it was given to her by the teachers, and even if they only did that because of health reasons. They usually spent the money on themselves, and because of this, Chara had so many flea and bed bug bites that the constant scratching left permanent lines of black under each of her cracked, fragile nails.
Ever since she was born in the poverty-stricken Lost Souls Orphanage, Chara knew something was not right. Nobody took their time to talk to her, nobody seemed to like her, none of the teachers helped her, and nobody cared to notice that she even existed. Chara was a lonely child.
But she was used to it anyway. It’s not like she cared.
Come to think of it, Chara was never capable of caring about anything or anyone. She could not feel happy, nor scared, or loving. The shrinks all gave up on her, but they all agreed on one thing: she felt nothing. She was numb to everything life and school decided to throw at her, and the only things she actually felt is pain and misery. The only communication with other people she got was the common bully that popped up to make fun of her tattered shirt or to tell her or to tell her that she will always be alone.
That was the only thing she could feel: rage and pain. Her bloodlust and rage were only matched by the empty void inside of her that begged to be filled by somebody, anybody who wasn’t cruel to her. Because of this, she grew dependent on the warm, wholesome taste of chocolate, and she grew addicted to it. She would steal it from whoever had it, and did so with no regrets or guilt whatsoever. It was the only thing that made her feel happy.
Every day, she would get up, trudge dreadfully to class, and boringly listen to whatever crap they would shove down her throat while memorizing pointless trivia words that meant absolutely nothing to her. Then, they would give her way too much work and not enough time to do it, often leading to all-nighters. Doing this for so long had given Chara permanent, drooping eye bags, and she was unusually grumpy, even though she wasn’t tired at all. School was a tiring, stressful bore, and the only thing it really taught her was how bleak and painful life really was.
Over time, the sorrow and anger began to erupt in violent waves, causing Chara to insult and tear down her enemies with words. After living like this for so long, it was unsurprising that she began to hate everyone she knew and met. She no longer cared about what they felt, only about what she herself could not. Her rage came and went faster than anyone could keep up with, often causing her to verbally assault random people who happened to catch her in a bad mood. She often got in fights, and her tormentors would never walk away without something bruised or broken. Despite her impulsivity to violence, hardly anyone cared other than the people she bloodied.
More time passed, and Chara was aged eight years. Nobody cared, of course. While other children were busy singing songs and cutting cake, Chara snuck knives out of the kitchens and cut herself. Making herself bleed became her favorite thing to do, and her already dirty shirt became stained with her own blood. Her entire body was covered with scars, and she was constantly in pain, but it was better than feeling nothing.
Because of this gruesome hobby of hers, she grew a certain fascination for knives, the silver metal shining under the light, the firm handle, the long, sharp blade that could slice anything so cleanly. She felt the urge to test it on people other than herself, to get revenge on the people that hurt her, but she decided against it, as she would have nothing to gain. If revenge was indeed sweet, could she even feel it to begin with? This question haunted Chara like a phantom that wouldn’t go away.
Luckily, revenge turned out to be unnecessary, as Chara became infamous and feared among the children she lived with. They saw her staring at the knife’s cool glow in the moonlight, obsessed with the cold, sharp steel that could do so much if put to good use. Nobody came near her, as they were scared of her and her broken mental state. They knew her temper was explosive, and they did not warrant anything to test it, lest something bad happen to them. Even the teachers were afraid of what she could possibly do if pushed over the edge. Everybody purposefully steered clear of her and did not talk to her. She heard shivers and saw shakes whenever she passed by a group of people, and she was okay with it. Nobody made fun of her anymore, no more gossip passed around.
No more… except one.
Because of her mental instability, cold hostility, and unknown origin, A rumor began to spread. An ugly, heinous, cruel rumor. When Chara picked it up in the halls of the orphanage through whispers, it managed to do something she had never felt before, at least not to the magnitude of what she felt now.
It made her cry.
At first, she was furious far beyond anything she had ever felt in her entire life. She wanted to go on a rampage. She wanted to hurt everyone who hurt her and make them go away. She wanted to burn the orphanage to the ground. But after all the rage and hatred settled, a new emotion kicked in: sorrow and depression. Next day, she did not go to her classes at all, but stay in bed and cry the whole day. Nobody came to get her to class because they were wary of her emotions, or lack thereof.
She did not know who her parents really were. All she could do was wonder if the rumor was indeed true. Was it a truth passed around by the teachers and picked up by the students, or was it a lie, fabricated by the students themselves? This question haunted her worse than the last one, and all she could do about it was to confine herself to her small bed and cry. After days of staying in bed and feeling the heavy weight of depression, she had decided on what to do.
She was going to end the rumor once and for all.
She was going to take her knife, track down the one kid who started it... and satisfy her bloodlust once and for all.
…
The following morning, Chara put her favorite knife in her tattered backpack and moved into the halls with an expression that can best be described as the rage of 1,000 hornets. She listened carefully for the faintest traces of ridicule, but could hear nothing. She only saw stares at the scars on her body.
Loudly demanding who started the rumor was out of the question. The teachers would intervene and only cause more problems. No, she would have to “interview” everyone one by one until she found the source, and she knew the perfect time to do that.
During lunch, when everyone else was busy eating and one lonely deer wandered too far from the herd, Chara pounced and dragged him into the nearest broom closet while nobody in the cafeteria so much as looked up from their plates and papers.
…
Chara was shocked.
She and he had just had a short but rather intimidating interrogation that was successful purely through the use of her knife. As they both sat in the dank, dirty broom closet, Chara’s twisted psyche processed this new information, and it was nothing short of mortifying. She thought for sure it was him who started this, but apparently, it was something much worse. She didn’t know what to think except: “How could they?! They are supposed to help us! You can’t just make shit up like that!
Unless… it is true?”
She hung her head low, pondering this while ignoring her old bully frozen in terror before her, while the phantom in her mind tormented her endlessly. What would she do? Surely, she couldn’t just attack them. They were taller, stronger, and knew a lot more about the world than she did. They were unpredictable. Who knows what they would do? The thought occurred to her that she could do nothing. She felt helpless.
But then, an even better thought occurred to her. What does it even matter, anyway? She has faced nothing but neglect and poverty from them. Why should she ever have to give them a chance after what they did to her? She couldn’t just lie down and take it, so why should she give a damn who gets hurt? She had to take a stand. She had to end this cycle of pain, and she knew the perfect way to do it.
A creepy smile stretched across her rosy cheeks, and a sickeningly satisfying thought of revenge permeated her shattered mind.
This was it.
This was finally her chance to make them pay for ignoring her all these years.
Chara put away her bloody knife, opened the door, and walked down the hallway directly to the teacher’s lounge.