Once again, you opened your eyes on the bed of golden flowers. An all too familiar light shone down on you from the hole carved in the ceiling of this cave. You pushed yourself to your feet with practiced ease. The dull pain in your body was nothing compared to what you had gone through before. You once again wore the ratty old bandage and held the stick for defense.

Or rather, Frisk did. You were back to being the voice in their head, the angry side to their consciousness. You hated sharing a body with them. So many sickening feelings and emotions ran through their head all of the time. You didn't miss them. You missed the LV though. Now, you just felt completely empty again. But you weren't unfair. It was Frisk's turn. Maybe they'd find something to sate your boredom.

"Lead the way, Frisk," you said apathetically, rolling your eyes. Frisk either takes no notice of your tone— or ignores it completely like the little shit they are— and walks on. Without you.

You jumped in surprise, and even more so when you realized you could. Frisk turned around, and looked just as startled. You had a body. You could actually see yourself standing there, on the bed of golden flowers. You had your favorite green sweater on too. But something was still weird. You could feel Frisk's emotions and sensations still. So…

"I'm like a ghost, aren't I?" you asked, the reason coming to you. Even looking at your hand, it was slightly transparent. With enough effort, you could see Frisk through it. They were smiling slightly. Even your voice still had the same ethereal feeling as when you spoke mentally. Not to mention your feet didn't even touch the ground anymore. God, you were a ghost.

You sighed. Maybe this was an improvement. If only slightly. "Go screw yourself."

"I have no idea what that means," Frisk replied out loud, a small smile on their face. But you could tell they were lying. You didn't even need access to their mind to do that. They were just a bad liar. You walked past them.

"Sure you don't…. Let's just get your weird pow-wow run over with so we can do my thing."

"You'll see," Frisk replied simply. "My way is so much better." With that, they walked through the marble door and into the next room, where that stupid flower was waiting. You floated after, muttering to yourself. This was going to suck.

Just as expected, Flowey was waiting at the other side of the door. Just like with the flowers you landed on time and time again, the area he had planted himself in was bathed in fresh sunlight. Perfect for weeds like him. As Frisk entered, he didn't even drop that fake grin he always wore to appear friendly. It unnerved you to be honest. And you thought a talking flower was creepy enough.

However, this time, he didn't do anything to attack you. All he offered was, "Don't you have anything better to do?" before disappearing into the dirt in a flash. See? Completely weird. Even his voice was creepy; all high pitched and friendly like some cereal mascot. You stared at the spot where he was just a moment ago. He always disappeared before you could cut him to ribbons. Maybe next time. That was something better to do.

It was then that Toriel finally arrived. She had entered just as Flowey disappeared. You turned away. There was no point in listening to her ramble on about the ruins for the nth time (you weren't really sure what "nth" meant— you had just seen it in Sans' weird book— but you assumed it meant a really big number. Frisk though? They couldn't get enough. Their part of your SOUL brightened with love so bright, you could feel it ticking your own closed-off area.

Frisk lit up in Toriel's presence as she went on about Flowey torturing such an innocent youth. You could barely suppress a laugh at the irony. Innocent. Yeah, the kid who killed you at least five times is an innocent child. Part of you wished more people than Sans knew what was happening. It would make things more interesting. But so would just killing them, even if hunting everyone down got old fast.

"Chara."

"Right, right. Your turn. Trust me, I won't take over this time." Frisk believed you whole-heartedly, and went back to following Toriel through the next part of the Ruins. You remembered going through here once or twice, before someone put up that mini-barrier. You had to admit, it was impressive that some monster had the magical power to create a one-way exit like that. It just pissed you off that you couldn't go back and finish the job those few times you left before finishing killing everything.

Well, pissed off wasn't the exact phrase (since emotions weren't really your thing), but the point was still there.

You followed Frisk and Toriel to the next room, not that you had much of a choice. A quick test showed that you couldn't go too far from Frisk at all. A few feet at most. It wasn't like you could talk to anyone but your head-mate anyway.

You only paid slight attention as Toriel led Frisk through the ruins. You couldn't even bother with these puzzles anymore. You had done them so many times already, you could do it with your eyes closed. But Frisk, no, they let Toriel hold their hand and lead them through the spike puzzle they knew the solution to by heart. So stupid. You groaned, and Frisk shot you a look. You offered a much meaner one than they could muster.

"I know you want to do things your way, but I hate you and everything you stand for."

This stupid charade went on for quite a few minutes. The part you still hated most was when Toriel ran across the room to hide behind a pillar. "Testing your independence" or some crap like that. You and Frisk were fine on your own, especially if you were the one in control. But then, she was finally gone, leaving you with a crappy phone. Just like every other time, it was one you recognized well. The one Asriel had when you were kids. Back then, it was actually a rather nice one, but now, it was just sad. Out of date down here too, if Alphys was right about it.

"Alright, she's gone," you commented. "Let's get moving so I don't have to spend more time than needed in this place. I wanna see how Sans feels about us RESETing again."

Frisk began to walk forward, into the next room. "But he got what he wanted, so he'd be happy about that, right?"

You began to lay down, or rather float horizontally, as you realized you could. Maybe being some sort of ghost was a bit more interesting. You could certainly bug Frisk better like this. And it just felt better. "Yeah, but I still like how hopeless he feels over not having any control over what I do." You grinned the same smile that you knew made everyone uncomfortable. Vacant eyes, wide smile. It always made people unsettled. "And for all he knows, I killed him and just came back for more, right?"

Frisk was completely unconcerned as they went into the next room and grabbed a piece of candy from the pedestal.

"You grab a piece of candy."

You frowned as they turned away and gestured wildly at the bowl of free candy. "Oh come on! At least grab as many as you can carry! We all know no one else is gonna take gross monster candy from a creepy bowl in a cave!" Honestly, Frisk was so weird sometimes. Even you couldn't tell if their eyes were ever open or not. And they ate whatever was in front of them, for fun no less. At least you had the dignity to not literally eat trash. Just pieces of a sentient snowman.

For snow, that thing tasted pretty good.

"The bowl always falls over and ruins the candy, Chara."

"But we get three pieces!" You groaned. "And I wanted an excuse to call you the scum of the earth again."

God, this was going to be a long run.