Chara opened the Ruins door and stepped into the cold weather of Snowdin Forest. She felt a tear run down her face, but brushed it away emotionlessly, leaving a blood smear on her cheek. She had murdered Toriel, her own adoptive mother, and needed to continue her murder spree in order to become strong. That was her goal — power. The erasure of this world was at hand — it had become boring, and the time was now to move on to the next universe. She walked through the trees, snow crunching underneath her, leaving blood in her tracks. Blood dripped from the sharp, silver blade of her knife, and her heart locket shimmered despite being dusty. She spotted a large branch in her path. It had probably fallen from a nearby tree.

Too heavy. Leave it.

Chara obeyed the voice in her head and carefully stepped over the stick, in order to not make much noise and alert any enemies of her presence, continuing to follow the path cleared away in the snow. She heard a loud CRACK behind her, and whipped around, surprised. The heavy branch behind her, which moments ago had been whole, was now broken to pieces.

Shattered like glass...

Chara began to feel something. A tugging feeling in her chest. Her breath sped up. Her soul felt tight, and tense. The voice in her head grew louder, until it was practically screaming.

Run. Now!

Chara remembered this feeling... the feeling that surfaced when she fell down the hole to the Underground. When she was dying. When she and Asriel had fought the humans. When Asriel refused to fight back, to defend himself, to save himself from his own demise, and he died to his injuries, all because of her...

Fear.
Chara was scared.

She turned around, clutching her knife tightly in her hand, and sped up, speed-walking through the snow. Her breath made a cloud in the chilly air, and the light winter breeze of the forest swayed her short brown hair. She heard footsteps behind her, and quickened to running. Soon, she was sprinting through the snow, breathing heavily and dreading meeting whatever was behind her.

A bridge. Run across it. Find help.

Chara sped up, running faster than she ever had in her life. Her eyes started to tear up out of fear, but she pushed them back. She ran towards the bridge, then, for some reason, froze in front of it, looking down. The pit below it looked like an endless abyss, like if she happened to slip and fall in in she would just keep falling and falling for eternity. What looked like a gate was built in front of it, the bars too wide to stop anyone, so instead it just looked like an archway. She was about to take a step and start to cross the bridge when the footsteps behind her grew louder, and louder, until they stopped — right behind her.

" H u m a n . "

Chara froze, her entire body feeling like it was no longer her own. She was terrified.

"Don't you know how to greet a new pal?"

The human girl felt her breath quicken. It's just another monster... she thought. Another weak pawn for my game. I'll just stab him and leave... I'm not going to die... Her thoughts didn't calm her at all. The person behind her spoke again.

"Turn around and shake my hand."

Chara slowly turned around, and her heart nearly stopped when she saw a short shadowy figure facing her, his hand extended and two white, glowing pupils glaring at her from under the darkness. Shaking like a maraca, she slowly put out her arm to shake hands with the stranger in front of her...

"Pffffffffffffffffffttttt!"

The shadows on the figure disappeared to reveal a skeleton standing in from of her, a whoopee cushion in his hand. A few moments of silence passed, and the skeleton was about to say something... "Pffffhahahahahahaha!!" Despite her fear of the stranger, Chara couldn't resist bursting out laughing. She hadn't seen a prank like that before. The skeleton smiled.

"Ay, there's the smile! To be honest, kid, when I saw you at first, you didn't seem like the type to laugh. Or... even smile. But hey, guess I was wrong, heh!" he said. Chara smiled back, forgetting that she was on a Genocide path. The monster put his hand back in his pocket. "Anyway, I'm Sans. Sans the skeleton. You're a human, right?" Chara slipped her knife in her pocket and sighed. "Yep, unfortunately... I hate this species..."

Sans shrugged. "Hey, you win some you lose some. Anyway, I'm supposed to try to capture you, you being human and we monsters needing your soul to be set free and all, but to be honest... I'm too lazy, and I don't really care at all about capturing people. Now my little brother, he's a totally different story." Chara cocked her head, noticing how the skeleton's mouth didn't open when he talked. That confused her, but she let it be.

Maybe this one isn't so bad.

Sans explained that his little brother, Papyrus, was obsessed with trying to catch a human. "He got pretty close to capturing the last human that fell here, but instead he made friends with them. They're a good kid n' all, but he's still trying to look for a human to capture. Cmon, go right through the gate. I think I see him up ahead." Chara walked through the gate with Sans, and saw the figure of a taller skeleton in the distance.

That's him.