everybody's waiting for the next surprise [Halloween Event: Begin]

[dustless]

Mist snakes its way through the castle halls, reaching even the gardens where the sun should banish it--but it could not even if it were day.

It is midnight.

The leaves are rustling, the wind is whispering, the moon is full and large and glaring orange through every open window. Everything has a chill. Not all, but some of the trees lose their green, disappearing into oranges and reds and browns, and many simply lose them altogether, bare branches scratching against the sky.

The mist keeps going, darker than clouds yet lighter than smoke. It creeps around the beings there, encircling them, sinking within--and then it is gone. Anyone awake to have witnessed it will find no evidence of anything unusual, and everyone asleep will feel normal...

...at first.

This will not last.

Frisk wakes just before dawn. No nightmare this time, even if they don't feel all that much more rested.

They get up and start their wandering through the halls. They itch. Their back hurts, and jaw hurts, and head hurts, and feet hurt. Or maybe ache's a better word, it's not that bad...maybe they did have a nightmare and thrashed around, but forgot when they woke up?

And that's when their back explodes into even worse itching and it feels like their skin's sloughing off and--then they're fine. They're fine. Except they feel the skin still--except it's not skin, because they can see it from the corner of their eye.

It's wings.

Throughout that first day, they're still walking around--they can't sit still, there's fire under their skin that keeps them moving, but they change and keep changing until they don't look much like themselves at all. Seems they're a demon now.

Maybe they should be afraid of this--and they are a little worried, yeah, but mostly they want to figure out how to use these brand-new wings.

//Event time! Characters are transformed into whatever you want them to be--but of course, if someone wants their character(s) to stay the same, that's fine! Even moreso, if you want to but just don't want them to be stuck in another form through the whole month, you can always just delay their transformation for a while.

If they do change, though, they're stuck that way until Halloween is over!

Have fun with the chaos, everybody!

Comments

[dustless]

This is disgusting. This is a thousand million times worse than disgusting, but there's no other words they can think of to describe it.

They know that voice, sort of, they've heard it outside of themselves enough. For a wild moment they think it's Chara mimicking them, but that's dumb, that's stupid. Frisk glances backwards every few steps, trying to catch sight of them.

"Yes. Yeah. Monster--monster magic works. So let's...let's...go see S-4. Papyrus." Unlike Toriel, they know where his room is. It's up some stairs, though, they realize too late, but--well, they'll do what they can once they get there.

[itstheend]

Chara blanks out a bit, stumbles, and comes back in.

Voices, noise. Frisk's voice. Talking. Talking to them? Chara makes an effort at coherency, picks out 'monster' and 'Papyrus'. Need to answer. It's rude not to answer. Was it a question?

"Red," they say thickly. The red skeleton. Okay. Okay. He's sparing them. It's okay. There's no sheds here. No need to beat them to a pulp. They trust... they trust? but they trust Frisk.

Their Frisk glances at them in worry and fades into visibility. The secret's worth less than Chara's life, if they can help in any way. They're... not surprised that Papyrus knows healing magic, come to think of it. It's definitely the sort of thing that they could see him learning.

"How far away is he?" they murmur, trying to keep their sense of urgency out of their tone. Chara's getting worse and worse.

[dustless]

Red? Blood? They don't know...wait, no, probably his scarf. The one he doesn't have here. The one he probably never would have, actually--this isn't the time to be thinking about this.

They focus on their suddenly-there other self, eyes desperate in contract to their calm tone. "Not...super far. But there's stairs." Their gaze flicks to Chara. "I-I-I can...run up there and bring him back once we're there. Getting close right now."

The stairs are nearly visible down the, in fact, but they don't know if they'll be able to get Chara to let go. They can't exactly rip their own hand away without having to worry about what might come along with it.

[itstheend]

"I could carry them," the other self says, and bites their lip. "But..." Their thought has been running on similar lines. How much worse is carrying them going to make things? "I'll stay with them," they decide. "Yeah, please."

Chara's hand has... quite likely melted over Frisk's own, by this point. The ghost looks down at it, mouth twisting, and gently, tentatively shakes Chara's shoulders. The flesh moves wrongly, under the sweater. "C'mon Chara, I'm right here. You can let go now."

"No," Chara says. Their stubborn, contrarian streak raising it's head. It's hard to speak with a softening tongue and every word is an effort. "You'll leave."

[dustless]

"Nobody's leaving."

Frisk keeps going until they're at the stairs, with melted-Chara, and they think about carrying them too, but--but. That might hurt them worse.

Frisk has a very ridiculous idea.

Frisk takes a very, very deep breath.



Frisk screams.

"ESFOOOOR! PAPYRUUUS! COME HERE! HELP! PLEASE! P L E A S E!"

[systematicsupport]

They're close enough to the stairs that their voice carries, all the way to Papyrus. He looks up from the drawing he was working on, peering out from the blanket he'd dragged off the bed to keep warm in the mist. Surely he's just imagining...

No. They scream again. Frisk is screaming. Eyesockets flare orange with panic as he rushes to the stairs, down them two at a time, almost tripping over a lump at the foot of the stairs. He manages to stop, and then he manages to see that Frisk is screaming over a body.

"Frisk? Are you okay?"

No, they obviously aren't, and it has something to do with... Chara? He feels something icy grip his soul, but Frisk keeps crying and Chara looks like they're hurt, hurt bad, and they deserve it but no one ever deserves to be hurt-

He falls to his knees, green healing magic gathering in his hands already. If there's one thing he's always been able to trust, it's that Frisk is good and makes friends with good people. Chara must have a chance to be good too.

[itstheend]

It's loud. Everything's too loud. Frisk is always too loud. Screaming at them.

Chara makes an indistinct noise that was intended to be 'shut up', and makes a halfhearted attempt at covering their ears. Frisk has gone invisible again, as soon as Papyrus appeared.

There's a feeling to healing magic, and even without sight they relax infinitesimally. Thoughts of Papyrus or healing have cycled out, but the immediacy of the moment is okay.

Until he actually begins to heal them, because whereever the green touches, flesh collapses to dust in abrupt dessication.

[dustless]

Frisk makes a sad, strangled little noise in the back of their throat.

It's only a few seconds of staring before they're grabbing at the sudden dust, making another pathetic sound when their fingers close around grit and bone. "That's not--that's--why's it doing that?" Papyrus must not know, but they fling the question at him anyway, eyes wide and glassy with mounting panic.

[systematicsupport]

Their flesh is… falling from his hands. It’s all crumbling no matter where he touches, and he can’t seem to save it. Was he too late? Was his power honestly doing more harm than good? He’s healed his brother before, he knows he has. He can do this, so why is he failing now? Why can’t he do anything right?

Frisk is looking at him, desperate and scared, and he flinches away from their expression, stammering. “I don’t know! That isn’t normal, dust is… is bad!”

and this is how i learned how to track tags I'm so sorry guys D :

[itstheend]

It doesn't hurt.

The past few minutes have been so full of all-encompasing pain that the absence in patches is actually rather jarring. The areas where bone has been exposed feel... odd, lighter. There's sensation where there wasn't before (someone's gripping bone and it feels strange and unfamiliar). But they don't hurt.

Chara flexes the hand already transformed, experimentally.

"Keep going."

"Chara!" someone hisses in their ear, but they ignore it and repeat the words.

/pat/

[dustless]

"I know dust's bad!" Frisk says frantically. Obviously!

But...Chara's...moving their hand. It's not just dead and limp.

Anyway--just...being dead in the end might be better than falling apart? They're not sure what else to do, so they bite their lip and tentatively nod to Papyrus.

[systematicsupport]

He doesn't want to keep going. Chara doesn't seem to be hurt, true, and Frisk wants them to keep going, but this is so wrong. This is killing someone, isn't it? If he turns someone to dust, he's killing them. He doesn't want to do that.

He hesitates, looking back and forth between them. Frisk nods at him, and he holds a shaking hand out again.

[itstheend]

Chara's clothes are rapidly becoming unrecognizably powder-white. There's a lot of mass to the human body that isn't bone, and it's all falling away through the gaps under his touch, almost with an hourglass hiss.

Dust spills out of an eyesocket, and with the blockage clear a small white spark springs to life in the depth. Chara automatically tries to blink as the vision it gives slowly comes into focus, and they do, but the 'lids' are bone as well, somehow.

The entire untransformed gooey mess that is half of their face, as well as everything else of them that's similarly incomplete, burns. But it's more manageable. Their thoughts are beginning to clear, and Papyrus is the most immediate object.

The first thing that comes to mind is utterly inane.

"Where is your armor?"

[dustless]

Frisk's...a little more steady at that. They're less agonized, if their voice is any indication.

They rock back a little. "He's...he's not the one you probably know. And--and they're not the one you know," they say, glancing back to him. Probably important to note this isn't the kid that murdered them, even if he's helping already.

[systematicsupport]

S-4 is only getting more overwhelmed and confused as time goes on. The light in their empty sockets at least gives them hope that they're alright. They're able to speak, they seem fine despite the flesh melting off their bones... It's like they're turning into a monster, which should be impossible for a human, but...

His attention is taken by Frisk and after a moment of doubt, he nods. If it's not the one that hurt them, then it's probably safe. He manages to look at Chara again.

"...I'm S-4. You can call me Papyrus too, but I used to be called S-4 before."

[itstheend]

"S-4," Chara repeats, a little dully. "A pleasure." The tone is dry. They manage to sit up properly, after two tries. Cold, invisible hands on their shoulders help steady them. "Kindly continue." They can grit their teeth and bear the proximity if it get this... stuff... off of them.

Speaking of...

They absently tug at the bone the other Frisk is holding, aiming to snatch it back, and look up at them, seeing them properly for the first time since this started. Their good eye narrows.

"...you're not Frisk. Who are you?"

Why do you sound like them?

[dustless]

They let them go, though their arm shifts around to try supporting them from dropping onto the floor. Good?

"...What? I'm Frisk. Just...changed?" They point at their horns before realizing what they probably actually meant. "...an' probably not the one you know either."

[systematicsupport]

"Ah... okay..."

He hates continuing on with this, but Chara seems to think it's okay, so he focuses his healing magic again, watching with a bit of confusion as Frisk has to explain they're a different Frisk.

"Um, yeah. Lots of people are changing a lot lately. I don't really know why, but my brother has wings now."

[itstheend]

It takes a second. They're still not fully up to speed, mentally speaking. But they look at 'Frisk' and swap the colours and... oh. It's the first one they met here.

"Ah."

Their vulnerable state, and the fact that two people saw them in it, fully smashes into Chara and they stiffen, sitting a little more upright. More effort is being put into tolerating not-Papyrus's presence around them, like a lion very patiently staying still while a thorn is removed. The second eyesocket sparks to life, and they brush some of the dust off their lap absently.

"Bone wings, I presume?"

Chara vaguely wonders what kind. There'd be an irony in either.

[dustless]

Frisk feels it more than sees it, and they breathe a sigh of relief--something must be going...not-bad, if they can move that much.

"Feathery ones," they answer for him. "Kinda pretty, too. Prettier than mine." But not as cool. Not that they'll say that.

"How, um, how d'you feel?"

[systematicsupport]

They... seem to be okay. As okay as a human-turned-skeleton can be, but S-4 wrings his hands anyways, looking between the two of them.

"I hope I... I helped..."

[itstheend]

It's done. Mostly. There's still a few scraps of flesh clinging, but that's enough. Chara slowly gets up, a tidal wave of dust cascading off them.

They move out of range of the other two. This time when their Frisk squeezes their shoulder, it's more a reminder than out of concern. They shake their skull.

"You did," they say bluntly. Ugh, they're in his debt now, him and other-Frisk. "Is everyone changing?" they ask of them both.

[dustless]

Oh--well that's nauseating, actually, and Frisk tumbles backwards to dodge the dust now that they've got enough thought in their head to manage it. It ends in an outright somersault, which they finish with their wings shooting them up to stand and start brushing it off. Yuck.

"Yeah. Maybe. Most people?" Frisk's noticed that Papyrus looks the same.