#sanderstale

Thomas had grown up in an orphanage. He’d never known loving parents, just the orphanage head, Mr. Caplan, who had wanted to hear as little out of the children as possible. Mr. Caplan was far more concerned with how much they could work and how much money he could make out of them.

But Thomas had two amazing friends, Joan and Talyn, who he would defend with his life. He could barely remember a time before Joan, and he’d known Talyn nearly as long.

He’d spent the majority of his ten years of life being a protector. He was there for Joan when they couldn’t stand being alone. He snuck Talyn their medicine when Mr. Caplan locked it away. He walked Joan to the nurse, Miss Ellery, down the street when Mr. Caplan refused. He calmed Talyn down from their third panic attack of the day after Mr. Caplan tore their notebook.

Thomas could get through anything as long as Joan and Talyn were all right.

One day, though, Thomas went too far.

Mr. Caplan was furious—again. Joan and Talyn had stolen a couple of apples from the fridge because they were starving. They were on rationed food as a punishment for breaking the pencil sharpener the week before, but Talyn especially had needed more because they needed to be able to take their medicine and keep it down.

Joan and Talyn had stood together in the kitchen, holding hands, terrified and clinging to each other while Mr. Caplan raised a ruler over his head, clearly meaning to bring it down on them.

Thomas walked in right then. He’d been looking for Joan and Talyn. He saw the situation and didn’t hesitate, yelling, “NO!” and jumping in front of the blow.

The ruler crashed against the bridge of Thomas’ nose. He was already off-balance from the jump and the extra whack knocked him over.

Thomas hit the ground, bruising his knees. He tried to get up, but he only succeeded in raising himself up on one knee and holding his arms out in front of Talyn and Joan, who were completely frozen in shock.

Mr. Caplan sneered, swaying a little on his feet.

“What are you going to do, kid?” he slurred, laughing. Thomas was shaking, but he stared up at Mr. Caplan with fire in his eyes.

“I’m protecting them from you!”

“Thomas…” Joan whispered.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! And I won’t stop! Ever!”

“Thomas…” Talyn breathed.

“Hmm…I think I’ve had about enough of your insubordination, and enough of you, kid.”

Thomas couldn’t properly remember what happened after that, but he woke up outside in the rain, curled in a ball at the bottom of the steps. His head hurt so much, and he had bruises all over his arms and legs.

Mr. Caplan was standing over him. The words were blurry, but Thomas remembered him saying that Thomas better not come back or he’d get rid of Thomas permanently. And he remembered the door slamming.

Thomas didn’t know what to do, so he sat by the side of the orphanage, shivering, for about an hour before Joan and Talyn came out. Joan had a black eye, and Talyn was holding their right arm tight against their body.

He apologized a thousand times, devastated, but they told him to stop.

They gave him their apples, wrapped in a towel they’d managed to nab from the kitchen. They hugged him, not caring how wet he was, and added to the water drenching his clothes with their tears.

They only left when they had to go back inside before curfew.

And they told him to leave the village. To protect himself. To stay safe.

Thomas huddled outside until the rain stopped. Under the stars, soaking wet, and sadder and more terrified than he’d ever been, he made a plan.

He’d heard of a place where there was magic, and maybe monsters, too. People never came back, so no one ever went there anymore. But maybe, just maybe, some of the magic could help him get Joan and Talyn out of the orphanage, and maybe it could help all three of them find a home.

And, if not…maybe it would still be better than this.

Thomas began walking towards Mt. Ebott.

*****

The wind whistled past Thomas’ face, cold where it passed his tears. It sliced past the cut on his nose and blew away the thin piece of cloth he’d used as a bandage. The light at the top of the mountain’s cavern grew farther and farther away.

Had all of this been worth it? To…to die, at the bottom of a mountain? To never see Joan and Talyn again?

He wasn’t worth anything, though—he couldn’t save his friends. Why should he save himself?

Thomas jumped backwards, tripped on a stem, and promptly fell on his butt, conveniently throwing the source of the scream directly into his line of sight.

His jaw dropped.

In the center of the golden flowers, where Thomas had been standing, was another child. They had straight brown hair that fell to their shoulders and bangs that were just slightly too long. Their entire body was tinged red and they were floating about six inches off the ground. Oh, and they also were transparent.

Thomas was looking at what he could only describe as a ghost.

“EDEN!” The ghost child screamed again, spinning around frantically. “Where are you?! Where—”

Their eyes fell on Thomas, and they stopped dead.

“You are…not Eden. You are a human.”

Thomas tilted his head to the side.

“…Yes. Aren’t you?” A quiet “Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” disappeared into the distance, and Thomas realized that the ghost’s voice hadn’t echoed in the cavern at all.

Their face shifted from shocked to closed, and they stepped back.

“Why are you here.”

Thomas shifted in the flowerbed. He didn’t want to explain all of it. Not to this strange child and maybe not to anyone ever.

“I climbed the mountain and I…fell down here.”

Their face didn’t change, but Thomas felt like he was being inspected. He could feel their curiosity, but he also felt a strange animosity from them, like they were prepared to dislike him on principle. That suddenly dropped away, and he wondered why, until they said:

“No. You jumped.”

Thomas felt a shock go through his entire body, and his surprise showed clear as day on his face. The ghost child’s expression shifted in a way he couldn’t describe.

“N-no I didn’t,” he squeaked out.

The ghost child now looked like they were trying to smile and frown at the same time.

“Don’t lie.”

“I…don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

The two of them sat in silence for a minute before Thomas broke it.

“Hey…I keep calling you ‘the ghost child’ in my head, but…I’d like to use your name instead. My name’s Thomas, and I use he/him pronouns. What’s yours?”

The other child looked over at him, then looked down at their hands, flexing them a few times. “My name is Chara. They/them.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Chara.” Thomas hesitated for a bit, and then continued. “There’s some stuff that I don’t want to talk about, and I bet you have some too, but I’d like to ask you questions if that’d be okay with you. You can ask me too, if you want.”

Chara looked over at Thomas. Their face was blank, but Thomas could somehow tell that they were confused, which in turn confused him. He was good at reading people, but not so good that he could read emotions off a stoic child he’d just met.

Stop it, you’re getting off topic, they’re going to think you’re ignoring them! He quickly returned his brain to the conversation and his focus to Chara’s face.

“You…care that I’m okay with it?”

“Yeah! My friends care about how I feel, and I care about how they feel. I’m not your friend yet, but I’d like to be—”

“You shouldn’t. I’m not a good person.”

Well, Thomas couldn’t let that go. He didn’t know them very well yet, but he never let his friends talk badly about themselves, and he wasn’t about to let Chara do that either. He stood up, brushing off the flower petals, and said something he’d once heard Nurse Adri say:

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Chara’s face twitched before settling again. “Well, if you’re so determined…fine.”

Thomas grinned, bouncing on his toes. “Okay! First question! Who’s Eden?”

Chara immediately looked back at their hands again. “…I can’t remember.”

“You can’t remember?”

“That is what I just said.”

“But you said I wasn’t Eden. How’d you know that if you can’t remember who Eden is?”

Chara’s eyebrows furrowed just a little. “I don’t remember his face, but I remember that Eden is my best friend, and that Eden’s not human. Eden’s a monster.”

Thomas was spooked a little bit, but he asked, “What do you mean?”

Chara saw Thomas’ expression and let out a tiny huff of laughter, though it didn’t sound like they were particularly happy. “Not a monster like humans. A monster like a magical creature that lives underground.”

Thomas’ brain was exploding a little bit, but he managed to say, “Oh.”

Chara snapped their fingers twice and then turned to face Thomas. “All right. It is your turn to answer questions. I believe you asked me four. So, I get to ask you four.”

Thomas shook his head to dislodge his confusion. “Okay. Go for it.”

Chara nodded, a tiny twitch of their head. “How old are you?”

“I’m ten,” Thomas said, and then, immediately forgetting the rules they’d set up, asked, “How old are you?”

Their face closed again as they said, “I thought it was my turn to ask questions.”

“Oh no, you’re right, I’m so sorry—”

“I believe I am eleven, though—I am not sure, but that seems right.” They stared at Thomas for a few moments before continuing. “Do you know where we are right now?”

“I think we’re inside…under…Mt. Ebott, but at this point I’m not really certain of anything. My world’s kinda been turned upside down today.”

Chara stared at Thomas and then burst out laughing.

“What?” Thomas said, smiling a little. Their laughter was contagious.

“You fell down on your BACK, Thomas! You were upside down!”

Thomas started laughing too, and for a good five minutes, the cavern was filled with the laughter of a living child and a dead one, releasing the pent-up tension and uncertainty. Both children completely forgot the question game.

But it didn’t last long. As quickly as they started laughing, Chara stopped again, leaving Thomas to expel the last few laughter notes on his own.

“We are in the Underground,” they said, their eyes shining. “I just remembered. That’s what it’s called. And we are close to the Ruins. We should head there now.”

Thomas wasn’t inclined at this point to shoot down an offer of directions, especially from his new friend who apparently loved terrible and accidental puns. But he had to ask anyway:

“Why?”

Chara’s bright energy dimmed a little, and Thomas could sense their returning doubt. “I’m not sure,” they said, “but it feels like home, a little.”

“Will there be magic there?”

“Probably. There is magic in most places here, I think. Why?”

Thomas stepped carefully off of the flowerbed, scuffing his shoes against the cavern floor to remove some seeds stuck to the bottoms. The lights in his sneakers flickered feebly, the LEDs waterlogged and worn from use.

“I thought that maybe I could use magic to help my friends.”

Chara’s face closed completely, and they turned away from Thomas. “I do not think monsters here will want to help humans. I do not, either. But you…you are different. Maybe they will want to help you.”

Thomas had so many questions. He could see—and feel—that Chara was hurting, but he couldn’t help them. And he couldn’t help himself, really, either, though that wasn’t new. But he could walk with them at his side to the Ruins, and maybe they could figure something out.

“O-okay, then! Let’s head toward the Ruins.”

The two children left the flower patch, walked down a short hallway, and then turned into another cavern that had only grass and a single golden flower. It was larger than the others. Thomas tried to nudge Chara, but his shoulder went right through them and he stumbled forward a few steps. They both let out matching yelps of surprise.

“Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry, I forgot you were a ghost,” said Thomas frantically, automatically checking them for scrapes and bruises before remembering again that they were a ghost.

Chara looked more astonished at the overwhelming number of “sorries” than at the bumping. “No, it is okay.”

“I just—sorry, geez—”

“You do not need to apologize—”

“—wanted to ask you something—is that a monster?”

Chara’s eyebrows rose a little. “Is what a monster?”

And then the golden flower lifted its head and grinned.