Work Text:
What is the self?
Wondered one, Chara Dreemurr. As they lay in their bed, still warm from their hours of sleep, they pondered the question
Is the self the soul?
The soul is the culmination of your being, but it is not the self, the soul could be lost and the self could live on. Nor is the self the flesh, For the soul lives on without skin, the self without soul.
Chara knew this well,they had mulled over this many a sleepless night. the question of how they and their brother were still somehow ‘themselves’ bothered them, and who can say if they even were ‘themselves’ at this point?
The self is not as simple as neurons firing or heart beating, it's a messing tangled web of contradiction and there is no simple answer to their many questions. They knew they probably would never have answers.
They feared the were not the self they once were. Maybe they were a horrible demon who had taken the child’s place, and swept them away to a land of endless flower fields, with them buried deep beneath the soil.
The thought made them shift with discomfort, rolling to their back. Monster biology is much simpler than that of humans, Magic made things way easier.
Monsters, made of magic, were not as complicated. Human insides filled with jumbles of flesh and fluid were perplexing, made more so with the mystery of the soul. They envied the simplicity greatly.
Asriel had no need for concerns for if his organs, back from their hundred-year lacking of use, would fail him.
Asriel need not fret over skin that itched from mold, rot, and burrowing bugs.
It was as if Chara could feel the inside of their skin as it decayed, not stopped by the fact their heart beat once more, and it itched. It itched like nothing else.
The soothing embrace of scratching nails on their arms quelled their itching skin as they realized there was absolutely no way they were getting back to sleep now.