Who is crying for help in Deltarune’s script?

As most people know by now, there’s an “unused” message left in Deltarune’s strings, apparently important enough to translate into Japanese despite actual unused dialogue being untranslated.

This disturbing message seems to come from an unknown party, waking up alone and confused in the dark, crying for help after finding no one else is there.



UNUSED UNUSED Where… UNUSED UNUSED Where am I? UNUSED UNUSED Hello…? Anyone…? UNUSED UNUSED Is… is anybody out there…? UNUSED UNUSED Someone!? Anyone!? Can anyone hear me!? UNUSED UNUSED … UNUSED UNUSED It’s dark. UNUSED UNUSED It’s so dark here. UNUSED UNUSED Someone, anyone, if you can hear me… UNUSED UNUSED Say something… please…

A lot of people are questioning what these lines are meant to be, but I’m more concerned with the who. Beneath the cut I’ll worry over what seems to be the likely contenders for people who could be trapped in Deltarune’s script, and why.

Flowey, Undertale Asriel, or Deltarune’s Asriel

The speech style highly resembles several lines of dialogue from Flowey. Particularly the message he can be seen mockingly leaving the player in Toriel’s voice in an echo flower, if the player kills her.



* Where am I…? * It’s so cold here..* And so dark…* Someone help me…* Anyone… please..* Help me…

Flowey seems to be basing these lines on his own experiences, which he quotes himself:



I remember when I first woke up here, in the garden.

I was so scared.

I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs…

My entire body had turned into a flower!

"Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!“I called out.

But nobody came.

And again as Omega Flowey:

* Golly, that’s right!

* Your WORTHLESS friends…

* … can’t save you now.

* Call for help. I dare you.

* Cry into the darkness!

* "Mommy! Daddy! Somebody help!”

* See what good it does you!



He seems to be heavily affected by the moment he woke up as a flower, and likens it to being trapped in the dark with no hope of being found.

Since the dialogue is so close to his actual spoken dialogue, it’s possible the one trapped in Deltarune’s strings is actually Undertale’s Flowey - brought to the Deltarune universe along with the red soul for an unknown reason but kept in the strings for…safekeeping? To make room for someone else’s?



It’s also possible it could be the Asriel from Undertale, but not his essence - his original soul, split from his essence.

Since Gaster so far does not seem the type to pass up the opportunity to experiment on a combined monster-human soul, one which would certainly linger after death if a plain human soul can linger for years, I’ve often theorized he took the combined soul secretly and placed it…here, in the CORE engine of Undertale.

It’s possible that this machine could create a portal to the dark world, or even created the dark world itself. This opens up the possibility that Asriel’s original soul is, to some extent, contained and aware in the Deltarune strings.

After all, it’s certain that Chara is able to write in Undertale’s strings.

Chara’s original soul

The strings of Undertale were updated to include this message in a patch, one which added several references to Gaster scattered across the game.

In it, the speech style resembles Chara’s, starting with their infamous “Greetings”. The message seems to be a communication left for someone other than the player - who is referred to as a “partner”.

With the official Japanese translation indicating that Chara is actually the one who trashes the vessel and is working with, or communicating with, Gaster, it seems likely that Chara is Gaster’s assistant. The english translation and japanese translation both indicate an abrupt change in speaking style when the vessel is tossed:

In the official Japanese translation, which Toby collaborates on himself, the pronouns actually use the strange wording and pronoun usage that Chara uses at the end of no-mercy, again changing abruptly from the formal style that Gaster appears to use.



It’s possible Chara was working with Gaster in their actually-alive lifetime, too:



I always thought Chara was referring to “our plan” as theirs and Asriel’s, but knowing that Chara has a connection with Gaster indicates that it was actually Gaster who came up with the plan to get Chara and Asriel to combine their souls.



Which would be a goddamn shady thing to do considering it required a child to be convinced to commit suicide, and also backs up the possibility he now possesses their combined soul - which may have been used to power his “darker, yet darker” experiments.

Looking over all of this, and knowing Chara can communicate in the strings somehow, it’s possible the cry for help is from Chara’s original soul, separate from their undead essence, and possibly powering the machine in the true lab.

Frisk

Given that Chara’s undead essence is attached to Frisk’s soul in Undertale in all runs, it would seem difficult to bring Chara to Deltarune’s universe - as the opening messages in their voice indicate happened - without Frisk.

It’s possible that Frisk was temporarily stored in Deltarune’s strings so that Chara could attach themselves to a different red soul (Kris’s).



I don’t think this is a likely possibility, however, because of the option to mention Alphys to Undyne, and to say “Great to see you again” to Sans, both things a post-pacifist Frisk would possibly say and that Chara probably wouldn’t.



Somehow, I think Frisk themselves may be currently involved.

Kris

This is the possibility I like the least, because it would seem to render the friendships Kris has made nonexistent for Kris themselves, and that’d be depressing. Given the ending, it’s impossible to avoid mentioning, though.

First of all, Kris’s soul seems to flash white and red every time it’s “activated”, unique to Deltarune:



This happens in this scene and at the beginning of every battle as the heart prepares to dodge.



Given its appearance, it’s been theorized this indicates a combined monster-human soul is what either makes up Kris’s soul, or what’s controlling their body.

Furthermore, apparently only Kris’s soul can seal the dark fountain, a sequence which seems to resemble the way only a combined human-monster soul can pass through the barrier:

If Chara/Frisk/the player are in control of this soul, then it’s possible that Kris’s own persona has been “stored” in the strings.



There are some things refuting this, however.

The narrator refers to things belonging to Asriel as “your brother’s”. Frisk left Asriel, as he calls it, “someone who was your friend for a little while”.



Most compellingly, Kris has a reaction to their own memories here:

as they go to near-tears remembering drinking hot chocolate with Asriel in the diner. This is a reaction that could only belong to Kris, indicating that whoever else may be there, they are still there as well.



One other thing that may relate to this is that the birdcage the soul is thrown into:

explicitly has wheels, instead of just lying on the floor. Strictly speaking, there’s no reason for this to be the case, unless the person now inhabiting the body intends to move the soul, and apparently does this often - possibly to the lab outside of town?

My own take:

My own take is that the message belongs to one of Flowey, Undertale Asriel’s original soul, or Deltarune Asriel’s soul due to the word choice and tone being so similar to something he has canonically said, many times.

That Frisk is possibly present as the narrator instead of Chara, having been brought in with the red soul, and the control is split between Kris and Frisk, with Kris’s actions that happen without our input being their own, as well as most others.

That Kris is the “vessel” for Frisk’s soul in Deltarune, the same way the flower was the vessel for Flowey or that Asriel was the vessel for Chara’s soul.

(note that this does not specify what else it may contain, along with other souls - just that it contains at least one human soul)



I’m basing that on the fact that the narrator describes the same things differently:

As well as the fact that the word choicing of mentioning Alphys to Undyne and greeting Sans as a friend indicates a soul that is familiar with, specifically, the pacifist route of Undertale and is therefor Pacifist!Frisk - and the tone of the narration sometimes sounds like a Pacifist soul as well:

(as well as the fact you can’t kill anyone, even if you fight them - if the control were split between the soul and narrator, a pacifist!frisk wouldn’t allow that)

That Kris remains in their own body but is not alone, based on their emotional reactions to memories, reactions of backing away/fear that an experienced Chara or Frisk wouldn’t be afraid of, and the fact the narrator refers to the “you” as being Kris - “your locker”, “your brother” … “your very soul was glowing.”

That Chara, specifically one who was attached to a Pacifist!Frisk, is currently serving Gaster and may be bringing the soul to Gaster periodically.

And what would they gain from that? … possibly being able to regain their own soul and Asriel’s soul. That they could be working with Gaster to figure out how to extract their soul from the Deltarune universe, or to split the combined soul back into two.

(the knife is for the pie)

This idea based on the likelihood that Chara is currently working with Gaster - with the tone suddenly changing to wording and pronoun usage very like Chara’s when the vessel is trashed, in both official translations - and the likelihood they communicated with him via Undertale’s strings to create this cooperative.



And that the Don’t Forget song is one from Chara to Asriel, meant to be assure him that “they’re with him in the dark” - possibly the location he or his soul is, trapped in the strings - and that they haven’t forgotten the “promise in our hearts” - or their combined souls.

