Kris peeled open their eyes, taking the roulette table battlefield in with a harrowed breath.
Susie stood tall in front of them, arms braced as she shouldered the brunt of a heart-shaped barrage. Ralsei launched forward like a rock wrapped in mint-green tissue paper, stretching a shadowed hand to recite a hurried prayer. Kris held back a reticent scoff.
The maleficent jester cackled madly, raising a small hand toward the sky to unleash another volley of diamonds, of spades, clubs or hearts.
You are in danger. Move or perish.
A voice pulsed in their mind before Kris shot upward, smacking Susie on the back, a little roughly, inciting the usual frustration she wore, but for once, aimed away from them. They pulled their sword out, shining, shimmering, cascading with whirls of red in the wood, bringing it high above their head. It came down with overflowing might, crashing oddly against the jester's head, unraveling the spring inside his neck.
He cackled again and they could see the globular, hot-white sparkles of manifestations begin to tumble like water from the imp's gloves. Frightening; how their body refused to move, to dodge.
It is not his turn yet.
The sparkles came together into perfectly etched daggers sent hurtling at them, soaring, whistling like arrows, marrying the perfect black landscape of the prison cell with radiant death. They did the only thing they were allowed to do; sit and wait.
A burst of magic cut clean through the attacks from behind them, colliding with the jester and bringing an obvious screech from the clown. He doubled over with a mirthless hiss and clutched his sides.
Kris felt the concerned presence of Ralsei approach from behind, pointedly ignoring the calculated sadism pouring from the other inside.
The jester recovered with a pained grimace, righting his hat and staring with blackened eyes (the only ones that could see the truth) at Kris.
"Nu-ha! You kids are really tiring me up! Four on one! Not so fair at all!" Susie growled at the jester, an animalistic, predatory, uncomfortable noise that brought a smile to Kris's face. Was it their face anymore?
His awareness is startlingly disproving the equations posted for convenience.
"Stuff it, freak. I don't want to hear your annoying-ass voice. Just lie down…" Susie lifted her axe, the blade glowing with magic. " …and die!"
"Susie, no!" Ralsei rushed forward, trying his best to halt the monster's attack, being shaken off without a thought and cast to the ground. He grunted as he stumbled and tumbled to the rotating floor.
"Don't stop me! He'll kill us if we don't kill him, Ralsei." The charged axe gleamed with bloodlust. Kris hummed in pleasure. "Don't blame me when someone has to clean you off the floor ."
"Uee hee hee! Do as you wish, but don't be so quick to end my life! A darkness will grow within your hearts! Darkness rises again! Over the peak, peak! Seek the old dark and sick affliction. Seek the answers you desire!" Jevil barked a biting laugh, grappling with his cape-like cloak as though it were suffocating him.
The other spoke deeply in that falsely sweet, honey-smooth, dulcet crinkling of leaves and cloth and leather seats they used to sit on in the back of mom's minivan. They rustled with the chokingly soothing warmth their brother used to hug them with after they woke up in a frenzy-state, ready to click into fighting mode.
This route proves particularly insightful. Further experiments following this contemporary change will commence after the agreed-upon ending and will be calculated with extreme deliberation. Stay still.
Kris gulped back a rare, mortified, never-see-you-again-or-it's-too-soon whine, dipping their head to let their bangs fall over their jumping back-and-forth eyes. Red, but haven't been for long.
Susie roared as she hefted her axe above her head with one merciless handle on the shaft, slamming it down, deep-down, cleaving into the jester with a single, concentrated, earth-shaking blast of red and purple and burgundy. It made their stomach churn with nausea.
The jester crumpled into a piercing radiance of light, wiping that irritating lilted look off the other's face. Kris shielded 'their' face with their gauntlets, light poking around beseechingly, imploringly, like the careful touch of a worried friend on their cold, blue skin that was insurmountably hard to shake off. Desperation clawed at their heart for a moment before the cool washed in again, stripping away their fear and the warm light prickling insistently through their clothes and armor, leaving the usual numbness - but not coldness - and none of those previous feelings.
Cold.
Calculating.
Counting.
Variables. Seconds before someone spoke. The exact amount of hair strands draped over Susie's veiled expression of anger.
The show was over. The world stopped spinning. The colors faded until only the cobblestones remained. Dark gray and blue tints. Depressing and cold.
They reached down and picked up the Devilsknife.
"Come on, freak. No time to waste. Lancer's waiting for us." Susie passed them, exiting promptly and unceremoniously. It left a bitter taste in their mouth. Everything they feared people would think of them was proven true this time. Freak. Disgusting. Pathetic and too weak to fight back.
They started forward, their poncho dragging them back lightly. They turned, facing the Darkner with a bored, tired scowl.
"K-Kris? Are you okay? I-I… I… I think we need to… talk… okay? This…" The Prince shook his head in a struggle to find the words. "T-This is wrong-"
Ignore him.
"Save it." They bluntly uttered, going after Susie. The goat-like Darkner - too much like Asriel - still deigned to stop them.
"Kris, please!" He begged them, urging them with his palms, trying to hold back the tidal wave of purpose that Kris felt stirring in their chest. He needed to get out of their way . "You two need to realize that-"
Discard him.
"Away." They commanded Ralsei, giving him a rough, one-handed shove to the side. He stumbled but didn't fall.
Once upon a time, they never would have fathomed such a rude gesture, especially not to their new friend, when they had so little companionship. But those feelings of admiration and shy friendship wore off many times over. Ralsei wasn't their friend; he was a broken record playing the same song in different keys. Just like now, trying to urge them on the path of good.
They knew his next line - "Please, Kris, listen!"
"Please, Kris, listen!" He tried to call, but they ducked their head through the door. Ralsei's face flashed with pain before he readjusted his hat, bowed his head, and followed at a distance.
Susie stood, leaning against the wall and tapping her foot. She snapped her head up, grumbled at them, and then turned to gaze at the floor.
Kris didn't mind the unfriendliness. It, too, became just another facet of the runs. They became exhausted with the usual goody-two-shoes shtick. Tiring to put a smile that wasn't yours on a face that wasn't yours. But were they the tired one or was it the other ?
A chill crept up their spine.
Something changed. They ran this exact route fourteen-and-a-half times before this point, with slight variations that never changed the story. Yet, Jevil said something new this time. He always seemed to know more, to have sight in the obfuscating darkness, and that was regarded like all other variables - threat or benefit. The tingling sensation of curiosity mingled with the low simmer of fear, the orange-ish wave blocked by the wall of red concentration. That low cool.
His words have been saved for further examination at a later date. Activate the save file.
The sweat of battle began to mix with the uncomfortable uncertainty of the future, sending goosebumps over their mortal flesh subtly. They purposefully restrained a shiver and reached out for their goal.
The warm dark reached out for them, too, gracing them with the healing trace of fingertips on the back of their palm. Kris sighed as their wounds stitched together, the other pulsing with pleasure and calm satisfaction.
But they forewent overwriting the file.
They had a feeling things were going to be chaotic soon.
That damn jester's chuckle seemed to echo in their cramped mind.
It mixed with the lurid sense of adventure piercing their skin.
0-0-0
Something shifted in the shadows. Large, hulking, slithering, like a snake woven from dark red ferns. A spool of thread seemed to mark the path traveled as it glided across the invisible earth beneath, growling, hissing, popping and grating and mashing and gnashing with the whirring of fans and electronic beeps and hums.
It towered over the dark, a mass of teeth and jaws and bleeding sanguine tears that looked concerningly like blood leaking from somebody's eyes.
It smelled like rotted pages and mothballs. Like cobwebs and dust. The scent lingered stubbornly.
Rough, sand-paper cloth stitched over and over into unbreakable knots. Light-tumored flaps of thread hung limply in the wind of motion before the figure cocked its head under the hood, leaning down miles at an angle inhumanly possible, blackened flesh gaping as it flashed rows and rows of sharp, jagged, layered teeth stained pearly.
It snapped at the broken cloth, ripping it from the hem of itself and swallowing silently, bright-red unfurling from underneath the brim of the thing's body and curling up and around, wrapping the damaged area in fresh, virgin chitin.
Kris couldn't help themself.
They wilted and whimpered.
The beast paused mid-repair, intaking the stimuli and raising its head to stare emptily at Kris from underneath the hood.
And it began calculating.
Kris managed to force themself still as-
-the void of red teeth clapped down around them, tearing with serrated edges into their flesh, rending flesh from bones and sending viscera through the stolid, frozen air of the nothingness and splattering what was left of their torso on the floor.
"What do you want from me?" They begged after what seemed like years.
0-0-0
"What do you want from me!?" Susie flecked speckles of spit as she slammed Kris up against the wall of the game room.
Kris sighed and picked at their sleeve, bored. That's all they felt as Susie cornered them and pressed a strong hand against their shoulder, crushing them to the wall in some meager attempt to break through to them somehow, they couldn't care.
Susie waited, face melting back into a basic, neutral smile that held an anger behind it that only Susie could reveal and hide at the same time. A boiling simmer of hatred, frustration, annoyance, and staunch unfriendliness.
She scoffed, yanking her hand back and turning away.
"Kris. Do you…" Susie's lips pursed in a conflicted expression. "…you want to come back tomorrow?"
"H-"
"You're coming back with me, I don't care. Who else is gonna fork over the cash for the food?" A fair enough point.
"See ya tomorrow, Kris, and you better come or I'll rip your ugly-ass face off and feed it to you." Not an experience they would like to repeat, to be brutally honest.
They waited a few minutes after Susie left, sitting against the door and twiddling their thumbs for as long as they were allowed to. Eventually, that driving force burgeoned in their chest and they rose to their feet stiffly. Better to listen than suffer the consequences again.
The other nodded in approval and whispered a command to them. Like a well-trained dog, they went as far as their leash let them.
Bask.
They stepped into the empty halls of the school, walking over the drab and uninteresting beige blur and through the throbbing sun spots potting through the windows and making haphazard shapes of tree branches on the floor.
The putrid taste of gastric acid peered into their throat as they swallowed, frowned, gritting their teeth and moving slowly to the door.
Giving the door a vapid push, the outside opened into them and broke the envelope of withdrawn control, sun seeping deep into their being until they felt warm again.
The other planted their feet to the ground, forcing Kris to stand still and bask in the light. They didn't resist. The other rewarded them for compliance.
Control is relinquished.
The other purred before receding to sleep inside their mind again, freeing Kris and leaving them to their own scattered, mindless devices.
The isolation began to creep in as they made their way home through Hometown. People waved skeptically as they passed, dragging their feet on the harsh, rough concrete as their eyes began to water with ancient anxieties. They quieted them. They had bigger problems than being judged. Bigger problems…
Hopefully, Spamton wouldn't be strange like Jevil. Hopefully, the puppet would stay the rock of tried-and-true insanity. Maybe, they could help him along this time, from one puppet to another.
"Hey, is it cold in here, or is it just me?"
Never got old.
They didn't bother eating the pie that night. The parasite inside of them long since began metabolizing… something that filled their belly. It was dehumanizing, to be frank, and sometimes, when they were allowed, they would remove the afflicted part of them and wolf the pie down, for old time's sake.
Not that day, though.
They just laid in bed for a few hours until the other dragged them to sleep.
0-0-0
The strangeness didn't even have the hospitality to wait until Spamton.
They had just been searching for the next program to freeze when they encountered it. They had long since forgotten the name of the purple, syringe-shaped Darkner but vaguely remembered it being hospital-related in nature. The flashing lights on top of it were dark and dimmed in the hovel it hid in.
Noelle shivered as Kris turned to look at her. The reindeer's eyes pleaded with theirs, a shaken, unsettled, woefully distraught fear anchored behind them. Kris's mouth downturned. Hope bled into Noelle's relieved, wan, heart-felt smile. Kris huffed irritably and waved her away. She sighed and thanked them.
"H-Heh… I'm glad. You were scaring me, Kris!" She hadn't accepted - or more so justified - their goals yet. She wasn't thinking about strength. Yet.
Investigate this occurrence. Any prevailing changes are crucial to the exploration and complete mapping of the transformation undertaken by the world through shifting pathways. All variables are important.
Kris kneeled next to the hyperventilating Darkner, leaning in to listen to the blubbering of manic delirium with a curious tilt of their head.
They really wish they hadn't.
"…no cure… no cure… no cure… no cure…" the Darkner repeated lowly between hiccups, clutching hands to the syringe-head. Kris drew their eyes to the discarded hammer nearby. "…plague… spreading… too much…" Kris tried to run through their actions. The other was well ahead of them. Nothing had changed since last run. "…no cure…"
"Kris?" Noelle questioned nervously, leaning over to poke at their shoulder. Kris shot a glance up before snapping back to the Darkner. They couldn't stand that annoyingly bright attitude she wore like a broach around her neck. "C-Can we help them?"
Kris stood with a hiss.
"Yes." They uttered.
Noelle smiled and walked past them, kneeling down and extending a hand with a healing spell forming on her fingertips.
Kris wanted, more than anything, to ignore the insistent crackle of fire and crumpling of paper in their mind.
It promised them, promised Kris, that if they obeyed, they would be rewarded. Kris leveled their gaze at the floor as Noelle began to soothe the Darkner.
Compliance will be rewarded. The mission sub-objective is to be upheld fully and without falter. To properly analyze the observed changes, scrutiny must be made for precise and planned movements without equivocation. Cease vacillation and press her to continue. Should results be unsatisfactory, control will be taken to continue and her perception will momentarily change. Measured exploitation of her insecurities will make her rationalize it.
"…Noelle." They caught her attention.
She twisted her head, throwing a few strands of hair over her shoulder. They could imagine her happy, abated grin and it hurt all the more.
"Kris?"
Kris exhaled.
"Ice Shock."
Taking control.
The magic exploded from her fingertips, leaving snowflakes floating and a perfectly crafted sculpture of a Darkner cowering in the corner of an alleyway.
They dragged her screaming, by the hair, to the next enemy, until the screams ebbed and the hollowness filled their chest again as a coolness washed through them, cleansing their sins.
Noelle exited like usual. They entered the manhole and met with the group. Surprisingly, Susie was smiling and joking with Ralsei, but those expressions faded in a flash as Kris rejoined the party.
0-0-0
The Fountain stood solemnly in front of them.
As it had stood for the last ten minutes.
"Where?" It made no sense. Where was he?
Eventually, they just sealed the Fountain and brought the items back to Castle Town.
…
Except, they didn't.
"What the hell?" Susie slapped the outraged question in the air. Kris gaped at the sight. "What are these clowns doing here? The hell they want in the school?"
There was a tight grouping of monsters surrounding the perimeter of the school. A flock of black, tinted-window vans swarmed the street, side doors wide open as groups of people hefted and carried devices and tools through the front door to the school. There was some kind of logo on the side of the van and Kris could barely make out the word 'Coalition'.
They jogged around the building like ants, stringing black wires along the walls and settling laptops on top of stacked crates. The guards' ears buzzed with orders every now and then and they hurried along like diligent worker bees to complete tasks. Dozens of them.
The other shimmied around in their head, not fully awake but pulling itself to consciousness gradually. It simply watched in confusion and began calculating.
"Kris," Susie began and placed a hand on their shoulder. They glanced up at her. She had a mischievous grin. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, right? If we can't get into the school and back to the Dark World on our own…" Kris nodded thrice, bouncing their head in a staccato rhythm. "…let's go find your mother, jerk. Maybe she can get them to shove off."
Kris agreed silently, turning to lead the way. Susie fell in-step behind them as they retreated from the school building. The clamor of the 'Coalition' slowly died out as they went along the streets.
People had begun to exit their homes and look out their blinds to fathom the situation, and their interests flittered over the two freaks walking down the street with little more than idle intrigue before moving behind them to the school and the agents.
They almost went straight to the hospital before shaking away the instinctual, habitual longing to complete their objective. The other stayed suspiciously quiet, giving Kris the obviously false sense of freedom. They likely stopped before the other even thought to warn them.
They crossed a few streets until they made it onto the driveway to Kris's house. It was a homely place on the outskirts of town, surrounded and clefted in by trees.
"Took us long enough. God, can you walk any slower? It feels like I'm being led around by a toddler." Susie complained shallowly as they approached the door. "I guess that's not wrong, is it?"
The only thing to assuage the fear flashing fiercely behind their breastbone was the memory, the certainty, that they kept their file anchored at the entrance to Jevil's room. They could always escape.
Correct. The foundation of the experiment is such.
They raised their arm to open the door and-
"Oh!" Toriel called as she beat them to it, clasping one shocked, antsy hand to her mouth before deflating in relief. "Kris? Thank the Angel you are okay! And, who is this behind you?"
Susie smiled and pawed sheepishly at her neck, averting her shrouded gaze.
"…Susie. Nice to… meet you, Ms. Dreemurr." Kris exhaled a tad harder than usual.
"S-Susie." Their mother confirmed, voice a little thinner, a little bit tighter and higher-pitched than normal. She shook it off and gently pushed past the two. "I'm glad you two weren't stuck in the school. I was getting worried, Kris. They said there was a gas leak. I'm glad they caught it!"
A 'gas leak.' How inconspicuous.
There is a low chance of that reason being valid.
They knew.
Toriel excused herself, fiddling with a key fob anxiously or excitedly in her paws. Susie went after her as she unlocked the car.
"Where are you going, Ms. Dreemurr?" Toriel paused.
"Well, to see if the rumors are true!" Toriel waved both of them over. "You want to see, don't you? You're curious children."
Susie and Kris shared a glance. Their mother was inviting them to a first-class showing of whatever the hell was happening. Who were they to say no?
They both ducked into the back seat and strapped in their seatbelts. Toriel took a moment to adjust the mirror and check her side-views.
"What rumors, Ms. Dreemurr?" Susie uncomfortably questioned after a moment of silence. Kris blinked heavily, slothfully.
"Well, what else?" The car shook to life, the motor spinning, spinning, spinning. Toriel flashed them a wide-brimmed smile filled with the same energy she wore when Asriel got accepted to college. "If the Coalition is here then he has to be, too!"
"Who?" Susie poked further.
Toriel hummed a chuckle.
"That scientist all over the news, the one who figured out what caused that horrible explosion in the city years ago! He was the son of the Head Scientist and designer of the Core. Come on, you've heard of him! You have to have heard of Cairo Aster! " Kris folded their hands in their lap. The name didn't ring a bell.
"Yeah, drawing blanks here, Ms. Dreemurr. You, Kris?" They shook their head curtly. Susie gave them a warped, distorted smile, like she wanted to say something foul but the mere presence of Toriel blocked the words in her mouth. It stayed strapped to her scrunched face and wrinkled snout as the car swiftly traced back to the school.
This figure must be a celebrated person. Your mother does not regularly watch the local news channels.
People gathered on the street in astonishment at the shady, black-suited and earpiece-wired monsters standing with hands and paws and talons clasped professionally in front of them.
Toriel glanced around, stopping the car a few meters from the crowd and throwing it into park, oddly leaving the keys in the ignition. The three of them exited the car, following Toriel's lead as she went ahead.
People murmured and conversed, all equally bewildered by the 'Coalition' cordoning off the doors to the school. The agents stayed tighter, closer, blocking off everything from the vans to the front of the building.
Toriel gently grabbed Kris's hand and parted the crowd. Susie smirked at them and pushed through the crowd behind them. People funneled around them, murmuring lowly about what was happening; someone wondered if it was the government, someone corrected them and informed them that it was an independent group of scientists, others said private military.
"Excuse me," Toriel started, flagging down one of the suits. The monster, a red bird, gave her their attention. "I have some questions."
"And you are?" The bird replied with a tilt of the head, voice high-strung and ticking off like the pin-hands of a broken clock tolling.
"I am Toriel Dreemurr, a teacher at the school. I was wondering about the-"
"Sorry, ma'am. The school is closed off until further notice. The gas leak is dangerous and appears to be a problem with the central gas line."
The monster is lying.
Kris sighed, exasperated. What a cliche excuse for whatever shady things they were doing.
"May I speak to your higher-ups? I do wish to know more so that I may organize this week's lesson plans." The bird gulped, gazing at another agent who merely shook their head and shrugged.
Susie smiled and caught Kris by the sleeve. Kris blinked up at her as she nodded away from the crowd. They understood perfectly.
"…he will be here right away, Ms. Dreemurr."
Toriel ran a paw over her face, turning around to make sure Kris and Susie stayed close. She caught eyes with Kris and gave them a shrewd, 'you are so grounded' glare but did not pursue them. Instead, she steeled her gaze, plastered on a smile, and did what she did best… making small talk with new people.
"So, how are you liking Hometown?"
Susie yanked them down next to an open window. The leaves and hard dirt felt strange under their mud-stained pants. She grinned at them and smacked the back of their head roughly. They winced but made no sound.
"What would you do without me, Kris? I saved your ass and now I'm getting us answers." Susie whisper-yelled at them before peeking over the window sill. Her smile flashed with mischief and pride. "Come on, classroom's empty. Let's see if we can hear anything."
She clambered over the sill before they could even think to stop her. The other urged them forward with as much vitriol as one could expect from a stream-lined, living calculator.
Follow.
Susie waved them forward, surprisingly ecstatic despite the foul taste they seemed to have left in her mouth like she ate a rotten egg.
The purple monster leaned up against the door, holding a finger up to silence them, Kris staying very still and waiting like a statue for her next move.
Susie chuckled, slowly twisting the knob and-
"-he on about? I know he's obsessed with what happened but all of this? He gets some odd readings on his tool and we have to come in, full-force, and figure out what the hell it means?"
"He's a genius. Geniuses do weird things. And it's the same type of readings from the crater." They could hear footsteps. Susie froze solid in fear, eyes wide under her hair. "If there's even a chance that another explosion could happen, we'll be glad we could evacuate the town in time."
"…I guess. Ah, that's why we're here and not the secondary site! I was wondering why we full-sent into the town when that place is abandoned…"
The footsteps passed right by the door. The voices fiddled with the lockers and Kris could hear the sound of tape cutting.
"A mansion on the mountain. Who knows who built it there. At least the road out of town runs close by. Hate it when we need to get the heli's out."
"Tell me about it," the agent chortled. "That operation in Montod was hell on wheels with that terrain. I'm glad we aren't in a tent somehow getting rained on. Hey, give me that roll of tape, I'm gonna start on the inside of the classroom."
Kris and Susie shared a glance before bolting as quietly as they could. Susie all but chucked them through the window before diving out and they landed against the dirt, pain arching through their arms and skinned palms. They gritted their teeth and came up to their elbows.
"Let's go!" Susie quietly commanded. Their hands still burned by the time they exited the treeline onto the street.
The doors of the school opened, garnering a collective gasp from the crowd and a rise in the clamor. Then, quiet, the only sound being the wind shaking and wrestling with the trees and the dull whirring of their mom's car. Susie peered through the crowd.
"Huh. It's some… weirdo in a lab coat. A… skeleton? Huh." Susie shook her head, frowning down at Kris with her mouth opened slightly. She clenched her fists at her side. "This is getting weird, ain't it? All this stuff about 'readings' and 'explosions'… almost like we stumbled into something, some shady government thing, huh?"
Verily.
Kris nodded once, face as blank as the tacky wallpaper of the school walls.
Susie chuckled under her breath. "Let's be honest here, Kris…" She patted their shoulder, leaning in closer to them. Her hot breath billowed onto their face and they cringed. Susie shook her head mirthfully. "There's no reason to lie."
She inhaled deeply.
"YOU REALLY WANT TO GO BACK, TOO, RIGHT? LANCER, RALSEI, QUEEN. COME ON, KRIS, YOU EMOTIONLESS PSYCHOPATH! YOU WANT TO GO BACK, RIGHT?"
She still sees something within you. Exploit this misgiving. Pause to garner suspense and internal realization and then follow with a subtle agreeance to fall into your constructed character of quietness. This will encourage positive thoughts about you.
Kris paused purposely, letting the awkwardness and hesitancy seep into Susie to make her feel some type of way before nodding stiffly. She deflated in relief.
"Phew. I was scared I'd have to force you to come with. Heh." She glimmered with a dangerous joy. "Might still do that, if you think you can run away now."
"So, I guess we better get ready to walk. That place that they talked about has to be a few miles out of town." Susie walked forward, hands-in-pockets, past the car.
There was only one road leading to and from Hometown. It led straight to the highway and further into the state.
Acquire transportation.
"Hope you're ready to suffer, freak. Living on the road is pretty… pretty… Kris? The hell you doing?"
There was no time to waste.
They stopped next to their mom's minivan, staring at Susie with an unreadable expression. She blinked, shook away the idea, and then opened her mouth to speak, slamming it shut as Kris's mouth cracked into a smug, suggesting smile. Her mouth gaped.
"You are not implying what I think you are." Kris nodded playfully. Susie tromped over to them, pulling them a little more behind the car. "We are not stealing your mom's car! She's… you can't…"
Convince her using your surrogate mother's current situation.
"We can. She's busy." The words felt lifeless and wrong coming from their mouth. How long had it been since the very idea of stealing the car would have had them reaching for the knife they kept in their pocket? Too long. Way, way too long.
Susie balked at them. "You're… You're serious. You're actually serious. Tsk, this is why no one likes you, Kris." Susie stalked past them, going to open the driver side door. "Whatever. It's your idea, Kris. Don't blame me when-"
Kris held the door shut. Susie growled at them.
"Fine, whatever. God. You drive the stolen car."
By the time that Toriel noticed the car gone, the two were speeding away down the main road to their next destination.
0-0-0
Susie whistled as Kris shut the van off.
They parked at the end of a gravel road, right next to an ancient, cracked fountain overgrown with vines and grass. Stray weeds stabbed through the rocks under the car.
A mass of golden flowers and rose petals glittered like rubies and amber crystals in the wind. The estate itself was slathered and wrapped with vines covering every window.
The building itself looked rotted and desolate. The roof caved in half at some spots, some windows were shattered and glass was spread. Dirt clogged up against the foundations as though it sunk or was dropped into the earth. It felt like the scene of a horror movie yet shrouded in sunlight instead of darkness. Somehow, that was scarier.
The sickly, flower stench of bitter tarts wafted up from the golden flowers as they danced in a sharp dusk wind. The chill wind bit at their sweater.
The setting sun glanced off the petals, sending a lurid orange cloud into their eyes. They felt a tinge of faintness at the pulsating pain behind their eyes. That is why they stayed inside most days.
"This place is… creepy." Susie commented uneasily. The gravel crunched as they made their way to the door. "You scared, Kris?"
"More morose, really."
"The hell does that mean?" She probed contemptuously. Kris fidgeted.
"Sad, I guess." They responded curtly, brusquely, on their way to the door. The old wood whined and howled like a dying beast as they pushed it open.
The sunlight shone onto the dark, musty, brown carpets. The entranceway was nothing but a small, sniveling, trembling hallway that leaked with the heavy air of death and pain. Tasted like strawberries.
Kris crinkled their nose in disbelief.
Very… odd.
The hall was dark, obscured by the faint rays of sun beating down onto the floor as a warped rhombus of warm light.
Dust hovered in the air, completely still, as though the world was in stasis. The grainy carpeting scuffed against their shoes as they slogged through the warning sirens blaring percussively in their mind.
There were a few things in the entranceway. A coat rack, an antique desk, a bucket of umbrellas. Photographs hanging from the wall with the faces cut out in 'X's. The marks looked precise and clean. Good cuts.
"Ooooooookay. Okay. Not creepy at all." Susie blustered tensely, whipping her head wildly at the photos. Her bug-eyed expression melted into fear as they kept walking forward. Her face turned pallid. "H-Hey, wait up!"
It was like the estate was pulling them in with how the halls were set up. Some rooms seemed lighter, safer, more familiar, and filled with normal, mundane things like pianos and couches and paintings of landscapes and bookshelves. Some rooms were dark, and looking closer, entirely empty. No furniture, no items. Except for one particular glance they had.
There was a single brick on the floor, chipped, stained red.
They promptly ignored it.
A long set of stairs stretched upward above them. Kris held onto the rail as they stared. Nineteen steps plus eight after the curve.
There is a presence of darkness above. The composition of the air has changed slightly.
"It's up there." They stated.
"What is?" Susie faltered strangely, voice clipping and thinned.
"Whatever they are looking for."
A broken chandelier hung from rickety supports above them, swaying, little cups of distorted glass spinning and revolving. The stairs croaked loudly and announced their presence.
"What do you think's up there, Kris? You don't think there's another Fountain up here, do you? You don't think those suits were after Castle Town, do you?"
There was no doubt in their mind.
"They are."
"Crap." Susie murmured. "And here we are, far away from our friends. We should go back, Kris. We have to go back-"
Mock her. Taunt her cowardice and guide her into compliance.
Kris halted, turned, simpering at Susie with forced, mocking pleasure.
"You're afraid."
"I AM- gah, I'm not… this place… you saw those photos, Kris."
Something creaked above them.
They weren't moving.
Kris froze to the spot as a presence festered like a wet ball of yarn just above the railing.
Susie's brows rose as she pursed her lips, a bead of sweat rolling as her toned arm squeezed the wooden rail with a death grip.
Kris's breath caught as a finger of darkness shifted just in their peripherals. Burning acid burst in their chest, their heart pounding as blood raced in their ears. The world spun as the limb oscillated closer.
Forward.
They pivoted and continued up the stairs. The finger leaped back into the darkness, off-kilter by their action.
"K-Kris, you idiot…!" Susie hunched her shoulders and raced after them like a bat out of hell. They took off after the dark figure, skidding around corners and losing their direction in the maze of doors and halls and furniture turned upside or hanging from the ceiling with shirts and pants draping down to the floor.
The appendage traced over the walls, sliding across the floors, coming off and bending away from the ground and arching through the air as it spooled backward.
Kris struggled to keep up, heart drumming loudly as they wheezed in exertion.
The other fed them encouragement by flashing images of teeth and claws. It really helped their legs to move.
"KRIS! COME BACK HERE! THERE'S A CHAIR ON THE FREAKING CEILING; WE AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE."
The finger slipped right under the paper-thin gap between a set of double doors and a room.
They crashed right through them straight into a large study. A lit candle swayed in the wind as they grasped their knees.
The pitter-patter of Susie's footfalls grew closer and closer until she burst into the room herself, socking Kris hard in the head and yanking them by their shirt back to the door. They resisted, clawing her hand away and backstepping a good distance.
"Kris, I swear to God, we need to leave right now." They shook their head, one red eye glaring at the monster. "Kris," Kris waved a finger. "Kris, the paintings had faces, Kris." They blinked and straightened. "Kris, why is there a painting of you and your brother in this fucking mansion?"
What.
A cold breeze fluttered through a crack in the window.
Their hands began to shake.
The cool washed in and they stilled, but that niggling nightlight in the darkness of their head fought hard against the shroud of red trying to stifle it. Their legs began to buckle so they stiffed over to a chaise and fell down onto it. It was soft and plush.
"Kris, now's not the time to relax. Let's get the fuck out of here, man." She roughly snatched their arm, attempting to yank them to their feet. They dead-weighted, their body feeling like a load of bricks.
The composition of the air is charged with unknown magic.
That taste of strawberries came back again and they realized something: They weren't tasting strawberries, that taste was the color red.
The fireplace stood barren and unlit as the sun finally receded over the horizon. The candle wavered in the wind as Susie grunted and shoved her arms under the crook of Kris's armpits.
They clenched their hands onto the chaise contentiously, like a lifeline. The smooth, silky cushioning was cool to the touch. Susie tried once, twice, thrice before growling and giving up. "Okay! Die here! See if I give a shit, freak!"
Their red eyes became unfocused as flashes of red struck out at the blurred, white light inside of their soul. A bloody string wrapped around their wrist like a handcuff tightened and squeezed and squished like it was trying to cut off the blood rushing to their fingers.
There is a foreign object penetrating the system. Beginning removal procedures. Stay attentive and refrain from becoming deceased.
The claws of bronze and the body of red finally sibilated and defiantly gaped open a large mouth, swallowing the light whole with a pained grimace etching onto its face-holes.
They blinked, the world refocusing and the calculations beginning again. They quickly researched the number of books on the shelves lined up against the far wall. They counted the cracks spiraling up the fireplace, the age of the brass lamp on the table, the odd feather designs embroidered into the carpet.
They were so absorbed they almost didn't notice the flash of moonlight on a mirror hidden behind the doors.
It was a small thing crammed into the corner, nestled between the two walls and the edge of the door. It was made of silver and engraved with floral designs sparkling along the borders, leading up to an odd, blue, swirling gem that seemed crushed into the margins, pressed in hard to fit the mass of it. There was something in the mirror. A face. Steepled nose, blushing, wrinkled forehead. A cowlick of black hair draping like a salty sea-wave around the rounded cheeks and sharp chin. The lips were sucked in and tight as the face seemed to stare. They couldn't tell if it was a monster or not. It had to be a picture with how black-and-white the skin seemed. Something old, taped onto the mirror and forgotten, which would explain the grainy static painted over the face.
It didn't explain the shimmer of moonlight and the whoosh of forest wind that erased the candle's flame.
The face frowned.
Kris held in a scream, waiting for the cool to wash in and calm them. They waited for a few seconds before realizing, distantly, dimly, gullibly, that it was never coming.
"See you in hell, Kris." Susie muttered gruffly before turning.
The face scorned them before it reciprocated, spinning and fading away into the darkness with a flash of black-red-purple.
The doors slammed shut, shaking the building to the foundation and making Susie jump back ten feet. She shouted in faux anger, "GODDAMN GHOSTS!"
That dark finger reached out again from just below the mirror, reaching, seeking, feeling along the floor for them. Kris fought with shaking, weak legs as they stood, lurching backward and haplessly tripping on their own feet, tumbling to the floor- tumbling to Susie's rescuing grip. They trembled and quaked and quivered in genuine fear as the other refused to urge them forward, to earnestly fight back, to bare their rows of teeth and determined hunger for hostility. And it stayed quiet, not affording them an answer to the questions consuming them and drowning them along with the fear bursting from the seams.
Susie dragged them back, far, far back, past the desk and brass lamp. They lost their footing again, catching themself on the desk and freezing as the sharpened claw-point panned over the carpet toward them.
Susie gave them a powerful tug, throwing them further back and standing in front of them with her hands out, anger and fear coursing through her as her body screamed fight, run, fight, run, something, anything, attack!
Kris collided with one of the bookshelves, knocking one of the four-hundred and sixty-two remaining books off.
It clattered to the floor at the same time Susie snarled.
The limb jerked back in fear, watching, observing them in shock for but one terse, sheer moment before shooting back under the mirror and disappearing.
"We're leaving," Susie ordered as Kris hiccuped. " Now , Kris."
They clambered to their feet, their legs still buckling and bending under their weight. Susie didn't even scoff as she ducked under their arm and stabilized them, pressing forward to the door-
The paper of the book crinkled.
Susie sped up and reached for the knob as Kris glanced over their shoulder in a frenzied whiplash. The butterfly of leather and paper floated upward, enticing a blink to make sure that, yes, that was a flying book.
Susie rattled the door knob strongly. It refused to budge.
"DAMMIT!" She yelled to the stolid air as the temperature seemed to drop. Sweat leaked from the pores of their skin and bled into their sweater as the pages began to flip, slowly, gradually speeding, until it was a flustering tornado of movement and sound.
Susie whimpered and spun, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. Kris searched for the knife they no longer had with them.
The book spun with the momentum, round and round, until it finally reached the prized page: the start of the epilogue.
It flopped back to the floor, word-side up.
The two stood frightfully still, like statues as they waited in apprehension for the magic of the estate to frighten them again. Kris glanced at the shattered mirror next to them. Their own reflection, blue-skinned, stared back.
"Kris-"
A smokestack of black exploded from the pages of the book, drowning the room in sweet, precious, flailing dark. The ground cracked, the floor began to break apart, the walls slipped down at odd angles until they rounded, the windows ebbed and waxed like plastic as the night sky-
0-0-0
The sky was purple. Solid purple.
They could see that from their spot on the floor of the alleyway. A gloved hand pressed against their aching temple.
Mad howling echoed through the trash-riddled streets.
A purple, spiky monster groaned and sat up, clutching at her deadly axe with sprightly, timorous uncertainty.
"Kris…" she began quietly. "where the fuck are we?"