Another series of yells echoed throughout the house.

Kris slandered through the hall, slumped down on the ground, pressing his hands against his ears in an attempt to avoid hearing the arguments. The wall forced a posture against his back that ached, and squatting low started to pain his calves. He didn't dare move though. Although the yelling wasn't directed towards him, he stayed in the protective sanctuary of the dark shadows.

Something crashed in the other room. Violence was probably esuing. The attempt to muffle his sense of hearing was coming off as fruitless now. Kris lowered his hands, skin sticky with the sweat accumulated by his thick hair. He wiped his palms along the wall behind him.

How many times has this happened so far this week? Twice? Five times? Kris had lost count of it at this point. Why did it matter how frequently this encounter happened when it felt like an almost everyday occurrence? The house would, for a minute, smell like fresh flowers and freshly baked pie, and then the next, it would smell like fire. Heated emotions blazing through the house, smoldering up anything and everything that existed. He'd lived here for all of his life, and never in those years did he ever consider something like this would happen.

Was this normal? He wanted to ask somebody that, but there was nobody to ask. Not here in the hall, where he could feel the slight shaking of the frame's caused by powerful footsteps. Not here, where he could hear the sound of one solemn voice, and another lower one trying to plead and stay calm.

"For the sake of the children," one cried out.

"When did you ever care enough about the children!" The second voice seemed to vanish for a while. After a moment, Kris picked up what sounded like the word "flowers" being screamed.

Again.

Kris slid down and landed on his butt. His legs spread out before him, hair static, breath nothing. His heart was pushing against his ribs rapidly, a new drum added to the voices downstairs. An unsaturated tempo. He thought of the piano for a second, how the keys always made a noise, how a specific pair made a cord, and how a cord made a song when played in the right sequence. Kris longed for the piano right now. He knew that the piano would never yell. The piano would sing to him. It would sing like a mother. Secretly, he wanted to be sung to.

Unfortunately, there was no piano in the house. The only ones Kris played on was the one in the pasture and in the hospital. But, right now, he didn't dare exit the house. He could easily travel downstairs and proclaim that he needed to use the bathrooms, then slip out the window. At the same time, however, he couldn't. The beautiful fantasy left him feeling more empty than he already was.

The front door was pulled open forcefully, the action rattling the house. Kris held his breath. His lungs burned. His back hurt.

He waited for a minute. Two minutes. Counted down the seconds. A third minute, waiting for another sound. Another indication that the fight was over and that things would commence again as it normally did.

But nothing happened.

Kris released his breath.

He pushed himself up from the floor and shuffled as quietly as he could towards the first step that led downstairs. A hand drifted over the rail. Kris peered down, wriggling on his toes, trying to find something. There was nothing else to see other than the front door, open wide, creaking subtlety on its hinges. Rays of the beautiful sunlight painted the welcome mat, but there was nothing else in sight.

This was a time where Kris wished he had the unnaturally good hearing monsters did. Taking his time, he trailed down the stairs, each step down riddling him with anxiety. Flowers dotted the house, adding color to the otherwise monochromatic setting of browns and tans. It took Kris a moment to notice that the entire downstairs was entirely empty.

Standing now in the middle of the kitchen, Kris tilted his head and took a glance outside. His hair gently brushed onto one of his shoulders. There was a hidden expectation that he would find something or someone. Expectations, however, sometimes weren't meant to come true. Kris turned his head over to the living room, where the endless hand of silence kept its grasp upon. His mother's chair had a book placed on the seat, and he knew from that piece of the past that she was reading before everything blew down. He walked over to the chair.

Kris picked up the book in his hands. It was bigger than both of his palms combined, with plenty of pages and a thick binder keeping everything together. He didn't have enough interest to open it up to read a random page or its title. Kris knelt down to gently abandon the book on the floor before crawling up onto the chair. It was big and roomy. Small threads of white fur were inweaved in its fabric, going up in the air at Kris's added pressure to its prison. The fur tickled his nose.

He wiped his face with a sleeve. His sweater was softer than the chair, almost like a blanket, and Kris had the thought of falling asleep and never waking up. But to achieve that was something he didn't know how to perceive at this time.

As Kris sat there, alone, in that chair, he watched as the world around him changed from a warm house to a cold catacomb. The flowers seemed to tilt down to the floor, a mire bow, petals darkened with unnatural brown tints as they got closer to death each and every second. Kris pitied but also sympathized with them. Perhaps he was a flower too, wilting each and every day until he inevitably died. One day. He understood that would happen one day.

For the first and last time he remembered, he allowed his mind to wander to a land that people told him was forbidden. Well, currently, there wasn't anyone here to tell him that. Or remind him of that. And Kris didn't really have any energy to stop himself. So he went forth to that strange land.

How would he die? A knife? A natural thing, like age? He sunk into the chair. It was eating him, eagerly. Could he poison himself with flowers? He knew some of them were poisonous. Like buttercups. Were there other flowers like those? He couldn't remember.

The couch's teeth sunk into him. Kris was starting to suffocate. Humans, unlike monsters, were organic. They had lungs and a beating heart and blood and bones. Monsters sometimes had that, but they were composed entirely of magic. Upside-down souls that explained unique creatures, unpainted by the natural pain humans were to experience. Again, Kris wished he was a monster. He could use magic and he wouldn't bleed when he smacked face first onto the floor and he wouldn't feel like something or someone was controlling him all the time every day. Is that how all humans felt? Someone had a grip on your soul, your heart, and that you had no control over anything you did in life. That you were just an emotionless husk that a player filled in for purposes you would never understand.

Kris's chest hurt. He gritted his teeth, stabbing his wrists with his dull fingernails.

The smell of flowers was starting to smell like decay. He remembered the smell that overwhelmed him in that alleyway by the apartment buildings. Yes, that was the smell. Rot and decay and death. It made his throat tight, his eyes watery, and his sense of smell wanting to be nonexistent.

Kris closed his eyes. Darkness took him away.

And after what felt like a lifetime later, two hands pulled him away from the chair.

He knew who the hands belonged to, but Kris didn't want to open his eyes and destroy the fantasy. Because, in his mind, he thought the hands belonged to a man who had hundreds. A man that smelt like dust and that melted like candle wax.

This man would visit Kris every so often in his dreams, and he was unsure of why. Kris had never seen this man before. He was not a face that appeared around Hometown. Yet, at the same time, Kris recognized him. Somewhere, deep in his soul, Kris knew who this man was. Always, at the same time, he didn't.

It was very confusing.

In every dream, the melting man would sit there, pouring slowly onto the floor, gaze empty and eyes lowered to look at the floor. Kris would stand there, directly across from him, always far enough away from the man's gross physique but close enough to hear his jumbled-up nonsensical words. He had always thought of trying to say something to him, but any time Kris tried to open his mouth, he couldn't. Like he wasn't in control of himself.

The thought made him shiver. The hands that held him close only pulled him closer. Trying to be comforting.

Kris couldn't tell if they were fulfilling their initial purpose, or if he felt even more empty.

He felt the gentle movements of his carrier raising up the stairs, each step seeming like Kris could fall any second. The world was being destroyed. There was this knowing that this protector wouldn't let him fall, and most certainly wouldn't let the fire burning in the house hurt him.

Keeping his eyes closed, Kris listened to the sound of a door gently squeaking open, the soft feel of his bed below his back, and the comforting calling of white noise rushing through his brother's phone. He knew where he was, and nothing felt stranger. Kris shifted, moving onto his side. The mattress deepend around his form.

Another soft figure kept close to him, never parting. Kris knew who it was without guessing. His brother, soft gentle white fur and round kind green eyes. Never ending compassion...

Asriel.

"Hey Kris," Asriel's voice whispered into his ear, low and soft.

Kris opened his eyes. Through the gaps of his bangs he could see Asriel's face. He was sitting against the wall on Kris's bed, legs close to his chest to help keep him in that cramped position. The human didn't say anything to his monster brother.

He didn't really need to. The house did for him. It moved slightly, a sound downstairs. Kris pulled his attention away from the noise, and focused on Asriel. Sweet, kind Asriel. Selfless, gentle Asriel.

Asriel was smart. Asriel was charismatic. Asriel was good at games and was well known and loved. Kris was known too, but not for the reasons Asriel was. It was easy to be known amongst Hometown as the only human resident. And being human wasn't even the best part of it. Kris was weird. Some people might've thought that Kris being weird was all a part of the process of growing up, but Kris was just that odd. He liked doing things that weren't considered normal. Like making DIY bath bombs and clogging the toilet with them not even a minute later because he was bored. Sometimes he would just lay on the floor for hours and hours and hours and not think about anything at all. And then he'd be silent and creepy, not on purpose, but just because most of the time he didn't have anything to say. Most of the time in that context was almost all the time.

But there were things about Kris that could be considered "normal". He liked to play the piano. He went to church sometimes. He liked doing puzzles, although preferably when nobody was nearby. He liked chocolate and it was a weekly event for his family to go to the diner. Kris would always order hot chocolate or milk chocolate, depending on the season, and that was his "usual". Sometimes he'd hide away in the library and attempt to bury himself underneath books.

What was happening now was not a part of Kris's "normal". He didn't know what to do anyways at this moment. Kris was not a natural leader, and most of the time he was perfectly fine with people telling him what he should do and how to do it. But now, he didn't know what to do.

Asriel stroked Kris's head, gently furry hand against his brown messy hair. An onslaught of tears wanted to erupt from Kris's eyes, but he wouldn't allow them.

Asriel must have noticed. Kris's breathing was uneven, a clear sign that he was struggling not to let his emotions become apparent. His beautiful, observant brother.

"Kris, it's okay to cry," Asriel said. "This is a n-normal thing that happens sometimes. To... Some people, you know."

"...Why us?" Kris asked, almost muttering. There was nothing wrong with their family before. Their mother was kind and caring and worried a lot and made pies almost every day. Their father was fantastic at listening and would sacrifice any moment to make his children happy and planted flowers and was fantastic at hugs. They met when they were young at a hilarious moment and had fantastic friends and support and and and and and-

"I-I don't know," Asriel whispered, green eyes downcast. He tried to look okay, but he clearly wasn't. "I-I really don't know."

Kris learned that even sometimes his smart brother didn't know the answer to everything. He liked that.

"I do know that things won't change that much, if something like..."

Kris looked at him. "Something like?"

"...Uhm." Asriel wanted to say something, his mouth parted and those little fangs for view. But then he shook his head, trying to smile. "It doesn't matter. Things will get better. I know it will. Just look- See! I'm right here with you at this exact moment. Just like always!"

"You won't leave?"

"No."

Kris sat up, hair sweeping over his eyes immediately. "Promise."

A genuine smile came over Asriel's face. "Okay, I'll promise."

They hooked their fingers, a gentleman exchanged between them with a unison phrase of "Promise forever" before they lowered their hands. Kris looked down at his hand, then at Asriel's. Five fingers, all with a layer of skin, and bone and blood and muscles underneath. Four fingers, large and covered in fur with small little claws, nothing underneath but the flow of magic. Magic and dust.

Two different species that didn't mean anything to Kris. It was just different on the outside. Just a different biology. They were all living creatures anyways. Living and breathing and feeling. Feeling things.

Emotions thanks to their soul...

A bang behind him woke Kris up, jolting his head up from the cold surface of his desk. His face felt frozen, hair sticky, eyes blurry.

"U-Uh Susie. P-p-please don't dis-disrespect school property... E-Even if i-it's to wake Kris up..."

A familiar snort replied behind Kris. A leg tapped at Kris's chair. He turned around, brain foggy, but cognisant enough to realize where he was and who was trying to grab his attention.

At school. He was at school. He'd been at school. He'd never really left.

And behind him was Susie, a purple reptilian-like monster. She was large and scary and a brute, but beneath all that rudeness was secretly a monster that was kind and undoubtedly loyal. Well, she was kind in her own way. Her eyes were narrowed with toughness, but Kris could see they also held a softness.

"Kris, damn you," she whispered to him, her gruff voice rumbling like a subtle thunderstorm. "With you falling asleep, I can't focus and copy off your paper."

Kris turned to his desk, quickly glanced at the board Alphys was standing in front of, and jolted down the notes as quickly as he could while still trying to make his handwriting legible. Then, he slowly lowered his hand down to the side of his seat, out of Alphys' view. Susie grabbed it with her large hand, claws touching Kris's fingers to tell him to let go. He did, and didn't look back at her as she copied down his stuff.

If Alphys did notice, she didn't say anything. Or maybe she didn't care. Maybe she cared more about whether Susie was actually trying to make an effort, no matter what that effort was, other than trying to kill someone. The struggle was a little visible for Susie anyways, as previously she'd never really paid attention. And now, she was trying to pay attention as much as she could without losing that hint of pride that she continuously thought school was pointless. In more simple terms, she'd copy off Kris, and Kris let her. He didn't really care to stop her anyways.

While the class continued with Kris being unable to write down anything at the moment, he let his mind wander. He was too awake this time to try and fall asleep again.

He thought about Dess.

He didn't know why he thought about Dess. He just did. And he didn't prevent his mind from going in that direction.

There was just one thing that bothered Kris. He couldn't remember what Dess looked like. She wasn't an unknown face; during his childhood, he saw her always by Noelle's side. But there was this gap in his memory that Kris couldn't explain. It was like Dess's face, and only her face was erased from his memory. Dess looked like Noelle. That was something Kris knew. It was common knowledge.

"Kris, can you promise me something?"

He stood in front of his house. Never in his life had he seen her look so nervous. Not like her sister.

"Sure," he replied. A one word answer.

Dess inhaled. Deep. She fiddled with the ends of her sleeves, the January breeze ruffling her clothes and her hair and her brown fur. Kris caught glimpses of her between his shifting bangs.

"Promise me, that-" she choked on her words for a split second, but got them back, "Promise me that if, no matter if something bad happens to me, you make sure Noelle is okay. That-that she's happy, and that she's safe. And it doesn't have to be you who keeps her safe. It can be anyone."

Kris watched her. He watched her watch him. His lungs burned as he inhaled the cold air, wishing he was in the house already, tangled up with Asriel and a cup of warm chocolate milk. But he nodded, and outstretched his hand.

"Promise forever."

Dess smiled, taking his hand in hers. Her fingers were cold, but the fur within her palms was soft despite that. They shook, gentlemen both knowing the secret art of swearing promises until they died. Once they split, Dess bid him farewell and walked deep into the trees.

That was the last time Kris saw her.

He searched his memory, trying to find anything else. But there wasn't. It was just Dess waving at him with her back turned, walking into the leafy darkness, the forest consuming her.

Kris slid out his phone from his pocket and hid it underneath the desk, doing an internet search. He typed up the letters, barely registering them, and unsurprisingly, nothing came up. Nothing except a calendar that was less than helpful.

Alphys had stopped talking and he quickly shoved his phone between his legs. Just in time, Susie passed him his paper back from behind him. He scrambled briefly before clutching his pencil and scratching down the new notes.

What were they learning about? Kris didn't know, the words barely processing through his brain as he wrote word after word. Something about cells. Or maybe about the Earth's geology. It could be anything, and he'd know once Berdly decided to take another "blow of humiliation" and read from the textbook. Maybe then Kris would take another nap.

From his left and to the front of the class, Noelle looked back at him and smiled. She did this all the time. They knew each other since they were both as young as they remembered, being neighbors for the longest amount of time. Even their parents knew each other, which was something as well. At the same time, Kris felt that he knew nothing about Noelle, and he wondered sometimes if she felt the same.

Immediately, her gaze shifted to Susie, and she looked flustered. Her posture stiffened and her face slowly turned red. Not very secretive there, Noelle. What would Dess say about your obvious crush?

The bell for class ran, scaring the crap out of Alphys, who screeched. The small piece of chalk that was in her hand flew across the room and hit Kris on the head. The children laughed as they gathered their things, never asking Kris if he was alright. Just another normal day.

When all of the children were out of the room, Kris realized that not everybody left. Susie was still there. She was snarling at the door, probably pissed that everyone was so inconsiderate. Kris recalled that not so long ago Susie was just like that. She was still somewhat like that still, but not as much. Susie grabbed the small chalk off Kris's desk and held it tight in her hand.

"C'mon Kris," she whispered, earshot to him in a purposeful manner. "Aren't we gonna head into the Dark World, or are you just going to sit there like a freak?"

He knew she was joking, even if just slightly. Kris rose from his seat. Susie flicked the chalk in her hand, and as they walked to the door of the classroom, she silently placed the chalk down on Alphys' desk.