Susie stretched her arms once they emerged from the darkness of the school supply closet. Her hair was dark again and her skin that familiar shade of dark lavender purple, but she was still Susie. Just like Kris was still Kris, no matter if his skin looked light blue or buttercup yellow.
The doors were closed behind them, leaving them alone in the silence of the school's corridor. Susie looked out the distance, lowering her arms and shoving her hands in the pockets of her pants. Her loose jacket flowed around her waist. Kris looked at the ground, seeing not the shining armour of a knight, but the plain brown shoes and pants he'd wear most of the year. And then the sleeves of his traditional green sweater with brown cuffs of the undershirt.
Susie sighed. "Well damn. That was fun while it lasted." She turned her head a bit to the side to glance at Kris. "That spell Ralsei casted was kinda cool too. Y'know... The whole stopping time thing."
Kris nodded.
Susie looked back out the hall. She took a few steps forward, then stopped.
She was silent for a while. That meant she was seriously thinking about something. And Kris had a feeling he knew what that was.
"I don't know," he said.
She looked at him again. Interested.
Kris felt the need to specify. "I don't know why that Darkner turned into something like that."
"...It was freaky," she muttered.
Kris nodded once more. He couldn't disagree. "...I hope that doesn't happen again."
"Well, if it does, we know exactly how to handle it next time!" She sounded so confident in her words that Kris felt a little jealous. Susie grinned to no one in particular before rolling her shoulders at him. "Well, I have to get going. Got to go home and stuff. So... Yeah. Ready to head over there again tomorrow?"
Kris gave her one last nod before the monster walked along the hallway, leaving him there along with nothing but the sound of the air conditioner.
The school was silent, and Kris stayed there for a while before he turned on his heels and went right of the closet doors. He knew he should probably leave soon, given sunset was almost upon him, but there was some business he needed to attend to first. Gripping the round door handle in his hand, Kris gave it a gentle twist, unsurprised to know that it was unlocked. It was just an empty classroom, one that used to be in use but now wasn't after years. When Kris and Asriel were younger, about before the first ever years of school started, they spent their time playing in this room while their mother taught classes in the other one. Games that combined other games to make brand new games.
Kris walked inside the room, turning his head as he looked around. Nothing was out of the ordinary. He moved over to the closet. He managed to shove everything in there once, even the large rug.
Kris journeyed out from that room, closing the door behind him. He didn't attempt to be silent or discrete. There was a part of him that wanted anybody else in the building to know that he was still here. His footsteps echoed through the hall. Kris took a quick glance at the posters decorating the bulletin board before an array of lockers. They were all locked, and he didn't need to test them to know that.
Taking a left, he arrived at the class room he spent most of his time in. The door was unlocked, which didn't surprise him. Alphys had always unlocked the door, just in case she forgot something that was in there. In fact, Kris was certain that Alphys forgot her keys at home almost every day, and that was why the door was never locked. Anyways, it didn't matter much to him since he didn't have any business entering that room.
He backtracked, looking at the posters again, and headed straight. This was familiar, this room and this exact hall he was walking down.
Mrs. Toriel, Kris's mother and the teacher to the younger children, never locked her door either. That was for reasons Kris didn't know. Though, he suspected it had to do with her compassionate thoughts keeping it unlocked for him. In case he needed anything, or something like that.
Kris entered the room, walking over to the whiteboard. He silently noticed how his mother's name was still written on the board with red marker all these years, and how no matter he tried to wipe at it the words refused to come off. Her desk was locked. The cabinet in the corner was full of games and activities. There were no desks like in the other rooms, but a soft carpet.
Kris decided to lay on the carpet for a while. He slid his shoes off and knelt down, eventually flopping down on his back. Quickly, his back felt heated, and Kris's brain thought that he was laying in his bed at home.
A furry finger poked him on the cheek. Kris protested by rolling over on his side to face the wall.
"Kris! Kris! Kris c'mon! Get up or you're going to be late again for school! And this time I'm just going to leave you here!"
It was Asriel, trying to rouse Kris up from bed on his own. But, as always, Asriel would eventually give up once he realized that Kris was too determined to sleep in. Then Asriel carried him to school, because he cared too much.
That memory came up so suddenly. Kris gasped loudly and pushed himself up from the ground. His heart banged against his ribs, breath shallow and quick and painful.
It took him a good few minutes to finally calm down. And once he did, the past experience felt almost like a distant dream. A distant dream that he forgot almost immediately. Kris's fingers drifted along the carpet, and it was then when he remembered where he was again. But it wasn't time to leave yet.
He wasn't sure if he wanted to leave.
Maybe he could just go back into the Dark World and stay at Ralsei's castle. Ralsei did say that he would try to make the place seem like a second home, especially when things got too hard up in the Light World. And that sounded like a promise to Kris, and a heartwarming option he could take whenever he wanted. However, time in the Dark World and time in the Light World traveled the same, and if Kris were to stay the night there, he would be missing a day here. That would give his mother a heart attack. Her other son, missing, just like... Just like...
"Son, we're going to need you to tell us when you last saw December Holiday. Your last interaction with her, the last thing she did, and even the last place she was."
Kris was silent.
Asriel looked at him, face marked from tears. He wasn't normally someone who cried, but this was an exception. One of his best friends was missing, and Asriel couldn't do anything about it. He tried to mouth something to Kris, but Kris wasn't really paying attention. Plus, Asriel couldn't do something so secretive in front of their parents.
"Did you see her at all today?" his mother asked. The question was more like a demand.
Kris shook his head. That wasn't a lie. But at the same time, it wasn't the full truth either. He didn't interact with Dess at all that day, and he didn't even see her, but he did speak to her yesterday. He promised he wouldn't say anything, and Kris never broke his promises.
He saw Asriel lower his head. Kris wanted to say he was sorry and that he'd tell his brother everything, but the words got stuck in his throat, and no matter how hard he tried to pull them out, they refused. Any noise refused. All the sounds refused. His arms refused.
Someone was refusing his actions to proceed.
Kris placed a hand over half of his face, feeling that dull pain. He frowned, fingers intertwined with messy hair, pulling the hand back as quickly as he placed it there.
The things that have been happening to him weren't unusual. Especially not now. Kris had grown accustomed to any sort of anomaly, but he was still surprised when they came up so suddenly. It was like there was this higher being that was telling him something, trying to remind him of something he'd forgotten.
He was trying to refuse it just as much as it refused him.
Kris got up now, tired of the constant silence and the emptiness of the room. He didn't want to be at school anymore today. Exiting the classroom and heading straight for the two large double doors, Kris stopped on his tracks when he saw a blurry figure within the glass. The figure stopped too, right when he did. Then Kris and the stranger stayed.
Suddenly, the figure ran off, a smudge to the side. Kris had the immediate instinct of following whoever that was. He pushed open the doors with his arms and ran out into the evening, trying to follow the oddity. Without truly anything odd being outside, Kris stood there for a moment. He contemplated the thought that he must've imagined a shadowy, blurry figure seemingly watching him.
That was right before he heard the bushes to his right move. The forest that formed a barrier to one side of the school. The sound pulled him forward, and before Kris knew it, he was running through the trees, feet pounding against the moist dirt, breath grazing his nose and chin at the exercise. His hair stuck behind his ears with the accumulation of sweat and he felt itchy in his sweater, but Kris continued on. He caught a movement a few feet away from him and barreled forwards, determined.
A thought slithered into his head, dangerous.
Was it Dess?
The question gave him a source of energy he didn't know he had. Kris was never really the physical type, mostly staying inside and playing video games when his mother tried but failed to encourage him to play outside. Asriel was more of the star, and it fit him better too. Kris didn't understand why people would want to run and run and run and run and feel absolutely dizzy and sick and breathless in the end just for fun. He never tried out for any sports, never really participated in physical education classes, and that was fine for him. At the same time, Kris knew that he was fast, and if he forced himself hard enough, he could run without stopping for what seemed like forever.
A branch smacked him over the head. Kris hissed at the sudden pain, but kept moving. His bangs had plastered themselves onto his forehead and he felt too exposed, but he continued to chase this strange person.
Eventually, he managed to arrive in a crack in the forest. The trees parted and before him was a little clearing. He heard birds chirping and singing their little songs and flowers, ones he knew and ones he couldn't name, decorating the ground with little blades of soft grass. It was a pretty sight...
Then he saw her.
Noelle screamed, surprised and shocked and taken back by the sudden arrival of Kris. She tried to move back, but in her state of panic, ended up tripping over something and falling onto her butt with a squeak of pain.
Kris took a step forward, worry edged deep into his sweaty face. Noelle lifted her hands and tried to cover her face. It was a useless way of protecting herself from an unknown danger that wasn't really dangerous to begin with.
The two of them stayed there for a while. It was about time when Noelle actually realized there was no danger and looked up. Kris nodded at her as she lowered her hands, face a bit red from the running. And she was probably flustered for her irrational fear too.
"O-oh hi Kris!" She pushed herself up from the ground. Bits of dirt stuck to her clothes, and she didn't bother to wipe it off. "I-I didn't know you were following m-me..."
"Then why were you running?"
"U-u-uhm... I..."
Kris turned his attention to something that sat behind Noelle. It looked like a tree, tipped over and rotten from years of being dead. He looked back at her. "Nice tree."
She spun around to look at what Kris was talking about. "Oh... T-That? That's not a tree... It's actually a house. Well, i-it used to be one... It's the ruins of one now."
He tilted his head.
Noelle took a step back. "It's really n-n-nothing though! Just something I found!"
Kris knew she was lying. The way her words slurred together and the more intense stammering and the continuous red hue of her cheeks. Although they had never really been close friends, Kris knew the signs of her lying. Just like Noelle knew the signs of some of Kris's moods, whether he liked it or not.
He moved over to Noelle. She tried to move back some more, trying to hide the ruins behind her. The attempt didn't really work given that Noelle was much smaller than the house remains. Instead, she was probably just getting her clothes even more filthy.
"...Alright," she sighed, giving in. Her head hung low and she stopped trying to hide it, stepping aside to let Kris see it. "I was looking for it purposefully. I didn't think any of them were still around given how long ago it was, but I had hopes and-"
Kris raised a hand and she stopped talking. He wanted to get a better look at it first before she went off about it. And it wasn't even that fascinating to him, being honest. Whatever was left of the house was nothing but just a blackened carcass, old rotted wood stacked without a pattern on top of each other. He hated it immediately, but decided to search regardless.
Kris kneeled down before the structure, leaning forwards. He could almost smell the old fire that destroyed it. Crouching down now on his knees, Kris shoved his hands into the center of it. He felt nothing but dusted charcoal at first.
Noelle tensed in his peripheral vision. "UHM- U-Uh you probably shouldn't do that given it's most likely over hundreds of years old and its fragile and could fall apart and your hands could get stuck and you could get really injured and it should belong to a museum so that everyone can see it because it's most likely a very important part of history to our village and KRIS PLEASE DON'T LICK YOUR HANDS-"
He did anyway, and proceeded to look more into the dust.
Noelle didn't say anything more, just making small anxious deer noises that Kris mostly ignored. Searching more and more, Kris was about to give up.
Until he felt something.
Whatever it was, he struck it with his hands, nearly falling into the remains. Noelle grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him up, and Kris noted that he would have to thank her later for that sometime. His fingers teased around in the dust until he felt a long line. He grabbed the chain immediately and pulled back, throwing both himself and Noelle onto the ground. She struck with a small grunt.
The thing he grabbed was tarnished with dirt and age, but shifting it around in his hands while Kris stayed on his back, he noticed it gleamed slightly in the diminishing sunlight. A hint of gold, and a marking or engraving that he could barely make out.
Noelle looked at it too, already up from the ground. She stood over him, her curly honey hair messy. Then, she looked down at him, and offered her hand.