Float somberly, sweet angel,

The heavens share your grace.

Consider not, sweet angel,

The grimness of your haste.

Are you crying, sweet angel?

Do you yearn for something more?

Or is it something that you've done,

That beckons at your door?

Ascend, sweet angel,

And reach for heaven's tip.

But will your wing,

Or will your string,

Be what you choose to clip?

"Settle down, Noelle. Just breathe."

My babbling addresses a mimicked form represented in a pane between realities, speaking to myself in a mirror above an immaculate white sink. I take my own advice and labor inward a deep breath, sucking in enough sterile air to crack the bones in my chest before letting it all escape in a long and tainted gust. "Ground yourself. Where are you?"

"I'm in the hospital." I begin, dreary eyes drooping down and summoning the fresh, vivid memories through my lips. "I fell asleep in the library with Berdly while we were working on our school project. I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I was in another world, a city of neon light, and I…" I bite my lip.

"Say it, Noelle. What did I do?" I urge myself to continue.

"I had… ice powers. Magic. Kris was there and he asked me to… he told me to start freezing the people in the city. I don't even know if "people" is the right word. Creatures? Monsters? I didn't know what was going to happen at first… I was so confused. They were attacking us. Kris got hurt. I didn't mean to k-..." A slithering shiver tickles up my spine before I redouble my efforts to keep on. "I didn't mean to... kill them. But after the first few I started to convince myself that it was okay. I didn't want to confront what I'd done. I didn't want to accept that they might've been like me, so I told myself they weren't really people. They were just things . Enemies, like Kris said. So I… kept going. And I got stronger. And…"

"And what?"

There's a twitch in my ear. A deep-rooted feeling of innate nature claws at the roots of my instinctual knowledge and whispers for my attention. The twisted patterns that form my body's schematics left these lingering traits in me from a primordial time before society or culture, sending signals through my being that warn me of coming danger. The perception of something in the corner of an eye. The subtle pressure shift dipping in the ear when something else is inhabiting the same space one is in. That prickling sensation dancing underneath the skin when one's unevolved self from millions years past is sounding alarms and alerting signals modern times have all but forgotten. There's something in the bathroom with me. Something on my shoulder. I can feel it there… even though I know nothing really is. I know such a thing is an impossibility, a creation of a warping mind, but... It feels like the frozen grip of death. Its long, spindly fingers annex the base of my neck, spreading its forlorn chill through my fur only to burrow down into my skin and creep through my veins as though I were injected with a hypodermic needle filled with ice water drained from some scarcely-treaded frozen tundra.

"And what, Noelle?" My hands grip the edge of the sink, eyes shooting open to stare at my own reflection to confront myself.

"And I liked it."

There's something foreign in my pupils. In the way they're dilated. Something about how my eyelids are narrowed down around a pinpoint focus in my gaze. It's a look I've never seen before. Something carried over from the other side, out of the dream and into reality like a phantom slipping through the veil.

"I liked it a lot." I admit.

I grind my molars together and I can feel the disgust collect inside of my stomach. I can't believe what I'm saying out loud to myself, even though these are my own close-kept thoughts deeded to me and in my possession away from vagabond eyes. My own candid, stupid thoughts from a dream. From fantasy . The sink strains under me as I lean on it with both hands. There's weight all over me like my clothes have been drenched, as though I had fallen in a lake due to a careless pierside waltz, it all making me feel sluggish and gimped. The corners of my eyes start to glisten while I sneer at the reindeer in front of me. I barely recognize her. I barely understand the tears that start to slide down her cheek.

"I... loved it." I croak out raspily through a shattered, pitiful voice, forcing myself to admit in an act of repentance. "I loved how it felt to be so powerful. I loved the force, both mine and his. I loved being Kris's weapon… to be useful. To be used. To belong. I loved it all."

My tears splash loudly against the ceramic supporting me. I just want this mirror to shatter so that I don't have to bear witness to this ghoulish reflection anymore… or at the very least I want it to be broken so that it will show the truth for once.

"It felt good… to take everything I wanted. It felt good to let Kris lead me. To walk at his side, in a spot that belonged to me and me alone, and take out everything in our way. That shopkeeper. That puppeted machine. Berdly…"

I can feel something on my ring finger, the skin and bone aching in dull pain, but there isn't anything wrapped around that digit. But the more I focus… the more it looks like there's something twisting around it. A wispy, ethereal illusion of something that should be there but isn't, pulsating with a subdued glow of faded crimson in tandem with the paces of my heart. There's something connected to it. A line as thin and invisible as fishing wire leading up into swallowing nothingness. "I did everything for you, Kris." My mouth forms the words that exist deepest within my heart, mining them from that ancient pit I'd fallen into. Dredging them out from that black sea. "I did everything for you and I loved it. I loved you. I love you. I was so scared. So terrified. So alive. So excited. And now I-..."

I blink and clench my fist, the ghostly vice that had been residing on my finger vanishing as I do so. A figment of my imagination. Just like everything else. That entire dream… It felt like it lasted for days. Weeks even. I'd done so much. I'd learned so much. I became so much. And all these memories are in my head without a single scratch on them, unscuffed and just as pristine as this decontaminated bathroom. I remember everything so vividly… It was so real. I've never had a dream before that I can recall in such impeccable detail. I can still feel the streets and sidewalks under the keratin of my hooves and the way the air hung in the valleys created by the towering buildings, lurid with the scent of cheap plastic. I can still feel the chill of my magic perpetuating through my body and the unbridled thrill of its release, as well as the inescapable draw of the power I felt. I still remember the exact taste of bile after I lost my stomach to the madness… I remember it all. I remember it all, damn it! I REMEMBER EVERYTHING! SO HOW WAS IT A DREAM!?

I slam against the sink before looking down to my hand, beginning to curl my fingers in one by one as I am brought to heel by the memory Kris's fingers slipping between mine. I just wish… I just wish that would happen again. I wish he was here in this bathroom with me right now and telling me that everything is okay. Again I peer in the mirror to stare at myself and I'm reminded of the way I looked back in that moonlit room I'd been forced inside of after my capture. I look tired. Frazzled. Depleted.

"Noelle honey, did ya fall in?" My father's voice reaches me from down the hallway and I quickly scramble to make myself presentable again. I can't think straight about anything. I can barely tether myself to anything happening in the present… but I need to be strong for him. Need to be… strong. I shake that thought away as I pretend to flush the toilet, finishing my return to faux normalcy by splashing and drying my face before exiting the bathroom and finding the well-worn indention in dad's hospital bed that branded my spot.

"You feeling okay sweetie? You were gone for a while and I started to get worried that those stories about the snakes in the sewer pipes were true." Dad brightens the room with a chuckle, shoving the game we'd been playing back into my hands to pick up where we'd left off. "You're not looking too chipper."

"I'm fine, Dad." I lie. "I'm just a little tired. Didn't manage to sleep very well." That part was true, at least.

"You're telling me! Try sleeping in one of these hospital beds! They're about as soft as wet cardboard and only half the quality."

I laugh alongside him but it's something that I'm forced to fake. It's a cheap imitation of a feeling that I can only mimic for the time being with so much else on my mind. I try to again focus on the video game with my Dad, but as I play my mind can't help but drift back to the library when I had finally woken up and realized that none of it had been real, my body slumped over and drooling into my book as Berdly's alarm went off. I was so surprised to see Kris and Susie there. I hadn't honestly expected them to show up when I gave them an invitation to join us, but that wasn't the real reason I was startled. It was Kris… The way he was just… staring at me. Staring at me as though he knew everything. Staring at me like he'd been watching a monitor plugged directly into the back of my head that hosted a private screening of every tightly locked thought I'd created alongside all their accompanying details.

Everything was still so fresh in my memory when I awoke that when I looked at Berdly with his head down against the library desk I started to get nauseous all over again, my guts twisting into knots like everything from the dream had been beyond the mere fantasy of a drifting mind. The stiffness and stillness of his body raised every flag and warning my brain could manage to signal as I gathered our things and left before I even had the chance to say goodbye. Before I had a chance to really talk. All I did on the way out was ask Susie if she had a tail. Why? Was I trying to lighten the mood? Was I treating myself to a jest to alleviate my own grinding senses? When did I even get the courage to talk to Susie that way?

Again and again and again my mind circles around all these memories like a marble spiraling down a funnel, spinning round as it dances closer and closer to the hole in the middle only to be lost forever in one final plunge. I'm pressing the buttons in my hands, forcing the character on the screen forward, but my outward consciousness is like a blank, polished slate. I'm forcing the character to attack. Forcing them to kill. They have no say in their own actions and can only watch as I move them in the fashion of my desire. Just like he did for me. Just like I was forced… No… That's not entirely true, is it? I was given a command and I followed. I wasn't forced. What I did in that dream, what I did for Kris, I did willingly. I did it for something. As sick as I felt… as revolted as I was… as contorted as my brain got… at the end of it all it was still my choice. And I chose Kris. Not the things in the city. Not the caretakers of the shops. Not some strung-up machine. Not Berdly. Not Susie. Not Queen. I chose Kris.

Queen… I was so scared when she captured me at the beginning of that fantasy. So terrified of her world. And in the end, despite all the strength Kris had given me and all he had taught me, my weakness still allowed for my capture by Queen again. That damned machine woman… cackling and laughing in that droning, hoighty way above my imprisonment while my fear kept me paralyzed. She was going to enslave me, make me like her… slice my face wide with her macabre tools and put machine parts in me to guarantee my subservience. I shouldn't have abandoned Kris when I did. I should've hunted Queen down in her castle and-

"Ice on the Ice Palace boss? Don't you want to try Fireshock or something?"

My finger hovers over the confirmation option to use Iceshock on the Silver Drake. What… had I been doing? What had I been saying? I was talking about the game with Dad but I don't know what we discussed.

"H-huh? Yeah, you're right." I relay, attempting to beam whatever weak smile I can muster towards my father.

"Here, how about letting me control for a bit?" He offers casually, extending his hand out to relinquish the game from my possession.

"N-no!" I snap at him, tucking the game closer into my body to keep it safe. I don't know where that came from… No. I keep lying to myself. I do know where it came from. I don't want to give up control of anything to anyone… anyone except for him . "I'll… control it myself."

"Not like you to be a controller hog, honey." Dad settles his face into an easy smirk. "You feeling alright?"

"Huh? Me? Of course! I'm fine, Dad… I just…" I turn my gaze away from him, knowing that he understands something is eating away inside of me. He's never been the type to pry me open even if he knows there are thoughts digging through my shell, though. He's always allowed me to keep my secrets when I want to. "I fell asleep in the library, and…"

"...you know, just had a weird dream." I fake another laugh.

"Noelle… I knew that birdbrain'd put you to sleep!" He guffaws in that wet, phlegmy sort of way that sounds like he's determined to not let it turn into a cough. "What'd he do? Start lecturing you on his theorem... of the inequality in children's fighter games?"

"No, no!" I attempt to assuage him with a soft but calculated chuckle. Though as I think of Berdly again my mood sours further, my thumb gliding over the smooth black plastic of the handheld system as though I'm trying to polish frost off the convenience store freezer to see what's inside. "He… he fell asleep, too."

"Wow! He even put himself to sleep?" He laughs again and I laugh along with him… this time sincerely.

"Yeah, I guess so!" He did put himself to sleep… in a way. When he decided to put himself between Kris and I. When he decided to prematurely end the bliss I had felt walking at Kris's side. He made his choice, the little cretin ...

I restrain that thought before it manages to proliferate. I give a shake of my head, attempting to quickly buck it away before it can manage to hitchhike without my consent. What the hell is wrong with me?

"Well, sounds like… you two've been hitting the books too hard." Dad looks to me with a comforting smile, beaming the warmth he can manage from his sickly state in a gift to try and ease the thoughts he can plainly see are scalding me. "Why don't you go home and hibernate? I'll see you tomorrow at church."

"Dad? Are you gonna be okay to go…?" I'm happy, honestly, to hear that he's planning on being there tomorrow, but part of me also squirms at the thought of him being present. Tomorrow in that hallowed hall there's a lot I need to pray for. Underneath the multicolored rays of light casting through the stained glass, highlighting the suspended dust in the air like stars littering the night sky, I will grovel for absolution, for the darkness in me needs penance. It's hard to imagine asking forgiveness for so many vitriolic and vexatious thoughts with my father sitting beside me, even if I'm not voicing any of it out loud. Just his presence alone seems like it'd be yet another pit in my stomach. Somebody else I've hurt.

"Of course! You take it easy, honey." He affirms. Even in his condition he still has the optimism to make a promise like that to me. He's so strong. He and I are both fully aware that he has no idea if tomorrow will be one of his good days or one of his bad days, and his presence at Church will be determined thusly. But even still… It's nice to hear him say it.

"Okay then, yeah. I'll go home and rest." I ease myself out of my spot on his bedside, trying to disturb his comfort as little as possible and placing my hooves to the white tile as I gather my things together.

"See you tomorrow, honey." He murmurs.

"Bye, Dad. Love you!" I respond excitedly in return, ready to finally be alone with my thoughts as I angle myself towards the door and-

...and-

My eyes widen and my blood freezes over, thickening to frigid sludge as though I've suddenly become a coldblooded serpent desperate for the outside warmth provided to me by a sun-baked stone or boiling spring.

Kris.

Kris is there.

He's standing right there in the doorframe.

Staring at me… He's staring at me exactly like he was before when I awoke in the library, with those eyes that resonated with absolute judgment, a gorgon's sight paralyzing me and turning me statuesque.

"Kris!?" My voice manages to crack out through stone form. "Kris, what are you doing here?"

"Hell if I know." Susie responds.

"S-SUSIE!?" I blurt out in surprise. Susie… she's here, too. I was so fixated on Kris I hadn't even noticed her looming over him. It was as though Kris's presence had sucked all the light out of the room and directed it back onto himself like a spotlight, demanding the entirety of my attention and leaving no ounce of my focus unspared.

"Ohhhhh! This is Susie!" Dad joined in from his bed, alerting me further that it wasn't just Kris and I in the room completely and utterly alone together. "Susie! Nice! Heard a lot about you!"

"You, uh… have?" Susie questioned, seemingly befuddled.

I can't take this right now. I can't handle all this happening at once. My mind is already a crackling, thunderous storm where one errant strike of well-placed lightning would be enough to send me spiraling off the brink of sanity, leaving me to crumple over onto this sterile floor, balling up into a shivering, blathering mess of madness. I can't take one more moment. Not another word. I'm so close to snapping and I can feel every interaction whittling away at my brain.

"Cool, think I have to go now!" I excuse myself with a smile I'm obviously barely able to fake and a voice that matches it in consistency, forcing my poisoned, taxed body to make my legs move. One step, and then another. Just like… just like before. The voices fade behind me as I stand in the hallway trembling. I don't know what they're saying and I don't care to know. I just… I can't stand another second of all this. Every bit of me, every limb, every digit, every tuft of fur and strand of hair, every inch of me both inside and out feels ready to unravel, as though my mortal coil were really a spring ready to release its tension all at once and obliterate me in a shower of self to stain these white halls in the color and texture of Noelle. Come on, it… it was just a bad dream…

Even so, it was so real, I can't get it out of my mind… It's nailed into me like the stingers of a hundred hornets, working their insidious venom through the valves in my body and ruining me joyously from within. I can't stop thinking about Kris. I can't stop thinking about what I did.

...that voice, telling me what to do. A voice unlike Kris's. But at the same time… unmistakably his.

...a terrifying voice… But a voice that excites me. As much as I loathe to respect the thought as the truth, I must. I can't lie to myself anymore. Not now. I can't harbor another maligned thought in my head at the risk of all my foundation crumbling into the abyss. He sounded so confident… so commanding… so in control. On his words and his actions I hung like a harness to keep myself rooted in place as the world around me spun in a sickening blur of streaking lights and sounds.

Kris…

Recently, there's been something… different… about them. Not just today, but for some time now. Something about the way they carry themself. When did they become so bold… so much more active? Why do they keep staring at me like they do? Why hasn't anyone else noticed it…? I need to know what drives them. Why I dreamed about them so vividly to the point that there's been a fundamental change in my core because of it. I… I have to figure it out. Why Kris is acting so strange…

Why they keep coming… to the hospital…

"To see you."

"H-huh?" I whip myself around and come face-to-face with him. With Kris. The hallway we're in seems to stretch endlessly, twisting and warping with undulations I'd only associate with the tumultuous sea in its most heinous, uncontrolled fury.

"K-Kris… how long have you been standing here?"

Those eyes… those dreadful eyes are upon me like a harpoon stuck through my pumping heart. Omniscient of my misdeeds. Threatening to expose me for what I really am. How did he respond to me? Was I talking out loud? I must've been… in my scrambled state it's no surprise that my madness was slipping out freely.

"Phew, you… haha, you really scared me, you know?" I try to ease myself by talking to the boy I knew before the dream, wholly unsure if that boy even still existed at all. It feels like trying to talk to a spectre… and just as insane. Keep it together, Noelle… There's nothing to be afraid of… After all, a dream is just a dream, right...?

…

And then I finally see it.

That glistening spectacle flashes in my eye as the light above from the humming tubes hits against it just right, signalling me like an ever-turning beacon atop a lighthouse amidst the raging tempest that wholly envelops me. My body starts shaking. My eyes cannot look away, and I dare not make haste to break them free at risk of stumbling upon other unworldly truths that might eviscerate my entire concept of self, little as much may even remain. Every fiber of my being tells me to run, tells me to turn and escape. The ageless command of my past ancestors sends my body into a panicked frenzy that pleads for me to get away from this place… but I cannot. I can't move. I'm forced to remain frozen in this spot as my entire life comes to a halt. The same as I had done to those creatures. To the machine. To Berdly.

"Kris…? My trembling, barely audible voice crawls towards him as I stare at it. That singular object of my absolute fixation blotting out in inky blackness all my other imaginings, ethereal or otherwise.

"Why are you wearing… my watch?"

"Wh… when did you…- "

"In your dream."

There exists some distant place of grand stature and miraculous height. Whether it can be touched by hand or not is of no true consequence, as it must only be known that it is present. An edge of unknown design overlooking the expansive, endless collapse of reality. A gate without a keeper. A door with no hinges, no handle. A pass as difficult to reach as it is to simply stumble upon. It is there, in this place, that I stand. On the cusp of this terrifying edifice whose origin came before time I am forced to survey the eternal pit below where the identity of everything swallowed must be judged. I lean forward, and as I do I can feel that white dress that had adorned me flowing, elegantly shaping to the breeze that passes me by.

I have no wings to carry me. All I possess is the fall.

And as I descend deliriously into that deep chasm… I smile. It feels like I'm free. It feels like I'm flying.

Flying straight down to hell.

The smile I carry I give to him along with everything else I own. All this and more. For him.

"When can we go back?"