"so. You're a gamer, right?" I'm not sure what exactly possessed me to try this. I wasn't even sure that Berdly would actually understand, or even believe me. It's a wonder that my meddling to get here worked; i would've thought that he would force things back on track, but guess that i was wrong.

"Uh, of course?" The bird monster responded, and though I couldn't actually hear his voice his emotions were clear in his sprite and dialogue. "Why on earth would you ask me that?"

Before he can go on a tirade, i begin to type. "I wanna ask you a question." I press enter, and my words appear as another text box spoken by Kris. Cool! Well the only thing cooler was if it had a unique dialogue sound like some of the other characters, but I don't have time to dwell on that now. I would try to implement it myself, but I'm far from a coding expert, and I fear that I'd break something irreparably soooo yeah, not messing with that at least for now.

Berdly is thrown off, seemingly not used to getting interrupted. But I caught his interest at least so it seems. "Uh, okaaay?"

I begin typing furiously. "So you've played games where you can make choices, right? Like there are choices to be a good person or you could be an absolute maniac? Well what if, and this is purely hypothetical, but what if the character you were playing as turned out to be an actual real sentient person, and they found out about all the bad things you made them do, how would you deal with that situation?"

suddenly the music that had been playing stopped, and everything went eerily silent. Crap, did I break something? Did something go wrong? Am I going to have to deal with his wrath now?

"Kris? I didn't know you had such deep thoughts within you. Is that what you do all day?"

"Never mind that, please just answer the question. It's kind of important."

"I don't know man, I've played some pretty heavy stuff before… I guess it would depend on what game and what exactly I did?"

"Okay so what about emotionally manipulating someone's childhood friend into committing genocide?"

"That's oddly specific…"

I decided to take the plunge.. "Berdly, what if I told you that this is not hypothetical? What if I told you that this is an actual situation that I'm in right now?"

Berdly looks shocked for a moment, but then laughs. "Haha, good one Kris. Are you trying to get back at me on something?"

Kris doesn't seem to like the way this is going. They try to walk away, but I firmly press down on the opposite arrow key, forcing them to stay where they are. I'm going to see this through to the end, even if they rip me out again.

"Think about it, Berdly. Have you ever heard Kris talk this much?"

"Well no, but why are you speaking in first person? Only special people get to do that."

I ignore his taunts and keep going. "and my voice, listen to it. I've been told that it sounds different than Kris's. Come on. I know this is a bit much, but seriously."

"…W-what are you saying?"

"I'm not Kris, Berdly." Oh come on, i did not mean for that to appear in red, nor for the dialogue sound to stop and why are you making that face, Kris? are you actually… enjoying this?

Berdly looks like he's struggling to breathe, like a fish out of water. If he runs away now there's nothing much I can do to stop him, well nothing I'd like to do, at least. I've had enough of that. "So… w-wait. Then you… you're—"

"I'm The Player, yeah. And yes I did do some questionable stuff in the last playthrough but i reloaded afterwords so it's like it never happened. Unfortunately Kris doesn't see things the same way. If you hadn't noticed, they look like they're about to, like, spontaneously combust or something."

It was true. I couldn't tell what emotion exactly their sprite was trying to convey, but it was really strong whatever it was. Then they were ripping me out again, doing nothing for Berdly's mental state I'm sure.

"Oh, you've never done this in front of anybody before!" This time my dialogue appears above the soul, clearly indicating that it's me doing the talking. Hmm, wonder what that looks like on the other side? Guess you're getting more confident, huh?"

Kris nods, then stares directly at me. I stare back, even though I know they can't see. "What about poor Berdly, though? He's probably traumatized now."

Kris shrugs.

"Mmm. I guess you're assuming I'll reload, huh?"

A nod.

"Well, you're right. This didn't turn out as planned at all. But if you would just talk to me we wouldn't need to go through all these hoops y'know?"

A firm shake of the head.

"I get it, okay? You don't like being possessed. But if you wanna blame someone for this, blame him. I had a perfectly good vessel to use before but he threw it away. Just like you keep throwing me away! Good gosh, why does everyone throw me away? … Fine, I'll reload now. Berdly, I'm sorry. But don't worry, you won't remember any of this in a sec…"