Chapter Text
Walls of trees line your peripheral vision as you run deeper into the forest. Ducking and weaving through an obstacle course of branches and foliage in the vain attempt to break your trail. You’re still sopping wet, dripping water with every squelching step. It’s weighing you down, but you can’t stop. Not even for a second. She’s right behind you for all you know.
Night falls upon you in the midst of your retreat. Deep blues and dark shadows cake the corners of each trunk. Another mechanism of camouflage to take advantage of. Another way for her to jump out of any crevice. What even is she? Well, there’s one thing for sure at least.
She is NOT Noelle Holiday.
Lingering doubts remain. Maybe you’re overreacting again. Overthinking everything. Overanalyzing all the little words and gestures until you made them lose their meaning. You’re making yourself believe she isn’t Noelle. She’s the exact same as before, you’re just forgetting because of how far you’ve drifted from her. The distance warping your memories. You forgot Noelle Holiday. You forgot everything about the girl you—
Stop. You can’t entertain this line of thinking. It’s harmful to the current objective. The task to survive the night before figuring out anything else. Regardless of if you’re right about her, it’s safer in the long term for you to treat it as an immutable fact at the moment. If you’re wrong, well, it’s not like she can hate you any more than before. Any words intended for you are simply reminders from her that you killed her sister. The memories she lingers on highlight the happy, blissful past you destroyed for everybody. How you made the world crumble because of your stupid, awful curse of existing at all in the first place. And if you’re right about her not being Noelle?
...
You really hope you’re wrong.
Your legs burn. Your head grows lightheaded from the building void in your lungs. Even though you aren’t asthmatic, you expect to practically be equivalent to it with how angrily your chest screams at you to take a break. You’re trying to push your adrenaline to its maximum, but your body fails you like it usually does. Stupid, pathetic human biology.
You duck into the shade of a large tree just as your legs give out from beneath. You inhale air by the bucketload, even spitting out saliva with your exhales to maximize the volume of your breaths. Your body tingles against every sensation around it. Your damp slacks moisten your shins, doubling as extra temperature control on an unreasonably warm night like this. Holes in your sweater poke open patches of your torso, exposing it to the outside world as it heaves up and down. A wind blows from the east, chilling you further, but it hopefully masks over your breathing as well.
It’s a beautiful night, all things considered. You’d have liked to savor the peaceful nature with her if things were different. All you can savor right now is the oxygen slowly repopulating your lungs.
“—in tar and scream loud as heck? Why don’t you do that anymore, Kris? Fafaha!”
You hear her voice fade in as your body kicks itself back into overdrive. Breaktime is over.
But where the hell do you go now?
“You gonna eat that, or do you just like staring at food?” Susie points at the P”e”zza slice you’ve been absentmindedly looking at in your hand. You turn to the P”e”zza box to see Susie has already eaten the other seven slices, as well as a few bites out of the cardboard.
You sigh as you stretch out your slice to her. Hardly a second passes and it’s already bitten and swallowed out of your hand.
“Cool. Thanks, weirdo.”
Your mom smashed a handful of cash in your hand to go get food with Susie. A kind gesture, if it wasn’t for the fact a certain skeleton showed up five seconds later. Mom tells you she’s going to need the place for the evening, a wine glass rapidly filling in her hand. Great.
There’s a part of you that wishes dad had enough money to get an actual place to live. If not for his sake, it would certainly be more tolerable than choosing between no sleep in your room and sleeping in the front yard.
The snapping of purple claws in your face brings you back to reality.
“Hey. Earth to Kris... you in there?”
You shrug, tilting your head.
“Dumbass... You’ve been a real space case lately y’know. It’s freakin me out.”
Is it that obvious? You’ve been getting caught up in your thoughts a lot more than usual, upon reflection. Getting lost in memory lane. Actually, you better respond now before she starts smacking you out of it.
You tell Susie what’s been on your mind.
“...Noelle? What, you crushing on her or something? Heh.”
That earns her a half-playful flick in the forehead that probably hurts you more than her. Jeez, her scales are tough. A useful distraction from the blush you’re failing to hide. She lets out a raucous laugh from the gesture. You try to recenter yourself...
You explain your worries to Susie.
“Huh? Didn’t you say something about that, like... a week ago? I still dunno what you mean with that crap...” She pats you on the back, “Hey. You two haven’t been close for a while, right? She prolly just changed more than you expected since you last hung out with her. Don’t worry so much, idiot!”
Doubt. Uncertainty. A fog of obscurity floods your brain at the slightest pushback against your theory. You begin flipping through the memories you’ve catalogued so far. Every moment, every word, every detail that you could possibly cram into your skull. Going over it all again and again to see if you can justify the feelings filling your soul right now.
Christmas. Wiffle bats. Butterscotch Pie. Dragon Blazers. Pranks. Chases. Crying. Loss. Pain. Agony—
“Woah, dude! The hell happened? Hey... stick with me here! Come on! WAKE UP!!”
You’re on the ground, trembling under where you sat. What...? When did you fall? How’d you fall? You were sitting, leaning against the table. You think about the events that brought you here, but all that comes up is mangled garbage noise. Unintelligible beeps and chirps yelling at you in every direction. It hurts to think. It hurts to exist. It just hurts.
Susie heaves you up by your sweater and sets you back down on the park bench. Sitting you up and directing your face to look directly into hers.
“Arright... crap, what do I do? Kris? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”
You can’t respond. You can’t even hear her right now. She paces back and forth, breathing growing jagged.
“...Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!” She kicks a nearby can into the unknown. Susie looks at you, chewing on her fingers. She rushes to your side, gripping your shoulders roughly. “Kay... I’m, uh, I’m not good at this touchy-feely crap, dumbass! So I’d really, REALLY appreciate if you could just break out of... whatever the hell this thing you’re doing right now! Anytime now...”
She squeezes and jostles your body around a few times before releasing her grasp. Susie looks around, searching for something that could help. Her eyes land on something down the street. Something you can’t see.
“I-I’m gonna get some help, okay?” Susie runs off to nowhere as far as you’re able to understand. Everything still hurts.
Eventually, two sets of footsteps approach.
“What happened to them?”
“I-I dunno! We were just talking when... when they started doing THIS outta nowhere!”
They enter your peripheral. It’s Susie and—
Susie and
Susie and #@?!!?
Susie and her.
Susie stands off to the side, looking more uncertain than ever. “Has this like... happened before?”
She crouches in front of you, staring. She’s always staring. She palms her furry hands against the smooth texture of your arms, rolling up the sleeves of your sweater. It’s... familiar... when she thumbs circles across your skin.
She leans in close, careful not to bump her antlers against your head and whispers, “Remember when you did this every time I started crying around you? It helped me get back to reality I guess, faha... It’s something I thought about when I cried if you weren’t there.”
The noise is clearing. The pressure in your mind decompresses with the unfurling of your spine. Your senses reactivate and you see so much beauty around you. In front of you. How beautiful she is.
Click.
... No. This isn’t... This is wrong. She helped you, but it’s still incorrect. She’s not... Why isn’t this right? What piece of the puzzle is missing?
“So... don’t forget to think about that if this happens again, okay Kris?” She shines that full grin of hers. Brighter than sunlight. A warmth filters into you alongside the chill from her presence at all.
You want this. You so very badly want to indulge in these stupid, pathetic feelings of yours. To wrap yourself in her arms and to recount the hundreds of memories you’ve curated and refined into clear forms. Art pieces of your life meant to be preserved for eternity. Making new memories with her in the present so your collection will never run dry. That’s everything you ever dream of.
But you can’t forget the flaws in this facsimile of the girl you knew. Is that the right word? It feels like a poor imitation. Like this isn’t someone you’ve spent your life with. That... how would that even be possible, though? You’re delusional. You’ve been over this already. You keep repeating yourself. Break the cycle already, dammit. Get an answer. Prove it wrong.
You ask if she’d like to hang out sometime soon.
“Hey, Kris! Remember how we played hide and seek all the time in these woods? Well... I’m not against giving it another round! Ready or not, here I come! Faha!”
You’ve climbed the tree you were resting under, nestling your body deep into the branches. Parts of your sweater are slightly snagged, but you’re not entertaining the risk of fixing it and alerting her of your location. Push through the discomfort. That’s the name of the game.
The leaves are thick and plentiful. Honestly, probably the perfect tree to use as a hiding spot and/or turn into a treehouse, you think. You’ll mark this one to come back to later.
ORGANIZE YOUR PRIORITIES, DAMMIT!
Right. Trying not to get found by the body snatcher that has made its home inside the shell of your childhood friend. Simple. No pressure at all.
Okay, can you just take a second to unpack all the insanity going on? Like, what the actual hell is happening? There’s nothing in monster folklore resembling some sort of doppelganger or life stealer or anything under that umbrella. Well... you suppose it could be a doppelganger monster copying Noelle. Nobody you know in town fits that description, nor does it make any sense to copy Noelle of all people! Like... Carol is right there for the taking if a monster wanted some sort of power!
...You shiver at the thought of TWO Carol Holidays existing in the universe. Terrifying.
It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it never will. What matters is that it’s happening.
While you’re obscured by the thick greenery surrounding you, there’s a few holes here and there to peek through. You haven’t caught any glimpse of her yet, but you can definitely hear her.
"Kris, come on! It's me! Remember how good you were at this game, Kris? You would always climb in these trees to try to pounce on me when I wasn't looking! I wonder if you’re silly enough to try something like that again Kris! Faha!"
She keeps saying your name like it's a chant. As if that'd compel you to pop into existence right in front of you. Like Kris is a name that soon will have the same meaning as "Noelle"
Regardless, she’s baiting you. Putting an idea in your head to get one over on her so you’ll be an idiot and give yourself away. Her strength from before already established your approach to become a battle of wit over anything else. She has to give up eventually. Her body will fatigue and require her to, at the very least, take a rest somewhere. If she strays away from you in her search, you might even have enough time to reorient into a position capable of sleeping in this tree.
You can beat her. You always can when you try hard enough. Whether it’s in a 99-stock match in Super Smashing Fighters or hide-and-seek turned into a camping trip, you can win.
You spot a slice of red and green checkers below some fluffy brown. Her position appears to be facing away from you. You have the upper hand. Don’t waste it.
She wanders through the little peepholes you have around your shelter, various chunks of her briefly revealing at once. The ones that catch her face are what you take most note of. It seems like her expression shifts in every different frame. In one, a demented scowl, then sobbing her eyes out, then an unnaturally large grin, then a face of unchanging stone, but it always changes by the next gap. You’re sure it has to be your eyes playing tricks on you in the dark.
“Come oooonnnn Kris! Do you really want me to spend all night looking for you? I thought we were having a lot of fun together!” Her emotion in this frame appears to match her tone of voice. Arms crossed, turning her nose up, stomping her hooves like she’s having a tantrum. It’s... kind of cute.
She crosses through a few more gaps before settling in the largest one you have access to by far. She looks... wistful. She’s looking up at the sky, in awe of the field of stars she presumably sees. You can’t tell from this angle. She leans up against a tree, then slides down to the ground curling her legs in. She stares at the ground.
“Hey... Kris?” she says to the grass. “I’m, uhm... I’m sorry if I’ve been scaring you in the past couple of weeks. I must have been a LOT weirder than normal, huh?”
You watch. This is just another tactic. Ignore it. Look through it. She isn’t the girl you know.
“Well... there’s a reason for that, faha! I, um, I really HAVE been thinking about our childhood, you know? It didn’t click until recently, but I miss those times with you... I think I’ve missed them a heck of a lot more than I realized. So, I was desperate to get you to remember those times too!” She curls up over herself further. “I was really pushy, right? I’m... faha, I’m really sorry for that, Kris. I just... I remember Dess and...”
It takes every ounce of willpower in you in order to prevent shaking like a wounded puppy at even the mention of that name. Your soul tucks deeper into the depths of your being. Your worst mistake. The source of her pain. The reason you can’t open back up to her ever again. It’s your penance.
“...When Dess disappeared, everything else fell apart. I know you know that but... it still hurt, y’know? All I wanted at the time was for someone to tell me it was gonna be okay. To say I didn’t have to be scared. You could have told me that, Kris. You wouldn’t have had to say it because I’ll always understand what you mean, no matter the method, but... you didn’t. Do you blame me for what happened?”
You want to die. You want to pull out your knife and stab yourself fourteen times. You need to fall out of this tree and snap your neck in half. It’s necessary for the world to be fair and just for you to have disappeared without a trace instead of—
“It’s fine. I blame myself too.”
You disgust yourself. You disgust everyone. You made her think it was her fault. All because you couldn’t handle saying some simple comforting words. It would have been easy. You could have prevented all of this sadness, all of this pain if you stopped throwing this pity party for yourself and thought about others for once.
What the hell is wrong with you?
“Maybe I’m asking too much from you, after how much I hurt you, but... I wish things could go back to how they were before. That we could be friends again, and play games, and make dumb jokes like we always did before.”
A small smile curls up onto her face, before hitting a pained laugh.
“Faha... I’m so selfish, Kris. Y’know why? Even though I want it so much... I still want more. I don’t want things to just go back, I need it to go past that. I... I, uhm, I-I really like you, Kris! I don’t think I want to be friends anymore. We’re so much more than that, aren’t we? I don’t know how you feel, but I’m being greedy right now, so whatever. I NEED you to feel the same as me, Kris. Isn’t it silly? I’m such an awful, HORRIBLE person to want these things, but I still do! I need it! So please tell me you feel the same.”
...
She’s staring right at you. Through the leaves, the branches, the dark. She can see you. She confessed to you, and looked right at you as she did it. She knew the whole time. You were being played with, thinking you had even the semblance of an upper hand over her, but she was toying with you all the while she spilled her soul all over the place.
CHOICE: RUN or STAY?
STAY. Even if you didn’t have to drop from a tree into a sprint, there’s no universe you’re outrunning Hometown’s track star. Despite her playing with you, you still objectively have the positional advantage. She must come to you, not the other way around.
She acts like she just noticed you, “Oh! Kris! There you are! I, uhm...” she scratches her head as she stands, “I honestly thought I was talking to the air, fafaha!”
That laugh. That bastardization of her laugh. It cuts you deeper than anything else. You don’t have to worry about noise anymore, but you sure as hell aren’t giving her the courtesy of your voice to call her out.
Her face twists into widened eyes and anxious fidgeting, “OH, UHM... YOU HEARD ALL THAT???” She turns away, muttering more embarrassments to herself, before acting a little more composed, “W-well! Don’t worry about that right now, faha! It’s late, and we’ve had our fun so it’s probably time to head home, right?”
You cross your arms, uncertain if she can see it in the dark but not caring enough to find out.
Her irritation scrunches her face as she sighs, “Kris, you’re forcing me to tag you too? I gotta say, this is a little childish! Even for you! But fine.”
You take a small victory in finally breaking her blindly positive mask, but not for long. In three steps, she clears the distance between her and the tree, utilizing the momentum to scale the trunk with a hop and a pull.
Oh. Right. She’s infinitely more athletic than you. You’re screwed, aren’t you?
CHOICE: POUNCE or JUMP
POUNCE. As much as you’d love to break an ankle leaping from a tall-ass tree, you figure it’s better to take the minuscule chance of knocking her out with a properly planned dive. You’ll probably break your ankle anyway, but it’d be a profit! Besides, it was her idea in the first place.
She’s navigating up the branches, nearly reaching your crow’s nest, when you decide now is the time to act. You squint, aiming for your mark, and jump feet first toward her skull.
...And you completely miss. You somehow find the exact spot that has no branches obstructing your path. Lucky you! It’s about time to say your prayers at this point.
But in an absurd, completely incomprehensible level of Holiday-ninja-style wack-assery, you land directly into a set of fuzzy arms, prepped and ready to catch you.
“Fafaha! Didja think I wouldn’t anticipate something like that, Kris??? You’re so weird sometimes...” she continues to chuckle to herself as you attempt to struggle free. “Kr-Kris!! Relax! I’m strong enough to carry you back, don’t worry!”
It’s a futile effort, after your last escape, she’s probably making extra sure to not give any chances to get away again.
“And don’t even think about trying to weasel out of your clothes like when Dess had you in her holds! It’ll only make the trip chillier, faha!”
And she already anticipated your last resort. Damn. You suppose this only elongates your lifespan compared to the tree by a few hours at most anyway.
“Hey Kris. It’s been a LONG time since we had one of our sleepovers! Well... surprise! My mom’s out for the night, and I already called Toriel to square things out before we met up!”
Wait, what?
“Don’t worry, you can borrow my clothes like usual! Hey, remember that time we pulled two all-nighters for our Dragon Blazers marathon to 100% the trilogy? Mom said it was like we were in comas and wouldn’t even stir when it was time for school, fafaha!”
You... tell her you remember. She’s pretending still, right? This still isn’t Noelle Holiday. It definitely isn’t. You know that for sure. But why are you getting kidnapped for a sleepover? This has to be a metaphor for something murdery. The two of you have watched dozens of horror movies together, and the killer is always a cunning, tactful mastermind. Well, not always, but the ones you like are.
You can’t fathom what the girl holding you has in store when you get to the Holiday household.
Huh.