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Kris tossed and turned in their bed, cocooned in their sheets yet unable to find the slightest trace of comfort. Their head throbbed, their heart ached, their stomach churned as their pulse quickened.
They'd been sleepwalking through the whole day. Waking up in the morning, getting driven to school by Mom, heading to Ms. Alphys's class, all in a dreamlike haze, as if someone else were guiding their body along. They'd felt the same way running through the darkness with Ralsei and Susie. And in the late afternoon, wandering through the city, compelled to ask questions they already knew the answer to or questions that were patently absurd (of course, why would Chief Undyne know Ms. Alphys?) by the same nebulous guiding voice in their head.
They didn't hate these hazy days. It made things easier to have someone else do all the hard stuff. But right now--
Right now--
They. Had. Had. Enough.
Kris tore themselves out of bed, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor, their shoulder throbbing. It was nothing compared to the world of hurt they'd already gone through today. The only light came from the splash of moonbeams peeking through the blinds and the pale, faded neon-green glow of the tacky glow-in-the-dark stars all over Asriel's side of the bedroom as they pulled themselves up with leaden limbs, limbs that tried to move themselves of their own accord.
There was something filling them up. Some force... some entity...
The demon that comes when people call its name.
Their soul resonated with a strange feeling.
Kris reached deep inside themselves, their fingertips scrabbling at the warm, soft skin of their chest before plunging in--
And ripped it out.
Beating, throbbing, glowing dull red as it pulsed in their hand, this culmination of being sat atop Kris's palm, casting its ethereal glow around the room to compete with Asriel's dim stars (what were the dim ones called? White dwarfs?), the red light matching the light in Kris's hooded, tired, gray-ringed eyes. Their hand shook, as if the soul they were clasping was desperate to escape and return to the home it had found.
Kris tossed it aside, throwing it perfectly into the cage they kept at the side of their bed, clenching and grinding their teeth to hold back an anguished scream. It was no longer a part of them now. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, but they were free. They were free now.
No.
No, not exactly.
Not quite.
There was something inside them.
Something living.
Something calling.
An instinct, a hunger, a thirst.
As they crouched in a primal, almost feral stance, Kris bowed their head, their unruly bangs and locks of their long brown hair dangling in front of their eyes, and in their left hand brandished a knife.
Its blade gleamed in the eye of the full moon, catching and cutting through the faint, false light it radiated.
Kris's hand held it like an old friend, their fingers curling around its well-worn handle in just the right places, settling into grooves worn by time and use. It called to them.
It called to them.
Kris couldn't help but grin.
Like the living dead, they shambled out of the bedroom and down the empty hall, filled only with the desire to use this knife and fulfill their darkest urges.
They found opportunity right where they'd expected, in the kitchen.
There.
Kris raised their knife over their head and brought it down on their unsuspecting victim, reveling in the carnage they were about to create. They could already almost taste it...
They had no choice.
Nobody could choose who they were in this world.
They had to indulge in its whims.
They had to do what the demon inside was demanding of them with its silent, wordless voice. Its hunger, its thirst, its lust could only be fulfilled, never ignored.
The knife swung, the arc of its spotless, polished blade glittering dazzlingly as it caught and threw the moonlight, and as it came up, its shiny, stainless steel came up marred with streaks that in the pale moonlight looked black as tar, black as night, black as the kingdom of darkness, and mechanistically, as though their body had become an automaton, they brought the knife down again
and again
and again.
Kris cut the still-warm pie Mom had left cooling on the kitchen counter that evening into eight equal pieces.
They shoveled them into their mouth one by one, wolfing each wedge of pie down as though there were no tomorrow. Halfway through, Kris shambled to the fridge, opened it up, spied the jug of milk, took it out, set it aside, and rifled through the packed-to-capacity fridge until they found the chocolate milk Mom had been hiding from them.
They ate and drank until their belly was full and their urges fully satiated, and then they tossed the pie tin and empty jug into the trash, taking great care to put some of the old trash on top so no one would see, cleaned and dried off their knife in the sink, and trudged back to bed.
The demon was placated, Kris was finally free, and they were satisfied enough to drift into a peaceful, restful sleep.