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They pry her from the water, the black whirlpools mouthing at her frayed jeans, scarring the rims of her jacket. She surges onto land, gasping, choking, sputtering waterfalls of words that no one can hear, lashes fluttering wildly, eyes flashing closed and open. She collapses in a fountain of hair and tremoring sobs.
The first day they have her back, she’s asleep. Her body’s gone still as the night—the night that waits, that beckons her. Trying to move her limbs is like trying to move the parts of a doll. Asriel worries that she’s dead.
“Look—look, have you ever seen someone’s body— do this?”
Dess’ mouth is drooling black. Toriel blinks and presses her fist to her mouth, contemplating. “Have you ever seen a situation like this in the first place? It is not normal, yes, but none of this is normal. You have to understand—we are doing the best that we can.”
Asriel’s eyes bloom red. “For fuck’s sake, mom! Her heart isn’t beating!”
“Please do not yell.” Toriel’s breath becomes stifled. “She’s—she is breathing.”
“She could be in a coma. It could last—even if she’s not—not already dead, she very well could be soon!”
“I do not know what to tell you, Asriel.”
“I wish you’d just tell me something. ”
“It is going to be alright.” Toriel swallows.
Asriel chokes and wipes his tears on his sleeves, turning up his chin and moving toward the door. “You don’t know that,” he mumbles.
She nods, and blinks away so she can’t see him storm out the door.
-
It’s the fourth day, and he’s done nothing but stay by her side.
It’s scary to see Asriel mad. Kris has—well, Kris has never seen it before. He’d get irritated, sure, when they’d play pranks on him or bug him while he was studying. But nothing more than a light flick on the forehead and a stern, “ Go away, I’m busy,” before Kris inevitably started bothering dad, instead.
Kris comes into the room where she’s sleeping. Her jaw’s unlocked, dripping what almost looks like tar. Asriel is huddled up on a chair beside her bed, knees brought up to his chest, hands wrapped around his shins as he looks down at her with an unreadable expression.
He doesn’t say anything as Kris pulls out a chair and sits opposite to him. Her hair curls against her face, pinned by sweat and—other, unidentifiable fluids.
“What are you staring at?” Asriel asks. His voice feels like cement, rough and cold.
Kris doesn’t answer. Their mouth won’t even open.
“Did you hear me?” Asriel’s voice is getting gravelly.
Kris nods.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
Kris doesn’t know.
“ Why—“ he hiccups, voice raised, “aren’t you answering? What’s wrong with you?”
Kris doesn’t know.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he breathes, closing his eyes, and it doesn’t feel like it’s meant for them.
“I wish you’d leave. Isn’t this scary to you?”
Kris shakes their head. Maybe they’re lying—it’s hard to tell. A heart and a soul tend to weld together, but Kris’ soul isn’t their own. They hope, somewhere between a sigh and a ripple of intestines as ten thousand resounding memories trickle through the catacombs of their mind yet again, that their heart still aches, that it still nestles between their bones, tight and belonging.
The sentence only fully registers now—Asriel wishes they’d leave.
Kris finds themself immobile. A blunt wave of nausea plows through their throat and fastens them into place.
It won’t come out. The bile won’t come out. The body won’t—the body won’t escape, the body won’t move—
It sounds like Asriel’s saying something else. But, at this point, it’s just garbage noise.
A fuzzy black border overrides the edges of their vision. Red seeps and blares and roars into their chest, into their shirt, into their veins. Curdling, looking for home. Back inside. Shove it back inside, where the blood belongs—
Asriel grasps their shoulders. Kris can’t see his face, it’s more so an amalgamation of white, but—upon instinct—they choke out a stabilizing breath, beginning to find a little bit of their senses.
“Kris?”
Kris swallows, tensing up further.
“You’re—Kris, you’re crying—“ Asriel’s voice is far away. Those aren’t tears. Is he blind? It’s blood, someone else’s, someone else’s blood, isn’t it—consuming the fabric of their sweater, intruding, shredding skin. Pulsating. Multiplying. Enmeshed into cloth, a haze of red, green, red green, and they wish they had just gotten tangled up in Christmas lights again.
“Kris? Kris, are you—Kris, hey, Kris—stay with me, Kris.” Asriel. Asriel. The bloom of family scorched by the summer, burrowed back into the ground, but it’s the season to flourish. He’s coming back. He’ll come back, reversing up into the sky like a golden flower, mighty. Kris trusts seasons more than anything, the silk of autumn winds returning, the daffodils checkering the ridges of the sidewalks amongst a calefacted spring, the ruffling of winter as it frills and frosts the scrub grass, and the downpour of frothing clouds and blue masses that comes with summer.
Kris manages to clamp their eyes shut. A trail of shallow breaths follow, devolving into hyperventilation before they can even recognize the gentle pressure on their back, the—
Oh. Oh. It’s getting better.
Asriel firmly kneads his hands into their back. The pressure is finding its way into their cells, threading through their nerves, tightening and loosening them in a matter of seconds.
Kris remembers this. It’s something Asgore would do, when he found them curled up in their bedroom, sunk into the mattress, shoulders shaking. The memory alone is enough to relax their knees from their bent state, carefully untying their knots and placing them on the hardwood floor. Kris had been immensely grateful when the Holidays installed wooden floors instead of that dreadful carpet.
It takes a few moments, but the world paces down to something breathable. Kris shakily reaches a hand into the air and shudders as the darkness thrashes against their palm.
“Kris, are you alright?” Asriel’s voice is like wind, like a flattened leaf printed to the sidewalk. Assertive, but unthreatening.
Words lap at their throat, unfit to be said. Remorse, threats, curses, blessings, sobs, drama. This is why they don’t talk. This is why they open their eyes and collapse into the bright world, shutter their eyes to their sweater, and—
They find stains. They are not red, or brown. They swipe at their bottom lash—a glistening line of tears circles their finger pad, but nothing more.
Kris nods. Nothing else needs to be said, not now. Perhaps another time. But maybe the spoken words can remain crumpled into their spine, wedged into the gaps of their bones. A tear is enough. A nod is enough. A hug is enough. For now.
-
A week has passed since they rescued her—Asriel still doesn’t leave her side, even when the mayor trudges in with a resigned expression and her hands on her hips. He’s a good boy, he should know when to leave. He should know not to duck his head away. The Dreemurrs lost their sense after they drifted away.
Carol primly scoots into the free chair. It jabs into her back, but she can’t be fussy with the Dreemurr boy looking like he’s about to flip over December’s mattress.
Her hands skim the lining of her skirt. Shadows twine through the wall panels, swallow the spiders of this old, loved sanctuary of a room.
Dess’ cheekbones look so prominent. But she was always so soft-edged.
Carol fiddles with her thumbs.
Dess’ hair climbs down to her shoulders, frizzy and unkempt. She always liked it short, despite Carol’s insistence that it looked better long. She was wrong about that, though she hates to admit it to herself.
Carol threads a finger through her hair. It’s brittle and awfully thin. She ought to spend more time on it, but—she’s just too busy to take full care of it.
The blonde dye is worn and faded. Her teeth are sallow and slightly chipped, upon closer inspection.
Carol wheezes, coughs, sputters into the crook of her arm. “My apologies,” she says, to whom—? She doesn’t know. Asriel doesn’t lift his head or turn his gaze.
Dess’ eyelashes stutter uncontrollably. Usually, that means she’s awake. But that can’t be the case.
“Do you think she’ll be alright?” Asriel’s uncharacteristically small voice chafes the silence. His paws smooth over each other in rapid succession, his staggering breaths sifting through his fur.
A trembling moment passes. “I don’t know,” she replies.
Asriel’s head dips into his arms, and his whole body convulses. A strangled, broken note lunges from his throat and peels his eyes wide, red and raw.
Carol doesn’t know what to do. She gets up with a click of her heels, a feeble trace of Dess’ hand with her thumb, the creak of the waking floorboards, and she exits—flees.
-
In truth, Toriel has no idea how it all happened. The four days before her rescue had been fierce and veined through the mind before Toriel could catch her breath. She liked action. She did not, however, like stress.
The mayor’s eldest daughter was a kind, feisty girl before her disappearance. An enigma for sure, but she was always a joy to be around. She started seeing her more the few months before her disappearance, and then it all just stopped like lightning.
Toriel can hardly remember the days leading up to her rescue, now that she thinks about it. Nor the rescue itself. It’s like one moment everything was fine, and then it wasn’t. A thunderclap of events Toriel couldn’t manage to swallow, and instead choked on.
If she’s honest, she’s struggling to get everyone back up on their feet, especially her own. She doesn’t know what to do with her children and their choked silences, or the unspoken rule to not share her return with the town. How did that occur, anyway?
Toriel stops by Dess’ room every day to set a full glass of water by her bedside table. It’s for Asriel, really, but some part of her hopes that Dess will wake up and drink it herself.