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Sneaking out of your house is a little bit harder when you’re doing it from your bedroom, as opposed to the restroom. But, second story window or not, you’re practiced enough at getting to places you’re not supposed to be that you land flat on your feet as you drop to the ground; no sweat.
It’s dark outside—no surprise there, seeing how it is now currently the middle of the night. You look around the empty streets in front of your house, hoping you snuck out fast enough to catch up with a certain someone… Thankfully, you're able to spot Susie quickly, sitting on a nearby curb and staring blankly ahead. It’s drizzling, but she doesn’t seem to notice, much less care. That’s okay though; you don’t really care either. She startles visibly when she belatedly notices you approaching.
“Hey,” she says, recovering quickly. “Sup. I was wondering when you were gonna bail.” Huh. So she was waiting for you. You dwell on that thought for a tick, and find that you quite like it. The silence goes on for a beat too long, until she puts a stop to it. “I’m surprised you even bothered trying to sleep through that racket. I coulda told you it wasn’t worth the effort.”
She’s right. It really wasn’t. You move to sit next to her, settling in amongst the wet grass and decaying leaves. It’s so much more comfortable than your bed was, even with the rain. Susie watches you and grins. Huh. She does that a lot, doesn’t she? “You better not have snuck out just so you could pass out on me, dude. If you fall asleep I’m gonna draw, like, a billion dicks on your face in sharpie.” You cross your arms and sit up straight, because in no way are you willing to let her adorn your visage in crude depictions of genitalia. Also, you don’t want her to think you are lame. “Heh. Yeah, you better wake up. No rest 'til we survive the festival, got it?”
The…? Oh. Wait. That’s right. The festival. Wow. You almost-
“Don’t tell me,” Susie says, interrupting your train of thought. “You forgot.” Well… you can’t exactly deny it. “Figures. Honestly, it slipped my mind for a bit there too. Kinda hard to keep track of what’s going on in this world after we spent all day trying to keep shit from falling apart in another.” Except shit came very, very close to falling apart in this world, too. If things had gone differently at Noelle’s house, who knows what might have happened? “Man, Kris, how did we even get here? I was finally starting to feel like I had a handle on this whole legendary hero business, and now... now, I don’t know. Like, I know Ralsei said from the jump that we’re supposed to save the world, but I didn’t… I had no idea…” She stops, having run out of words. Not that you actually need to hear them. You know what it is she’s trying to say: she didn't know things were going to get this crazy.
Honestly, neither did you. Yes, it’s true—you’ve technically known all along what it is that’s at stake. In fact, you probably know that better than anyone else in existence. Would you be putting yourself through all this if you didn’t? You know, you’ve known this entire time, but still… when you saw the knight’s sword sink into the ground and watched as the sky flooded with a black darker than any night, you realized that you didn’t understand a thing. Not until you stared into the gaping maw of a titan could you begin to comprehend how much hangs in the balance; not until that moment could you truly grasp what your failure might entail. It’s all so much worse than you could have possibly imagined.
It draws quiet again. This seems to make Susie… itchy. “Whatever,” she declares, anger flaring like she’s face to face with an enemy. “Dunno know what I’m acting all surprised for. I should’ve known things were gonna get stupid the second I let you and Ralsei convince me to give the whole ‘LeT’s bE GoOd GuYs!’ thing a shot. Who could’ve guessed that would come back to bite me in the ass...” The way she makes a big show of rolling her eyes lets you know that her griping is approximately 90% sarcasm. “Seriously though,” she adds, and the bluster seems to drain back out of her. “You ever notice how trying to do the right thing just makes everything worse?”
You wish you could say that no, you haven’t. But you have. You try, and you try, and you try to do what’s best... but it only ever seems to make the situation spiral that much further out of your control.
You never learn, do you?
“Actually? Forget I said that,” Susie says, shaking her head furiously. “The hell am I talking about? We don’t have time to throw some lame-ass pity party; not while there’s still bad guys who need their shit kicked in. In fact, next time we run into that knight guy? Psh. It’s over. I mean, this is us we’re talking about here. No one messes with me unless they want to get ripped to shreds. And, I gotta admit, you’re no pushover either, Kris.” The compliment comes with a punch to the shoulder. Your face feels warm all of a sudden. “Plus, if that’s not enough, we got Ralsei to back us up, along with everyone else back h–”
For whatever reason, Susie hesitates. When you look over at her and try to figure out what caused her to falter, you find that she’s gone shy all of a sudden. Actually, interestingly enough, this has become an increasingly common sight over the past couple of days. If today’s events weren’t quite so heavy, you might find it kinda cute. Instead, it just makes you worried for her. Unease doesn’t look right on her.
“So. Uh. This is probably gonna sound stupid but…” She fidgets nervously as she talks. ”This weird thing happened earlier. After we wrapped up dark world number three in the church. We were walking through town, during the break in the rain, and I thought to myself: ‘Man, I can’t wait to finally go home.’” But she didn’t do that, did she? She went and stood outside of yours, instead. “And that wasn’t the only time, either. Like after the knight totally wiped the floor with us. Or when I thought the old man had gone all psycho killer on me. And half a dozen other times besides.” A handful of grass is ripped out of the ground and discarded, thoughtlessly. “Dunno why, but I just keep finding myself getting all antsy about… you know. Going home.” She grimaces. “I never used to think like that, Kris. Like, literally. Never. I don’t know how to feel about it, either. It probably doesn’t mean anything, anyway, right? I mean, the past couple of days have been freakin’ crazy, so who cares. But at the same time… it’s just bothering me, I guess. I don’t know.” It really is bothering her—you can see it in the furrow of her brow, in the heaviness of her shoulders. “I don’t know, Kris.”
You might not know Susie well enough to think this—not really, not when you’ve only spent a total of three days with her viewing you as anything other than a human-shaped punching bag—but you find yourself wondering if the reason it's bothering her so much is because she’s never really had a home before.
It hasn’t escaped your attention, by the way. How Susie's always grumbling about skipping this or that meal, or the way she balks at the mere notion of parental supervision, or how she starts walking three steps behind anytime you get too close to the apartment complex at the far edge of town—you notice it. You notice it, and you do absolutely nothing about it—it’s never occurred to you to so much as sit your friend down and ask if everything’s alright, if she needs to tell you something, if she feels safe. Why bother? Even if she didn’t blow up at you for asking, it’s not like you’d be of any help to her. Even if you tried, you’d just fail. And Susie’s already been failed by too many people over the course of her life as it is.
You can’t understand what that feels like. Not personally, anyway. You grew up in a nice home, after all—you always had a roof over your head, and you always had food in your stomach, and you were constantly surrounded by people that tried their best to love you, even if they never quite managed to understand you. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. But it was yours, and it made you happy, more or less. Or, well, it used to make you happy, anyway. Back before everything slowly started to change...
As if on cue, the unmistakable sound of breaking glass cuts through your neighborhood.
Both you and Susie fall silent, stiff. You clench your fists. You brace yourself. You–
The encore arrives, as loud and as jarring as the original disruption: a pearl of far-off, hysterical laughter rolls through the night air.
The tension fades out of the both of you—someone inside must have just broken a wine glass or something. False alarm. Everything’s okay. Nothing’s wrong. No one’s invading your house. No one’s trying to take your mother away.
Except, that isn’t entirely true, now is it? It’s happening as we speak. Right now, right in front of you.
And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Susie looks at your house and frowns. She looks at you and frowns even harder. “Okay, look,” she says, at length. “I swear I'm not trying to blow up your spot, here. But .” She pauses, squinting her eyes, concentrating like she wishes she could practice saying this next sentence a few times in private before she commits to saying it out loud for real. She takes a deep breath and goes for it anyway. “Is everything… okay? Like, are you okay? With all this, I mean,” she clarifies, waving a hand at your house. “Seems like... I dunno. A lot.”
Your response comes to you automatically, a lightning-fast impulse. Yes, of course you are. That’s the only acceptable answer, isn’t it? It’s all you can do to look her in the eyes and feed her a lie. Yes, that’s right—another lie, just one of countless others, a big fat mountain of lies that you’d give (almost) anything to not have to tell. But what other choice do you have? You’ve gone this far down the rabbit hole, haven’t you? It’s not like you can just open your mouth and tell her, after all the things you’ve done behind her back, that you’re–
“No,” you hear, distantly. It takes you a second to recognize who’s saying it. You forget the sound of your own voice, sometimes. “I’m not.”
Damn it. The soul… it’s always at the worst possible moment that you forget you’re not the one running the show. Sometimes, the stuff they make you do makes you want to scream. Ah, but if only you could!
“Yeah?” Susie says, with a wobbly smile. Weird. It’s weird. “Well, that’s a relief. Good to know I’m not the only one.” So, so weird. She shouldn’t be doing that, shouldn’t be reassuring you—you, of all people. Not after a day like today, not after you did what you did when she wasn’t looking. “And, uh, since we’re all being honest here...” Except you’ve never been honest, have you? Not with her, and not with anyone else. Can you think of a single person in your life you aren’t currently deceiving, Kris? “There’s something that I’ve been meaning to say to you for a while now. About before. When… we weren’t quite friends yet.” She sounds guilty. Like that should have never have been the case. But that’s not her fault. She didn’t have any reason to be your friend yet. Actually, come to think of it, she still doesn’t. “I was… pretty shitty, back then. To you, I mean.” Susie takes a deep breath and sits up straight, but doesn’t seem able to meet your eyes when she says, “I’m sorry, Kris.”
What? You deserved it though. You did. She shouldn’t–
“Shut up, dumbass, I’m not done yet.” You question it for a second, but no: you’re certain you didn’t say a thing. Maybe she can read your mind? You think that would really suck for her, if it were true. “Don’t you wanna know the most embarrassing part? Well, buckle up, cause here it is: I only ever acted like that because I was jealous of you.” She’s apparently able to meet your gaze again, judging by the toothy grin she’s aiming in your direction. “That the lamest shit you’ve ever heard in your life, or what? Boo freakin’ hoo, how come they get a perfect family and I don’t?” She pretends to gag. “Bleugh. Gross. God, I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and kick my own ass.” You figure it’s a good thing she doesn’t, then. You can think of several better uses for a time machine than that. “And besides,” she says, casting an odd look over in your direction—one that’s sad, and soft, and sympathetic. “The grass isn’t all that greener on the other side of the fence, is it?”
You don’t answer. You don’t know how to answer. Yes, it’s true that the grass on your side of the fence is pretty damn brown… but even if you could tell her why that is, how would you say it? Explaining yourself is complicated. Nodding your head is simple. So you do that, instead.
Susie nods in return. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s like… there was this thing that Alphys made us read in class once, on one of the days I actually bothered to show up. A poem or something? Who cares, doesn’t matter.” Uh? Is Susie seriously trying to discuss poetry with you? Geez, she must have really been going through it for the hour or so you left her out here on her own. “Point is, it went somethin’ like… ‘it’s better to have had something and lost it, than to not have had it in the first place.’” She waits for your reaction. You blink at her. “Yeah, exactly ,” she responds, excitedly. This is apparently something that she has big opinions about. “That’s what I thought too! Like, what kinda garbage is that? Obviously, it’s way less painful the other way around, right? Like, think about it for a second: if you’re just gonna wind up with nothing in the end either way, then wouldn’t you rather…?”
You duck your head. Perfect, this is just what you needed—another thing you don’t have the words to explain to her. Explain to her how, yes, you actually would rather, as a matter of fact. Because it’s better to wake up in the small hours of the morning and stare up at the ceiling of your bedroom, remembering the way the smell of your mother’s cooking and the sound of your neighbor’s laughter would snake its way up the stairs. It’s not a question in your mind—there’s no world in which you’d rather not allow yourself to feel it. It’s worth it—to hurt, to ache, to shuffle your way through this world wanting without end. You believe this fiercely, sincerely, with all of your meager being: anything is better than nothing at all. If the steady beat of the heart in your chest isn’t proof of exactly that, then what is?
…Still. Even if you possessed the words you needed to answer her, you don’t think you could bring yourself to tell Susie that she’s wrong.
For a while, the entire world is calm. Even the commotion in your house appears to have, at long last, died down—the lights have all been switched off, but you haven’t seen anybody leave. “Hm,” Susie mutters, and you wonder if she hasn’t reached the exact same conclusion as you. “Well, Kris. You wanna know what I think?” You get the big toothy grin again, the one that tells you that, whatever comes out of Susie’s mouth next, it's meant entirely out of kindness. “I think… that the two of us have way too much in common.”
You don’t, though, don’t you…? She’s a monster, and you’re not. She’s a good person, and you don’t think you’re one of those, either. Susie is loud, and funny, and courageous, and real … and you? Sometimes, you’re not even sure you still exist.
But, then again… the two of you are here, together, sneaking around in the dark long after midnight because you don’t really belong anywhere else. You’re alike in that, if nothing else. That’s gotta count for something—more than any of those other things you don’t have any control over, you think.
When Susie speaks again, it’s with a far off look in her eyes. “Y’know, I always figured I was someone who didn’t have anything worth losing, anyhow. And even the times I did have something, I was always just… waiting for it to eventually get ripped away. People come and go. Places come and go. And things? Psh. Forget it. Getting attached is a sucker’s game. At some point, you wise up and stop wasting so much time on wanting .” She stops, and then abruptly bursts into laughter. “Man, are you hearing this garbage? What am I, a monk!?”
You don’t like that she’s mocking herself, but you like that she seems a little less tense. If it could be like this all the time—if it was always just the two of you bumming around, trading jokes, sharing a laugh over the cosmic misfortunes that are your lives—then you think you might never feel like a freak again.
“This one time,” she says, still doubled over and trying to reign herself back in. “Oh, man, Kris, this one time…! So this was back when I was still living with my old man, right? So, like, a billion years ago, basically. But anyway, it was my birthday, right? And my old man, he doesn’t even come home until like, waaay after midnight, so it’s not even my birthday anymore anyway. But he busts in the front door like he’s the freakin’ kool-aid man, and he shouts, loud as hell, ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’” She’s smiling, still, as she works her way through her story, but it’s the toothy smile now. The dangerous one. The humor of the situation has vanished without a trace. “And just wait for this next part: you wanna hear what he got me for my ‘birthday present’?” She makes air quote motions with her fingers, big angry exaggerated ones. “A bottle. An empty goddamn bottle, Kris. Same one he’d been drinking out of all night. Ripped the label off it, and said it was a vase.” She snorts. “Gee, just what every seven year old kid wants for her birthday! Thanks, Dad.”
You remember how, earlier in the night, the heat of embarrassment had burned on the nape of your neck, watching your mom trip and fall onto the living room floor. You feel it again, even worse this time, now that you know what kind of memories it must have dug up for your friend. You were so happy, the first time Susie followed you home. Felt like you were actually capable of doing something halfway decent for her. Instead, you led her here. To this.
“And the stupidest part,” Susie continues, “the stupidest goddamn part, was that it wasn’t even like he was trying to be a shitty dad. He was actually kinda cool, for the most part, so long as he wasn’t… y’know. Loaded.” This part, you think you do understand. The first time you saw your family’s flaws, you rejected it, turned away from it, told yourself the good outweighed it 100 to 1, so it didn’t matter. Until the mirage shattered, and the cracks were all that you could see. “I actually did put it up in my room, too. Well, after I washed it out in the sink, anyway. God, that stuff reeks ,” she says, grimacing for a moment, like she just caught a whiff of something sour and stale. “I went outside, picked a dandelion out of a crack in the sidewalk, and chucked the whole thing up on my windowsill. Didn’t look half bad either. I’d never really tried to decorate my own room before that, so I was… kinda proud of myself. I guess.” You can see fear flicker in her eyes, suddenly—the face of someone who just revealed more of their true self than they originally intended to. “Don’t you dare laugh, dammit.”
You aren’t. You wouldn’t, not at something so important to her.
It takes her a minute to decide that you aren’t about to ridicule her when she’s at her most vulnerable. “Whatever,” she declares, only a little sheepish for having snapped at you. “Point is… I don’t know. I don’t know what I was even trying to say,” she shrugs. “Doesn’t actually matter, does it?” You not sure what to say in response to that, but Susie’s stomach takes care of that problem for you, rumbling loud enough that neither of you can pretend to not have heard it. “Ugh, I’m starving. Kinda lost track of it, given, y’know, the billion other things that went down today, but I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. Well, that plus the juice at church, I guess.” Funny, the way time flows when you’re jumping in between worlds; this morning feels like it was a week ago. “Hey, maybe we can stop by the dark world tomorrow morning? Ralsei did say he was down to make us more cake.”
You think that’s not a bad idea, even if, as Susie must surely know by now, darkner food doesn’t actually do anything to quell a lightner’s hunger. In fact, now that you think about it, you’re pretty hungry too… despite what your Mom said, you didn’t find any leftover pancakes waiting in the fridge. Even if you had, you didn’t want to spend a single second longer downstairs, witnessing you know what, than you absolutely had to. Maybe you made a mistake coming home at all, and would have been better off sleeping in the bedrooms Ralsei went through the trouble of setting up for you. You know that food consumed over there doesn’t count, but does that mean sleep doesn’t work how it’s supposed to either? Hm. Would have been wise to have investigated that before. Regardless, it’s too late now—this late at night, the school is sure to be locked up tight.
No matter, you think, standing up and walking over to the side of your house. You’ve come up with at least one way you can make this night suck just a tiny bit less for the both of you. The rose you dug out of your pocket this afternoon, standing outside of Noelle’s house—it didn’t seem like it was the best thing Susie had ever eaten in her life, but it did the job in a pinch. And, in a rare stroke of luck, you know exactly where you can find more.
“Uh, where are you–” Susie calls from behind you, still sitting on the curb. You pull up the lid on the big outdoor trash can, the one that thankfully doesn’t get picked up until the day after tomorrow, and she figures it out. “Oh! Hell yeah, Kris, nice. I’m always down for some dumpster diving. What’s the deal, you see anything good in there?” As a matter of fact, you do—a big, fat, bouquet of flowers is sitting there, in near mint condition, right on top of the rest of the garbage. These ones are… hyacinths, you think? Whatever they are, you hope they taste at least as good as roses… although, given the way Susie ruthlessly devours any semi-edible object she can get her hands on, you doubt she’ll have a preference. And to think, if someone had told you, months ago, as you hid in the restroom and ran the water in the sink in an attempt to drown out the shouting coming from the living room, that something good might actually come from your parents separation… Well, you probably wouldn’t have had any reaction at all, honestly. Emoting has never been one of your strong suits. And that was the case long before you developed certain… complications with the concept of bodily autonomy.
Nevertheless: a win is a win. Even if one of still you has to spend the rest of the night trying to ignore the gnawing of an empty stomach, you’re at least relieved it won’t have to be Susie. So you’re feeling a touch of gratitude, if nothing else, as you extend your hand towards the trash can…
…which slowly morphs into confusion, as it ignores the flowers and buries itself in the heap of garbage, moving about independently, digging through the filth determinedly, like a dog that’s picked up a scent…
…and finally, at last, contorting into full blown panic as it emerges from the refuse, holding on tight to an empty glass bottle.
Fuck. It’s mocking her. The thing pushing your buttons, flipping your switch… you can’t quite tell what its intentions are, what with the way you’ve spent the last couple days trapped behind your own eyes, but, sometimes, you wonder if it might not like her. Or, no, that’s not quite right, is it? It’s more like… like it wants her to not like you. It hasn’t done anything too brazen towards her—it’s never outright tried to make you harm her, at least. But, every now and then, it’ll do these little, weird, passive aggressive things… things that would drive you up the wall if someone were doing them to you. It made her wear a bow earlier, in the video game thing, when she already said that she hated wearing stuff like that. And it kept trying to open the drawer in your house and show her the book with all those drawings in them, like some kind of pervert. And then, worst of all, it kept hinting that she should find someone else to go to the festival with, when she really doesn’t need to do that at all—you’d be more than happy to go with her! It’s like it’s trying to get back at her for you or something; like it thinks you want to be the bully for a change. But you don’t. You don’t hold any of that stuff that happened in the past against her.
You just like Susie.
That’s all.
Susie, who is, by the way, currently staring blankly up at you from her spot on the curb. You figure she must be deliberating on how to best go about the task of disemboweling you. You can’t blame her. But you can blame the being that instructed your body to walk right up to her and shove a hastily reconstructed symbolic manifestation of her broken childhood into her face. Why not just go ahead and point and laugh and call her names, too, while you’re at it? Tell her she’s an idiot for opening up to you; tell her she’s wrong for seeing something kindred in you, for thinking she can trust you.
Because, quite frankly, she is .
And because this world is unfair, and because it’s never quite that easy, you don’t get the punch to the face that you most certainly deserve—you get something else entirely. Susie smirks, and scoffs, and finally says, in an extremely sarcastic and drawn out fashion: “Dude. Gaaaaaaay .”
She takes the stupid thing out of your hand gingerly, like it’s something worthy of care, and you think about Ralsei. Ralsei, grimacing, shaking, blood smeared into his fur, staring down the barrel of unconditional forgiveness as though it were a loaded gun. You wonder which of the two of you currently holds the record for Most Lies Spoken Directly To Your Mutual Friend’s Face. Just kidding! You don’t actually wonder that. There’s no contest—that title undoubtedly belongs to you.
“You’re a huge dork,” Susie observes as she turns the trinket around in her hands, studying it. “You know that, right? Like, I’m talking end-stage, terminal lameness. I think doctors are supposed to offer to euthanize you for this sort of thing.” She smiles at you again. What does she keep doing that? “Seriously though. This is, like, nice of you, and all. But what the hell am I supposed to do with this thing? I mean, I guess I could put it in my room? There’s some room on the nightstand, I’m pretty sure, so, maybe there…?” This idea is pondered very seriously for a second, before being dismissed with a shake of her head. “Nah, better not. If I take it there, it might turn into something weird.” She scrunches up her nose. “I think I’m good without a talking flower or whatever for a roommate.”
She’s talking about her room in the dark world, you realize. Seems you’re not the only one who wishes they were spending the night on that side of the veil. Then again, that’s not so surprising, is it? Susie had jumped at the idea of living there full time, back when Noelle and Berdly suggested it, before Ralsei bit the bullet for the both of you and explained exactly why that could never, ever be the case. Oh, but it was a pleasant thought, wasn’t it? You can’t blame any of them for wanting it, in their ignorance—for yearning to leave all the rough edges of reality behind and sublimate permanently into fantasy. There’s no use trying to hide it: a naive, childish part of you can’t help but yearn for the same.
“Tell ya what,” Susie says, returning your unintended gift back to you, “how about you hold onto this for me ‘til I come up with a good enough spot for it?” Strange. When you handed this to her, it felt like a piece of trash. When she places it back in your hands, you find it feels like the exact opposite. “And don’t try and tell me you don’t have the room for it. I saw your room earlier, remember? Looked like a damn jail cell in there, dude, same as Ralsei’s.” Her face scrunches up in annoyance. “Great, now I’m gonna have to work double time to scrounge up enough spare furniture ‘n junk for the both of you...”
And isn’t that just the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? And doesn’t it just tear your heart into tiny little bits? You don’t have a single nice thing in your entire life, Kris—and for that matter, neither does she. But here she is anyway, working against all odds to come up with something, anything, to offer you. Your own powerlessness has never troubled you as much as it does in this particular moment, thinking about all the ways Susie deserves better than what this world has deigned to give her… specifically, how she deserves better than you.
“On that note… it’s probably about time I split, huh? You too—stay out here much longer, and the neighbors’ll sic the cops on you for trespassing on your own property. Or, well, I guess they would call the cops if the cops weren’t…” Her sentence trails off. She doesn’t want to finish it. Neither do you. “Look, you know what I mean. Just try and get some sleep already, got it? Shouldn’t be a problem now that the party’s over.” Distantly, you wonder if this is the real reason Susie stuck around all night. You’d assumed it was because she was worried about Toriel’s safety… but perhaps she was concerned about you, instead. How do you feel about that? Guilt, yes, obviously. You reflexively feel guilty about nearly everything and everyone present (and not present) in your life as it is now. But maybe you feel something else, too. Something small, and warm, and new. “I’ll see you in the morning, alright?” She plops a big clawed hand on the top of your head and ruffles your hair for all it’s worth. Feels like every bad, broken part of you is being turned upside down and emptied out in the chaos. If you closed your eyes, you think you could catch of glimpse of it—of all your sins, floating away in the breeze. “See you tomorrow—bright ‘n early ‘n ready to save the world!”
You nod in agreement.
You watch Susie leave.
You’re not entirely sure where she’s going.
You stand there, all alone on the sidewalk, and you think about her.
You think about her for a long, long time.
But, eventually, you can’t avoid it any longer. Your movements as you claw your way up the side of your house are slow, methodical—you’re hauling precious cargo this time, after all. You place the bottle on the shelf above your bed, right next to the little plastic star that wasn’t there this morning. You think about what you ought to call it. Seems odd that the Susie Award should have a name while this goes untitled, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s not that odd at all. Maybe you’re just a gigantic weirdo that always had a penchant for humanizing things that don’t warrant such treatment. Maybe you’re just insane, Kris.
A noise catches your attention in the otherwise empty void of your bedroom. It’s so slight you almost tune it out entirely, but you’ve been tending to it’s beck and call for so long you’re unnaturally drawn to it, like a moth to flame. “The soul,” crackles your cell phone from its position, discarded (but never forgotten) on your bedroom floor. You sit down on your bed and listen to it, because you don’t know how to do anything else. “The soul,” it repeats. “The soul.” You let the familiar din wash over you.
The soul. The soul.
The soul…
The sensation of your heart pounding against the walls of your chest causes you to snap awake. You fell asleep with it still inside of you… something you do your best to avoid, whenever possible. You rip the alien thing out of you, intending to toss it across the room, only to hesitate halfway through the motion. It takes you a moment to figure out why... but, eventually, it hits you. It’s the other part of your room that’s changed since you woke up this morning, since the world shifted beneath your very feet: the bloodstain in the corner of your room.
It’s gone.
“Holy crap,” Susie had exclaimed, upon getting a closer look at it. “How long has this been here?” She’d complained about it after the fact, but she took her time cleaning it, making sure she worked as much of the rust-colored blotch out of the carpet as she could. “I can’t believe you’ve been letting your… whatever-it-is you keep in here… sleep next to this literal biohazard, Kris. Much less yourself! I mean, I’m not saying you can’t let your room get a little messy now and then, but c’mon. You can’t let this place turn into a dump.” She played the whole thing off as no big deal, because she’s Susie, and that’s just how she is… but for a brief moment, you caught a glimpse of the truth—you made her sad. “No one deserves to live like that.”
No one, she’d said. The thing you’re clutching in your fist… you suppose it must also count as someone. No, you’re certain that it does—if it didn’t, then you wouldn’t turn into someone else entirely when you put it inside of you. It makes friends for you, fights battles for you… it does things you would never think to do on your own. By yourself, you’re weak, fragile—would you even still be here, amongst the waking world, without it? You wouldn’t. You know you wouldn’t. The story would have ended before it even started. And it wouldn’t have been a particularly happy ending, either.
You don’t know what kind of ending you’re heading towards, now, under the influence of the soul. To hear Ralsei tell it, it might not actually be any different than the one you were heading towards before. What’s meant to happen will happen—that’s what he told you. You have no reason to think that he’s wrong. You read the words fate itself etched into glass; you felt the weight of them, the finality of the truth they represented. You know that the prophecy is real.
But you’ve seen other things, too. Things the prophecy didn’t bother to mention. Things that didn’t matter, but made all the difference. You watched enemies be transformed into allies. You found light shining in places where it wasn’t supposed to be. You saw Susie smile, and smile, and smile yet again.
Most importantly: you looked at yourself in the mirror, and the person you saw standing there was complete.
You couldn’t believe it. For a moment, you thought you were still dreaming—but no. It was real. And to think: if something inside you hadn’t stopped you as you walked down that hallway, forced your head to the side, commanded your gaze to connect with your reflection… you might have missed it. You might have continued on with the rest of your life, never having known how it felt.
How are you supposed to repay the soul for something as significant as that…? If you thought you had nothing to offer Susie, you think you might have even less to offer them. You wouldn’t even allow yourself to think of them as a person, until now. Just look at the way you’ve been talking about them this whole time—calling them names like creature, or thing, or it... Names that others have called you, in an attempt to hurt you. Names that you’ve called yourself, in an attempt to do the same. You’ve been a poor host, haven’t you? You don’t know a thing about your guest, even though they’ve done so much for you. Their name, their hopes, their dreams, their likes, their fears… they must surely possess all of these things, but you lack any way of finding out what they are. What can you do for someone whom you understand so little? What can you offer to a friend who also happens to be a stranger? What do you have that’s truthfully yours to give?
“Cage,” whispers the voice on the other end of the phone.
Your eyes droop closed; you nod your head in a daze. They’re right. They’re completely, utterly right. Just like they always, always, always are.
All you have to offer is a cage.
All you have to offer is yourself.
When you place the soul back into your chest, you do so softly, gently—a tentative effort to try and make up for all the previous times you yanked it out of you in a fit of violence. You’re exhausted, the weight of a particularly long and grueling day finally taking its toll on you, and you can barely stay awake long enough to crawl your way under the sheets. Still, even as you drift off, you think you can sense something different about the way the soul settles into your chest cavity… maybe it’s just the sleep-deprivation talking, but you swear you can feel it making itself at home in there. And, alongside that, another feeling, one you hold on tight to as you fade into blissful unconsciousness:
A tiny spark of hope that, this time, what you’re giving might actually be enough.