Chapter Text
Every day was the same.
December Holiday groaned as she pulled herself out of bed at the ripe hour of one in the afternoon. She grumbled at the clock on her bedside table.
Looks like another day of being denied an easy, peaceful death in her sleep.
She threw on the first set of clothes she could reach, a band shirt, an old jacket, and a pair of torn jeans. The colors didn’t match at all, but she was beyond caring about that sort of thing.
She pocketed her phone and wallet and went to leave, but nearly stepped into a plate of eggs left at her door. She sighed, and bent down to pick it up and start digging into it. They were cold by now, but food was food.
Noelle, bless her heart, still cared enough to leave meals at Dess’s door. The least the elder sister could do was eat it.
After scarfing it down and leaving the dishes in the sink, and swiping a bottle of beer from the fridge, Dess left the Holiday manor. Mom was at work, still, and it was the weekend, so Noelle was probably hanging out with that friend of hers, Susan or something. Dess met her a couple times, and she seemed alright, if a bit rough around the edges, but she was happy that Noelle was making friends either way.
She didn’t deserve to drown in misery forever. That was Dess’s job.
With nothing to do, like usual, Dess made her way to the lake. She passed by Asgore’s flower shop, but kept her head down, not wanting to catch a glimpse of the man inside, or vice versa.
She didn’t need any more reminders of her mistake.
At the water’s edge, Dess sat down in her usual spot, and simply stared into the depths.
It wasn’t long before memories of that night began to creep up, but she had something to help with that.
She popped the lid off the beer and took a deep swig, followed by reaching into her pockets. She sighed in relief when she found that she still had some of those “special leaves” on hand.
A few flicks of her lighter later, and Dess let the substances cloud her mind, thankful for the fog they gave. She wanted to forget, to simply exist without thoughts for a while, and this always did the trick.
She finished off the bottle, then haphazardly threw it towards the nearest trash can. It clinked off the side, but she just shrugged. She’d pick it up when she left, once the high wore off.
And so, December Holiday let herself fall to the dirt, staring up into the cloudy sky, not a thought in her head. It was what she did most days, recently, if the weather was clear.
In the past, there was a time when she was more… “proactive” in her pain. Spending time crawling through the woods, looking through every document in the local church, even breaking into the police station on one occasion to steal a look at what information they had on a particular missing child case. But alas, none of it ever got her closer to undoing what had happened.
None of it brought them back.
Her breathing was steady, watching the clouds slowly drift across the sky. She always knew that, if she really wanted to end the pain of remembering, the guilt of what happened that night, there were more… permanent solutions available to her.
Hell, one of them was just a few feet in front of her.
Yet, she never could take that final step. Maybe it was even more guilt for what that would do to her already-strained family. Maybe it was pure cowardice. Maybe it was spite, just to make sure those few people who wished such a fate upon her wouldn’t get what they wanted, even if she might’ve deserved it.
Or, maybe it was the tiniest glimmer of hope in her heart that told her it wasn’t too late to fix this.
In her initial attempts to right her wrong, she of course read up on the prophecy of the Delta Rune. It was only what their entire religion was built around, after all, it wasn’t hard to find. Normally, she wouldn’t bother looking into holy texts like that for answers, but after what she saw… After what took them away…
Some of those words seemed disturbingly relevant.
But still, even that was a dead end. Even if she wanted to try and follow what the prophecy said, even just to get more answers, she was alone. And the prophecy called for three.
Even if she managed to convince some of the people around town to help her, which was already unlikely given her reputation, none of them filled a certain criteria.
She needed to find a human. Another human. Just like they were.
Footsteps approached from inland. Dess leaned her head back on reflex, to see who was joining her.
And then she froze, and stared.
It wasn’t anyone they recognized. Grey clothes, rather pale skin, dark hair that covered their eyes…
In her substance-addled mind, for a split second, Dess thought she was once again looking at Kris Dreemurr, and she was paralyzed with fear.
Whoever they were, they simply tilted their head at Dess’s reaction. They walked up and said… something, but the dull ringing in her ears prevented her from hearing it. After a couple more attempts, the figure shrugged, then left, walking back into town.
It was only once they were out of sight that Dess felt herself breathe again, the shock instantly erasing most of the fog from her brain.
That… it wasn’t Kris, she was sure of that much. There were too many small details that didn’t quite line up the more she thought about them.
But it was a human.
Dess scrambled to her hooves to try and chase them down, but they had already vanished from sight, going somewhere else in town.
She took a few deep breaths to steady herself, then started to think of a plan.
They must be new in town, because she definitely would’ve heard about another human in Hometown otherwise. They seemed to be about Noelle’s age, too.
Her phone buzzed. She checked it to see another text from Mom, once again trying to check and see if she was doing alright. Dess rolled her eyes and sent back the same lie as always: “I’m fine.”
Dess didn’t want to scour the town for that human, lest she draw Undyne’s ire again. She was already on thin ice with the cop, given her habits. The only thing that kept her out of a cell was being a daughter of the mayor, and outright pity.
Thankfully, tomorrow was a school day. She could simply stop by after class let out, under the guise of going to see Noelle, and talk to the human there. She wasn’t sure how exactly she’d convince them to help, or even how they could help her, but at the moment, it was the only idea she had.
Dess took one last look at the lake, then began walking back home.
For the first time since that night, she had a reason to wake up the next day.