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Sealing fountains was nothing to them.
Go in, recruit some suckers, find the fountain, seal it, and leave. Same process every time. It was busy work at this point.
...
But this wasn't the same.
This wasn't the same event with a new coat of paint like all the other dark worlds they'd been to. This wasn't Kris banishing the fountain so they could both go home and rot away on their couch.
There was no light. There was no human soul radiating out of Kris' chest, searing blood-red against blacker-than-black. There was no blinding glow as the fountain melted away, disintegrating and taking the world with it and leaving nothing behind.
There was no wind. There were no stars. There were no people.
This wasn't the same.
This was wrong.
Susie didn't know what happened. Everything had been fine. Everything had been normal. Good, even.
They'd begun to seal the fountain, she knew that much. Kris had led them to it. Ralsei had stayed behind like he always did and they'd gone in to do the routine sealing. That's when it got blurry.
Something had gone wrong. She remembered the Knight appearing... that's what she thought at least. Recalling anything from the past however-long was like making shapes out of ripples in a lake. But her best recollection was the Knight.
It had come from above at first. Descended from infinity, brandishing its swords. Kris had brandished theirs in response. Susie backed them with her axe.
Not that it had mattered.
The last thing she could piece together was swords. Black, yet still glowing, seeping with darkness, swords. Not just one. Not just two. Not even ten. Not even twenty.
Hundreds of thousands of swords.
They fired from the sky...
In the brightest light she'd ever seen...
There was a flash of red...
And an ear-splitting crack...
And that was all she knew.
...
Susie's body ached.
She had come to about a minute ago, lying flat on her back sprawled out across the ground. The deep, muted indigo ground, made of something resembling cold stone but different in a way she couldn't quite describe. She had no clue how long she'd been unconscious. Could've been seconds, or minutes, or hours--hell, it could've been days. Though it was hard to focus on the time when her entire body was dripping with low, burning pain. Like every inch of her had been hit with a massive rock and the impact had seeped into her very core.
The dark world - the flower shop - was gone. The fountain was extinguished... but not entirely. The interruption halfway through the sealing had left the ebbing pillar of darkness reduced to a wisp of charcoal smoke, spiraling wildly around as if trying to regain its former glory. It left a smattering of black in a halo around itself, staining the Earth with its haphazard movements.
Smoke. That's what the air smelled like. Smoke and rain and blood and death.
She kept there for a while, then a while more. She was hoping the pain would subside if she stayed still long enough, but it didn't. It didn't increase, didn't decrease, just stayed the same. Lingered.
So she laid there, burning.
But she could only stay burning for so long before she needed to get up. So that's what she did.
The act of standing was a feat considering her legs held the worst of the pain. She rocked herself to her side, then all fours, then her knees, and lifted herself up with gritted teeth, letting out a sore grunt as her calves painfully bore her weight.
Finally on her feet, she stretched her arms and back, and finally got a good look at the remnants of the dark world. It was... almost nothing. An almost-flat plane of that same indigo stone sitting atop an endless ocean of pure black and beneath a sky that looked the same. There was definitely a difference between the two, but Susie couldn't quite tell where the sea ended and the sky began. They blended together in eternal night.
Susie's eyes widened, just a little. She stared for a bit, entranced by the infinity, until she turned her focus to the rock. She pulled back one aching leg and kicked the ground, knocking up a storm of muted dust and breaking a small piece of rock away from the mass with the metal platforms of her boots. She picked it up, turning it in her hands, then chucked it into the sea.
The rock made no sound. It made no scene with itself. It simply sunk into the abyss, silently slipping into the nothing.
And then it was gone.
Susie stood there, watching.
The black was still. Unmoving. Unwavering. And yet, she swore she saw it moving. Ebbing. Throbbing with darkness. The sky remained motionless, and yet, she watched it stir. The sea remained static, and yet, she saw it drifting.
The more she watched, the more she thought. What the hell had happened? She remembered the Knight, the swords, the light, Kris'--
...
Kris.
"Shit," Susie exclaimed, panic crashing into her chest. She spun around, eyes wide, scanning the island for any sign of them. She began storming towards the middle, platform boots stomping and kicking up dust behind her steps.
"Kris?!" She cried out, still searching for her teammate. "Kris, where the hell are you?!"
She looked over the plane once, then twice, and nothing. Kris wasn't there.
Susie exhaled, chest shaking more than she'd like to admit. If Kris wasn't here, if they weren't anywhere, then...
"Goddammit, Kris..." She grit her teeth as she looked over a third time. "You better not be-!"
Her breath hitched as she blinked, as if double-checking what she saw.
"what... is that...?"
"KRIS!"
Susie started running.
Running faster than she ever had.
With more meaning than she'd ever known.
Her legs, her body, her everything, was burning. Pleading. Begging for her to stop.
But she didn't.
She couldn't.
Her friend relied on it.
The ten seconds before she reached Kris were the longest ten seconds of her life. She'd had long nights, long minutes, long hours, but this... this was agony.
"Kris, just hang in there! I'm coming!"
It wasn't that Susie was slow. She was quite fast, actually. But this wasn't a matter of speed. She could've moved as fast as light itself and that still wouldn't be fast enough. She, for the first time in her life, wasn't fast enough.
Every step seemed to pull her backwards. Every time her boots pounded into the earth, Kris got farther and farther away. The infinity felt like it was closing on her, biting at her heels. Her muscles screamed in agony.
But she still couldn't stop.
So she didn't.
She kept running.
And running.
And running.
stomp.
stomp.
stomp.
skid.
Susie dug her heels into the rock and slid into a stop as the torment of the sprint came to a halt, bending down and planting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She'd reached them.
"Okay, I..." she started through panting breaths, "I'm here..."
"Okay, now I can just heal you." She said, reassuring herself more than she was Kris. Another shuddering exhale escaped her as she stood back up, glowing green magic starting to swirl around her fingertips as she straightened up and held her hand out towards...
"...! No-!"
Towards Kris.
Towards them.
And their body.
And their breathing.
And their blood.
Susie's entire body stuttered. Her eyes instinctively squinted, trying to spare themselves from the neon pink blood searing into her corneas, though she forced them back open soon enough.
It splattered outwards from the fountain in a messy 6-foot trail that lead to Kris's unconscious body, crumpled in on it's side like it'd been hurled from the fountain during whatever had happened. Their armor was mostly gone except for their shoulder plate, one boot, and a few pathetic remains of their chestplate that dangled off their torn undershirt. Leaning a bit closer, Susie could see that they were breathing, just barely, but they were.
She noticed that one of their arms had been pinned unnaturally under their body, bent back under their torso.
Susie regained her own composure and took a step forward, not resisting when her knees gave out under her. She just shifted closer to Kris. Magenta paws shakily reached out and grabbed their shoulder as she tilted her head downwards, trying to get a better look at the face hidden by loose navy bangs. She could see bruises, and the hot pink evidence of a nosebleed (possibly a mouthbleed too), but not much else.
She wanted to move their hair and check further, but she didn't. She couldn't face the risk of their skin being cold.
Gripping their shoulder just a little harder, just enough to steady her hand, she put her left paw on the back of their hair and flipped Kris on their back.
"Okay, now- !!!"
Susie ripped away from her teammate with widened eyes and a sharp inhale, fuchsia droplets flinging off her claws from the blood soaking through their sleeves.
Kris' head lolled to the side as their arms spread out and a barely noticeable breath lowered their chest as it left their lungs. Their right arm was fine--although the awkward swelling around their wrist made her think it was broken--but their left arm...
Their left arm was gone.
The stretch between their elbow and their (clearly dislocated) shoulder was intact, albeit bloody, but below that was nothing. Cut off right at the joint with an explosion of hot pink blood outwards from the severed point that left glowing stains on everything around it.
A metallic taste filled her mouth as Susie bit the inside of her lip, breathing becoming more and more stinted.
She couldn't heal this.
She could barely heal a basic scrape, minor sprains were still out of her league, and now she was up against a missing limb? There was no way. She couldn't fix this.
She couldn't fix this.
Her best friend was bleeding out.
And she couldn't.
Fix it.
She couldn't
Fix
Anything
She
Couldn't
She
Couldn't
She
Couldn't
Do
Anything.
...
Susie's hands fell to the dirt.
Her eyes sat open and wide, twitching a bit.
"Heh... I can't..."
Greasy mauve hair fell over her ears and face and filled her nose with the smell of smoke and ash.
"I can't help anything, can I...?"
Her head dropped. Yellowed teeth bared as her lips pulled back into a snarl, then a grimace, then shut themselves into a line.
"Heh.."
An inhale...
then a choked sob.
Susie curled in on herself, clawing at her chest in a desperate effort to stop the tears brimming in her eyes and blurring her vision. Her entire body shook with her breath, unstable and trembling, spawning pinpricks of purple-pink blood from under her fingertips.
"Hah... hh... ha..."
Something between a laugh and a sob escaped her as she curled up until her bangs touched the ground. Her shoulders relaxed, resting on her knees, leaving her arms and hands in between her legs, grasping at her collar in desperation. Teeth ground against themselves in pent up emotion.
She thought about getting up but that wouldn't do anything now. This was the best thing she could do.
Sit by herself and fall apart.
Like the failure she was.
All the times she'd messed up, all the times people had shunned her and whispered behind her back like she couldn't hear, all the things they'd called her, all of it replayed in her head over and over and over and over until she couldn't take it anymore. Until she was shaking harder than she knew was possible. Until she was pulling her own hair and sobbing.
"God-! ...Goddammit, I can't... I can never--! Agh! Why..."
Sentences all ran into each other as her voice became mixed with sobs.
It all just kept replaying over and over and getting louder and louder until it was too loud too loud TOO LOUD TOO LOUD TOO LOUD
...
Until it faded into quiet...
and her tears began to slow...
and one memory became clearer than all the rest.
"Okay, Susie, just like how I do it, see?"
"Yeah, yeah, right, now watch me crush you at this."
"Alright, just be careful and- GAH!"
"...Shit."
"O-Okay, how about next time we don't... um..."
"Explode the cotton candy stand?"
"Y-yes, that'd be nice."
"Guess I'm not a healer after all. Damn."
"W-Wait! Hold on a moment, let me show you again. Here, give me your hands."
"nah."
"But..."
"I tried it. Didn't work out. End of story."
"... Would you try again for a bite of my cotton candy?"
"Deal."
"Hah! You're so funny, Susie. Here, just me take your hands."
"Agh- okay, fine. Here."
"Alright. All you have to do is focus, imagine the spell in your mind, and..."
"--!! Woah."
"You did it! Good job Susie!"
"I actually... wait, what'd you say?"
"'Good job'? You did the healing spell right, after all! And only on your second try!"
"...I did, didn't I."
"Mhm!"
....'Good job'...
"Susie? Are you okay?"
"What? Huh? Oh. Yeah, I'm good."
"Oh. Um, okay. Well, that's how you do the healing spell, and the more you do it the better you'll get at it!"
"So one day I'll be better than you?"
"I suppose so."
"Sweet."
"Heh..."
"Alright c'mon. Let's go find Kris and Noelle. They're probably looking for us by now."
"W-wait, Susie, one more thing."
"What is it? We gotta go."
"I know, just... if you ever feel you've bitten off more than you can chew, then..."
"Spit it out, I don't got all day."
"...Then you can always ask for help."
...
Help.
The word rung out through the chaos in her skull like church bells cutting through the busyness of Hometown on Sunday mornings.
Asking for help wasn't something she did often. At least, not genuinely. She'd learned to only get help to make other people do things for her, not to get any real assistance. Even then, it was less 'asking' and more 'threatening'.
That was the one thing she'd learned to like about being the bully. Getting what she wanted.
But she had a hunch that threatening wouldn't do much for Kris right now.
Help. Who could she even go to for help right now? Ralsei? The school would be locked by the time they got out of this place, they couldn't get to him. Everyone in town would probably think she did this to them-- not that she trusted them for help anyways. Noelle was off the table for all sorts of reasons. She didn't even know where Berdly lived. Who the hell did that leave?
"... Toriel," she whispered, not meaning to say it out loud.
What if she wanted to know what happened?
She obviously would. Kris was nearly dead and down an arm. Everybody would have questions for her.
But questions were worth it, she supposed. And Toriel felt like the only person who wouldn't immediately blame her just because she showed up with Kris's body.
Not like it was the first time she'd lied before. She could come up with a cover for the dark worlds. But that was for later.
Toriel wouldn't be mad. She would understand. She had to understand.
If she didn't....
Susie took one more shuddering breath and sat up, brushing hair out of her face. Shifting her weight back, she straightened her posture, squinting and looking down before finally bracing herself and looking at Kris' body.
They seemed paler now. All throughout her breakdown they'd still been laying there unconscious and loosing blood, the tips of their dark blue hair being stained into a muddy, ugly purple and their remaining armor slick with the hot pink.
She couldn't stall for much longer before they bled too much to be saved.
Leaning forward, she moved to a kneel, then scooped up Kris by their neck and legs. They weren't cold, thank god. Not as warm as she'd have liked, though. All the more reason to get their asses out of here and fast.
She stood up with them, readjusted as to not hurt their neck, and started trudging towards the fountain remains.
Once again, she'd entered a state where every step felt like neverending agony. But this time it was different. Her legs felt fine enough; they'd had a moment of ease during her breakdown. No, this wasn't physical agony.
This was mental.
Every step she took was one step too far away from the fountain. Every time her foot planted there was a split second of near silence in which the only thing she could hear or feel was Kris. How cool they were getting. How limp they were. How their chest barely even moved when they breathed. She wanted to run again but she was afraid of hurting them further if she went too fast so she was stuck walking as swiftly as she could.
She noticed her breathing was getting so harsh and panicked that she could hear it over her footsteps. Over Kris. She made an effort to quiet herself, not because she cared about the noise, but because if something happened with Kris and she didn't notice she'd never forgive herself.
The chaos in her brain was slowly returning the more she walked. Her claws once again subconsciously tightened, threatening to puncture the soft skin of their throat. Her teeth ground against each other as she sped up, her footsteps heavier, her pace quickening.
stomp.
stomp.
stomp.
...
She stopped.
They were there.
Up close, the smoke pillar was larger than she'd thought. It was probably about as thick as her head and seemingly went up forever as it wildly spun around like it was being strangled. Smaller veins of void hovered above the column, floating up in a much calmer manner than the main body.
...
Now how the hell was she getting them both out of here?
Susie started to reason it out. It may be a really fucked up fountain, but it was still a fountain, so as long as she could seal it that should work. But how did she seal it?
When Kris did it, they sort of just stood there and closed their eyes and let their soul do all the work. Almost like their physical heart was driving towards the fountain with a purpose, detaching from their corporeal form and exploding into pure light that banished the fountain for good. She'd be blinded and then they'd both come to in the light world right where they'd entered.
Susie wanted to roll her eyes at the idea of standing there and trying to get them out of this shit with the power of friendship and believing in yourself or some crap like that, but she didn't have another choice. So she stood there, held her breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated.
"..."
"Alright, that's useless," She said out loud to nobody in particular. A total five seconds of believing had gotten them absolutely nowhere and she wasn't about to waste more time on the power of friendship.
"Maybe there's something you have to do...?" she muttered. But Kris never did anything. Not a word was spoken; not a muscle was moved. That couldn't be it.
Looking back down at the human, she chewed the inner tissue of her cheek, thinking. How did they do this?
If it wasn't because of thought, or action, or words...
Maybe it was just because.
Just because they were human, with a human body and soul. There was something special about that that let them seal fountains that monsters - and, by proxy, Susie - just didn't have. They didn't have a reason for being able to seal fountains, they just could.
"Fuck." She said flatly, staring back up at the fountain.
So they were both screwed then. She was stuck in a half-banished dark world with a fountain that looked almost like a feral cat and her only ticket out was currently dying in her arms. Not only that, but it had just occurred to her that the Knight could very well come back through the smoky pillar of doom and slice them into pieces right then and there.
Her lips sealed into a line as worry rose in her gut like a slowly growing fire. Steadied breaths became faster, shakier, off-balance.
Was this really it? Were they doomed? Was she destined to die here, alongside her friend, trapped in a place where they might never be found?
...
And it was just then...
..in that moment of fear...
that they woke up.
A choked gasp of pain exploded out of their mouth as Kris' entire body tensed, grimacing as their head curled back. Their hand gripped into a fist, which dug it's nails into Susies arm so hard she thought she might bleed.
"Jesus Christ-" Susie blurted out, stumbling back. "Kris?!"
Kris didn't respond. They just writhed in pain and grit their teeth.
"Okay, uh... shit- god your nails are sharp... " she stammered for a little bit until Kris kicked them.
"Ow! What the hell, dude?!"
They kicked her again and she held them further out so they couldn't attack her anymore. "Okay, fine, I-I'm gonna put you down."
She slowly lowered herself back to her knees and laid Kris down on the stone. They immediately rolled to their side, curling inwards around their severed arm and gripping their shoulder. Faint tears brimmed at their squeezed shut eyes.
Susie hovered over them, beginning to panic once again at their friend's agonized breathing. "Look, I-uh, I can find a way to get us out of here, just trust me and hold on-"
Reassuring them over and over again, more for herself than for Kris, she noticed her hands trembling, shoulders rising more and more with each breath she took. The words poured out of her mouth with no real intention on leading anywhere. She just wanted something, anything, to calm them down.
"I can find something-"
"I promise it'll be fine, I-'
"We'll get out of here and Toriel will- she'll help-"
"Please..."
"..."
Until finally...
after words upon words of disjointed comfort...
their breathing began to settle.
Kris' body eased, their grip on their bleeding limb softening, their curled up position loosening into something more comfortable. Their breath was normal now.
They were still.
Susie straightened, no longer looming over them.
"Kris...?"
They readjusted just a little, enough to once more obscure their eyes behind their bangs, and so they were more on their shoulder than on their side. Their remaining hand ever so slowly lifted off their wounded arm, steadily rising into the air until it was reaching straight up towards the fountain like they were reaching for it.
But they weren't reaching. Their hand wasn't. It was tightened, fingers curled in like claws.
Susie glanced at the fountain then back down at them. They were holding their breath now.
"Dude, you can't seal that, you're literally about to-"
"-!!!!"
And in one swift motion, like a hawk diving down to catch a rabbit, they swung their arm down into their chest. Hard.
"What the hell, Kris?!" Susie exclaimed, instinctively tugging on their arm to stop them.
But it didn't budge.
She tugged again. Harder.
Nothing.
Their arm was shaking.
They were shaking.
Susie leaned over them, about to ask if they needed help, but stopped halfway through the breath.
"Kris..."
"what did you do...?"
They hadn't hit their chest.
They'd stabbed it.
Kris' hand was submerged in between their ribs, piercing through their own skin and flesh like it was nothing but clay. Frayed threads around the hole left in their undershirt became saturated with blood, but...
not the blood from the stab.
No, that was the leftover blood on their hand from grabbing their shoulder.
ce
There was no blood staining their outfit. There was no blood at all. Their body left no trace of what they'd done.
Susie's breath ran cold.
of
"What..." She whispered.
She didn't have the time to finish her question. Not even her thought.
Because just as quickly as the action had happened, it was reversed. Kris ripped their hand from their chest in the same swooping motion, arm flying back out and cutting into the air-- not in yearning, but in triumph. Like they'd won a battle, despite being half-dead on the ground surrounded by the remnants of their loss. Their arm still shook, but less so, and differently somehow.
But while their trembling hand was somehow completely devoid of blood (outside of what was already there, which had mostly dripped off by now)... it wasn't empty. Far from it.
They were holding something.
A red, pulsating heart, glowing like burning red defiance.
This was their soul.
They'd ripped out their own soul.
Susie mouthed something, but words wouldn't form. She was in complete and utter shock at this point, frozen in place like a deer in headlights. So she stopped trying to speak. She just stared. At Kris. At their arm. At the soul in their hand, the spots on which Kris was digging into now dripping with something akin to blood, but not quite the same. Whatever it was, it glowed the same intense red as it's host, and dripped down their arm in veins.
Staring deeper into the crimson heart, she finally realized why their arm was shaking. It wasn't because they were in pain, or scared, or any other emotion. It was the soul.
It was moving on it's own.
Without even registering what she was doing, Susie skirted backwards on her knees in... something. A state of defense, maybe? She couldn't tell what had caused her to fling away like that, but she knew this wasn't right.
Souls didn't do that.
They couldn't move on their own. They weren't alive. They were just non-sentient culminations of people that had no feelings or free thought. This didn't happen. They didn't squirm in distress like this one was. They didn't do that. They couldn't do that.
...
Could they?
She wanted to ask but she was too enamored to do anything in the moment.
Kris' arm recoiled, bending behind their back with the rest of them accounting for the strain, and with as much force as possible, they flung the thing. Their body rocked forward as the soul was catapulted out of their hand and straight into the center of the fountain.
The heart soared through the air for about a second before it reached the pillar of black smoke, hovering in the center for just a moment.
Then it began to glow.
White, burning light, brighter than the sun itself, radiated off of the soul as it stood unwavering in the fountain. The light grew, swelling outwards until it began to encompass everything.
First the fountain.
Then the sky.
Then the sea.
And lastly, them.
Susie was used to the feeling of a fountain sealing. It was warm. Incredibly bright, painfully so, even, but warm nonetheless. And when that warmth finally began to wrap itself around her body, enveloping them both in blinding white, it felt better than anything ever had.
They were safe.
Finally, they were safe.
As her eyes were overtaken by the brightness, she had just enough time to look around and see everything around her fade away into the void. She saw the dust turn to nothing. She saw the smoke dissipate in real time. She saw the soul become further and further away until it was almost out of sight.
But last of all...
just before she closed her eyes and let the light take them home...
she saw Kris collapse.
...
When Susie came to, the first thing she felt was cold.
She was no longer on that stone, thank god. Never in her life had she been more happy to be laying on a patch of dirt. But compared to the nothingness of the dark worlds and the warmth of the soul's light, this ground was freezing.
She tugged her newly-returned coat closer to her body and opened her eyes, being met with the pitch black night sky with its stars and moon on full display. Petrichor filled her lungs, and she felt the worn denim of her old jeans hanging off her legs. She was, from what she could tell, outside of Flower King, judging by the faint sounds of the lake and the way trees framed her vision.
For a moment, just a moment, she stayed there, not quite remembering what was at stake. Her back was soaked now-- apparently she hadn't noticed the ground was still wet-- and if it was't for that she'd have probably already passed out then and there. She was exhausted, too exhausted to even know what was happening.
For a moment, at least. Then it came back.
And when it came back it hit her like a truck.
Susie catapulted herself up and spun around to find Kris. Thankfully, they were close this time, but they very clearly weren't okay.
Kris was face down sprawled out in the mud, reddish-brown stains soaking their way through their sweater. Their legs were limply dragging behind them, one straight and one bent, and one of their shoes was still missing.
As Susie's eyes trailed up their body, she silently hoped - prayed - that what'd happened to her friend in the dark world wouldn't carry over. That they would still have their arm. That their breathing would be normal, and they'd get up any second now and be unharmed, and they'd go home together, and everything would be fine.
But they weren't. She saw them and they weren't.
Kris' severed limb laid stiffly on the ground, still oozing whatever blood they had left. The burning pink was gone, though; now it was the same ugly red she was used to. Their other arm was stretched out in front of them, fingertips dug into the soil like they'd clawed themselves forward before they lost consciousness again.
Susie repositioned to face them from the front and grabbed them, pushing them up and back so they were sitting up. Their head fell down, leaving their bangs - which had returned to their usual reddish brown - to completely cover their face. She picked them up, moving so that her head leaned on her shoulder and she could hold them by their legs in a reverse piggyback of sorts, her lungs filling with the smell of blood and dirt and petrichor.
They were cold. Fuck.
Kris' arms fell limply at their sides, blood slowly dripping off and causing red streaks down her jeans. Not that she had the time or energy to care. She bet that she had just enough strength left over from her adrenaline high to get Kris home-- after that, she'd probably collapse. But that didn't matter. Kris did.
So she, for what she was noticing was a trend tonight, took off running.
The burning in her legs had seemingly disappeared. Actually... she couldn't feel them. She knew she was moving but for whatever reason her legs had no sensation. Maybe it was exhaustion, or stress, for maybe they hurt so bad she'd broken through the other side and couldn't feel anything.
However, as she sprinted through Hometown with Kris in tow, she could definitely still feel the effects of the night. Her lungs were tired. Her arms were sore from lugging Kris across town. Her nose burned from the metallic smell of blood, which was so strong she could taste it. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
Sweat and... water?
She thought she'd imagined it at first. Her mind was making things up to keep her alert. But there it was again. A cold droplet of water hitting her in the face.
Then her jacket.
Then her hand.
And before she knew it, it was raining.
'Of course,' she thought, 'Of course it's raining. Just what we need right now.' She leaned forwards a little, shielding Kris from it as the expense of her own already-wet clothes
But thankfully, the rain didn't matter too much, which was good because in about 30 seconds it was pouring down hard. It didn't matter, though, because they were there.
They were home.
Kris was home.
She looked down at them one last time, standing on Toriel's porch. They were still unconscious, still limp, but... something about them was different. She couldn't tell what. They had more red in them somehow? It didn't make any sense, they were losing blood, but they had some color back.
The rain slammed against her back as she stood there on the porch, shaking (both from the cold and the fear), bracing herself for whatever was about to happen.
Susie took a deep breath, paused one more time, and...
knock. knock. knock.
creeeaak...
"Oh my- Where have you two been?! I was worried sick- !!!"
"Kris?!"