Chapter Text
Susie created this odd new world.
Her resolve is pure; you know this, and have since she swore her friendship to Kris nights prior. She carved this world to life (crossing hope, finding love) and threw herself to its depths, searching for justice. Her friend’s mother is trapped. That’s the only reason she needs to keep going.
Kris leads. Ambivalent, as always, but that’s to be expected. You guide them through, lead them in the depths, push them to the heavens.
Together, Kris and Susie find the old man’s study.
The fire has run empty. In its place remains a stale glow, which offers no warmth. Kris lifts a hand to its light while Susie rambles.
“Hey, I was right!! It’s the old man’s study!” She rushes to the table, the books, the desk. “He must’ve been… leading us here, right?”
No. But Kris doesn’t say that, so you don’t say that.
They move onto the second floor, and still cannot find him. “Hey, Kris,” Susie says after a second, “you think he’d… want to come to our Castle Town?”
A broken log collapses, somewhere. It’s not that he wouldn’t want to, it’s that-
“I mean, obviously he would, right?” She chortles, lacing her fingers on the back of her hair, to shrug nonchalantly at the grave of a library. “Might mean… taking the hammer, but I’m sure he’d be cool with it though. Right?”
She’s optimistic. Kris wants to smile at it.
They guide Susie through the empty fireplace, deep into the archive behind its arch. Once bright embers fade like clouds.
“Damn, it’s dark in here…” Susie observes. That tone, ragged in her throat, brings a sense of comfort, warm as dying firewood.
His silhouette waits like a memory, hauling at nostalgia’s ache.
“Hey!” Susie shouts - but the call rattles him, and he rushes to the darkness. She whirls to Kris, quick as a blade. “C’mon, Kris! After him!”
They stride forward. Kris crosses each room into the next, feet steady against the oncoming darkness.
“Hey! Slow the hell down, old man!” Susie remains relentless. Susie carries hope. “We’re trying to talk to you!”
Hope’s light fades like a bygone memory. Time has caught them; Kris can hear Susie march closer, can feel her hand skim the edge of their guiding cloak.
“Damn, can’t see anything in here…” She says it aloud, more to herself than anything, and yet Kris does not relent.
You vaguely remember the way they would turn their ear at their mother’s repetitive reprimands, the way their head hung in shame, the way they pulled away from their mother's coddling. Perhaps, Susie’s obvious notations are different. Perhaps she is…
R I N G
The bell. That familiar, holy tone.
R I N G
“Hey Kris, wait a sec,” Susie’s whisper is warm on Kris’s hair. “Do you hear that noise…?”
R I N G
“Hear it.” Their answer is curt.
R I N G
“It sounds like it’s coming from…”
R I N G
“Right.”
“Yeah!” Susie’s voice flies. “It totally sounds like…”
R I N G
“Church bell.”
“Yeah, this way!”
She and Kris run together. Her joy is so pure; her song is so free. And, titans above, if that didn’t do anything to Kris, didn’t make their heart swell, didn’t weigh on their conscience-
v m m n
“Another noise…” hums Susie. “Sounded like it was coming from…”
v m m n
“Left.”
“Yeah! It totally sounds like…”
v m m n
“Violin.”
They keep going. There is nowhere else to follow.
v m m n
h n n n
“Hey! I heard something again!”
Her shout booms - then turns, lurching in the distance as Susie darts off. Days ago, she would have never held such vigor-
She coughs.
Kris stops in their tracks-
T H U D
A swollen heart lurches. Fear strikes in the dark.
“D-Damn it…” But her voice. Her voice.
“Kris, I slipped and fell down somewhere!” She’s shouting up; her tone echoes like the bells. “Stay there, ok? I’m gonna look for another way back…”
Not even her footsteps can climb their way to Kris.
Left in complete darkness… seems there’s nothing left to do. You settle back a little. Time will pass, and light will come; Susie’s persistence will make sure of that.
… Susie.
What an oddity, that girl. Mere days ago, she was nothing more than a brute bully - the violent tormenter of worlds beyond. Never has she been so persistent. Never has she been proactive.
What a visionary, that girl. It almost makes-
“Go.”
Their voice grips like their hand, trapping your body in steel fingers, prying you out in vengeful chains. You cannot see their face in the dark, but you know their rage. You know their venom.
“Go,” they say again, holding you to the darkness, “and do your fucking job.”
...
Left in complete darkness… Seems there’s nothing left Kris can do but close their eyes and think about how Susie is doing now.