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Every night was the same for Kris.
They would wake up, and nothing would be out of the ordinary. Toriel would call for them, letting them know that breakfast was ready and there for them whenever they wanted it; Kris had always been a heavy sleeper, and any attempt to purposefully wake them up usually ended in complete failure. But, from the moment Kris even attempted to move, they would come to a most terrifying realisation.
They weren’t in control of their own body.
No matter how much they tried to get up, to scream, thrash about and call for help, their body refused to follow their brain’s commands, staying as still and as cumbersome as it had been for the past.. eternity? Millennium, even? Time typically felt uncertain and strange when Kris wasn’t in the driver’s seat of their body.
That was another thing. This wasn’t a typical bout of sleep paralysis; far from it, in fact. Sleep paralysis itself felt like a divine blessing compared to the absolute hell that sleep imprisonment, as Kris had named it, often turned out to be.
Their body moved on their own, taking paces that weren’t theirs, venturing into places that Kris didn’t want to go to. Sometimes whoever was in control would end up spinning in circles around their room for god knows how long. Rarely, Kris, in the midst of their panic, would hear the faint, unclear garbles of an entertainer talking in overdramatic fashion to an invisible audience, as if playing up a performance for a pre-recorded show. Why did this ventriloquist find whatever was lying about in the drawers in their room more interesting than the pancakes waiting for them downstairs? Kris had never given anyone, let alone a seemingly omnipotent puppetmaster, permission to rummage through their own possessions. Yet, even in the face of such an obscene invasion of their own privacy, Kris was entirely powerless, unable to even lift a finger against the apparition possessing them.
The damned thing could even talk. By this point, they were often in class by now, the spirit talking to people it had met just seconds ago as if it had known them for decades. Masquerading as Kris, even though half of the words being forced through their mouth were things that Kris would never remotely dream of saying to anyone. At all.
But, even still… no matter how many times they pounded, kicked, screamed and swore, imprisoned in their own mind without trial, nothing happened. Everything they attempted was, ultimately, futile.
It never seemed to end. They would be commandeered into group projects, conversations with friends that they would never usually enter willingly, even venturing into Dark Worlds without a second thought, continuing with the same, terrifying business the ventriloquist would get up to in the light world. Blurting out things that made little sense. Hugging Ralsei for Kris - this, obviously, was one of the crueller acts of an already inhumane situation. Kris was supposed to be the one hugging Ralsei. The puppeteer’s hugs were nothing short of terrible; always cold, devoid of any real love or compassion for the poor, fluffy goat. The same could be said of the apparition’s interactions with Kris’ peers; always uttering the bare minimum, just enough so that the only difference their friends noticed was that they were more talkative than usual that day. Or less. That part was never consistent.
The ending was always the same, too. The ventriloquist would pilot Kris’ flesh and bones into their room, throwing them at full force into their bed. That was usually when Kris had their chance to resist; it took all of their energy, most of the time, but Kris would hastily be fighting with all their might to pick themself up from the bed, before promptly jamming a hand into their chest - which, without fail, always resulted in burning, searing, agonising pain, flooding their veins and assaulting their nerves like thousands of microscopic daggers - before they tore out what looked like their own heart. The way it wriggled and writhed in their own grasp always proved otherwise.
Into the cage it went. Without fail, every time. It was always satisfying to see the wretched thing fluttering in its newfound prison. Serves it right. Not so nice being on the other end of things, eh?
Unfortunately, this was the only thing resembling relief Kris ever felt in this dream. It was also the last shred of anything close to sanity their dream self would feel.
Kris almost never understood what seemed to come over them, but, without fail, within seconds of the soul being ripped out from its cage, Kris would almost always feel their mind being filled with the darkest of desires; urges which, normally, would sicken them to their stomach. Not here, however. In fact, they found it near impossible to resist whenever those ugly desires reared their heads.
Firstly, Kris would always slither out of their window like a serpent spotting its prey. This never seemed to alter in any variation of the nightmare. After that, it started to become a bit of a blur for them. But, from what they could gather from the fragmented excuses of memories they held… it was never pleasant. Not in the slightest.
Slashing Toriel’s tires. Planting explosives under the school and detonating them. Smothering Berdly in his sleep. Slipping cyanide in Alphys’ coffee. Sometimes they’d stab into the earth, again and again and again, invoking the dreaded Roaring far earlier than it was ever meant to happen, if at all - or merely triggering a catastrophic gas leak during their attempts instead. Other times, they would douse the whole of Hometown in kerosene and reduce it to nothing but dust, bones and ash. Or, maybe it wouldn’t be Hometown - perhaps it’d be Castle Town, instead. Every action they took led to destruction, devastation, and more death than they could ever have anticipated. Yet, they felt a twisted sort of desire towards it that they’d never experience in the waking world. They’d laugh with glee as Alphys suffocated to death, or as Noelle’s eyes fluttered shut just like Dess’ did all those years ago, never to open ever again, or as Berdly’s thrashing drew ever stiller, his breaths like a bird plummeting from the sky.
It was pure bliss, in spite of the raw terror in their mind; however, even in those moments of freedom that were unlike any other Kris had experienced in their life, it was still unclear to them if they were truly in control at that point. It certainly didn’t feel like they were.
But alas, the deranged bliss never lasted long - at least, not when a grand pain exploded in their chest, sending them crumpling to the floor at once as their body grew cold, heavy and feeble. In their dying moments, as their life flickered dully before their eyes, Kris would come to a most horrifying realisation: they were entirely dependent on what was possessing them to survive. However, with no way to re-insert the dreaded apparition back into their chest, they were often forced to look upon the death and destruction they had wrought, paralysed on the floor as their life slowly ebbed away, completely helpless to do anything about their own actions.
And then, thankfully, the nightmare would be over. They’d jolt awake, their mind reduced to a panicked frenzy of terrifying imagery, no doubt the remnants of their nightmare, and a crushing weight in their chest, constricting their throat and rendering them unable to take in even the slightest amount of air. Even that was more of a relief compared to what they had experienced in their nightmare.
Tonight was another one of those nights. Kris had grown to expect it over the years. Sure, it was terrifying, but Kris was more headstrong than they thought they were, surely. If they were unable to brave out the worst of their panic attack, they could simply go to Toriel for comfort - years ago, this would’ve been Asriel, but Asriel had been at college for… well, to Kris, it may as well have been for eternity.
There was just one thing that Kris had only remembered in their waking moments. First of all, Toriel wasn’t home. She was over at Carol’s house, no doubt gulping down the last of the eggnog from the deer’s fridge - in the middle of October, no less. Secondly, they weren’t alone. Normally, this would flood them with unimaginable amounts of relief - thank god, they weren’t alone for once - however, for some reason, that fact wasn’t comforting to them in the slightest.
Susie was sleeping over at their house. In fact, she was shifting around in her sleep in the pull-out bed below, letting out an occasional drowsy snort every now and then. Perhaps her dreams were more on the humorous side, compared to Kris’. Or she was just having a good time reducing dream megacities to rubble. That, too, was a possibility.
Already, this wasn’t good at all. Kris’ heartbeat only seemed to pound against their ribcage with increasing fervor, and, momentarily, they began to wonder if they had truly been possessed, and hadn’t been dreaming at all. A horrific, ear-piercing ringing assaulted their ears, their breaths coming quickly and audibly despite their attempts to make their panicking seem less obvious than it already was. That was odd. On a usual night, Kris would’ve calmed down by now. In fact, they would’ve been well on the road to calmer and kinder dreams, no doubt about snuggling up next to a certain pink-horned goat.
Calm down. It’s okay. It was just a dream. You’re fine. You’re alive. Such mental platitudes were useless in the wake of Kris’ panic. Already, an awful kind of nausea had settled in their stomach, the kind typically reserved for severe fevers and winter bugs, potent and painful enough to make the room feel like it was rocking back and forth, similar to a ship sailing on rough seas. The fact that they were shaking enough to feel the quaking in their knees and hands did them no favours. It only seemed to rub salt further into freshly opened wounds.
Meanwhile, Susie found herself groggily rubbing her eyes, blinking awake as she slowly tuned in to the sound of.. Snoring? Really? Glancing over to Kris’ bed, she noticed the human was fast asleep, yet their breathing was far more audible than it ever had been.
Yep. Definitely snoring. Susie was still half-asleep, having woken up from pleasant dreams of living out her dream life as the all-feared Susiezilla, reducing any city in her way to rubble and dust. She was also quite eager to return to such dreams, as well. So, she simply grumbled, turning over in her bed and closing her eyes again, pressing a pillow over her ears to drown out the incessant noise.
She barely made it past a minute before she was grumbling once more, sitting up in the pull-out bed and inching closer to Kris. Normally, she’d feel quite bad for doing this; it was Kris, after all, and part of her was certain that they weren’t usually the type to snore like they were doing currently - however, she was already too exhausted to care about anything like that, and frankly, rather pissed off that those dreams of hers seemed like they wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. The only thing on her mind was the repetitive, incessant snoring. Good lord. She had been conscious for not even five minutes, and already, Kris’ incessant snoring had managed to completely spoil her mood in record time. Perhaps she wouldn’t care as much if it didn’t sound like a cat eating a live frog.
“C’mon, dude…” She kept her voice at a low volume, just in case Kris didn’t wake up, as she reached out to pat them on the shoulder. “Quit the snoring, will y—“
The moment her hand landed on Kris’ shoulder, she realised: not only were they very much awake, the incessant noise coming out of their mouth sounded absolutely nothing like any snoring she had heard before. In fact, it wasn’t snoring at all. She nearly retracted her hand when she felt how Kris was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane - but, for some reason, something within her prevented her from moving an inch.
Kris jolted at the feeling of an unknown hand on their shoulders, nearly yelling out in fright from the sudden sensation. Their head snapped to the direction of the touch, terrified eyes widening in recognition as they met Susie’s gaze.
For some reason, this only made them feel worse.
“Oh.. uhh…” Susie racked her brain desperately. Shit. What was she supposed to do? As far as she was aware, she was nothing short of terrible at comforting people. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if she had done it before.
Kris tried - really, desperately tried to speak, reaching out vaguely towards Susie as they clawed at the air. Their mouth flew open, pained, strangled gasps and half-formed vowels and consonants flooding out instead of anything resembling coherent words or sentences. Their breaths only seemed to quicken, evidently panicked by the fact that they, for whatever reason, could not speak at all. They eyes widened, glazed over in horror as they stared at something far off into the distance, their pupils narrowing to mere pinpricks.
“Woah, woah,” Susie tightened her grip on their shoulder without realising. “It’s okay, dude— don’t try to speak if you can’t… okay? It’s… fine, y’know. Totally fine.”
It felt like she was hastily gluing words together and firing them all at once, hoping that at least one of them would somehow find their target. A useless endeavour, some might say - but alas, it was the only way that Susie knew how to comfort others. It wasn’t like she had any idea of how to deal with her own panic episodes in a way that wasn’t just waiting them out or taking out her misery on the nearest pillow, either.
Though… perhaps she knew a few things she had picked up from them times Berdly had gone off on one whenever anything to do with psychology was brought up. Not to mention Noelle’s corrections of said rambles.
“Try to.. uh… breathe, okay?” Kris immediately began to breathe quicker and louder than they were previously. Shit. Bad idea. “N-Not like that, dude— just.. in for… four? And out for the same time…? Just… try that… should work great.”
That… seemed to work a little. Kris’ breathing slowed down a small amount as they followed Susie’s advice - in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and breathe out slowly for four seconds - They weren’t shaking as much, either - rather than violent, full-body jitters, it had reduced to a persistent tremor in their hands.
Susie breathed a sigh of relief. Good. She had done at least something right.
However, Susie could never have anticipated what was to come next. To her surprise, as she carefully climbed onto Kris’ bed, sitting beside them the human practically burrowed their whole body into the warmth of Susie’s, similar to a scared puppy seeking comfort in its owner, practically squeezing their arms around her waist. With little time to consider what she was doing, Susie returned the gesture, strong arms wrapping tightly around Kris’ much scrawnier figure as she felt the tension in their muscles dissipate ever so slightly, feeling how damp their pyjamas were with their sweat and snot.
“I—“ Kris’ voice had returned to them at last. Susie moved down to brush a few stray strands of chestnut hair off of their face. Their hair had all but lost its curliness, no doubt due to the sweat trickling down their forehead.
“Bad… dream… w–wasn’t in… control.. s–something.. else–-”
“It’s… it’s, uh, okay, dude,” Susie tried her best to sound soothing, remembering why she had sworn to never take up babysitting after hearing the sound of her own voice - but, she decided it was best to put that aside for now. Especially for Kris’ sake. “Don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna. ‘S fine.”
Kris groaned a little, fighting to get the words out. “Ugh— so… scared… b-but … r-ripped it out..” Their hand flung to their chest for a moment, before finding itself on Susie’s back once more. “Then I… hurt people… Mom… Alphys… Berdly… you.. and… h-helped the knight… e-even hurt… n… Noelle… just like—“
The way Kris gagged and heaved told Susie everything she needed to know.
Kris wasn’t one to talk much about the misfortunes that had befallen them in their past. This was something Susie knew well in the time she had gotten to know Kris. Most of the things Noelle confided in Susie about in regards to her childhood were things Kris would never even dare to speak of, oftentimes forcibly changing the subject whenever confronted with them.
This, however… this was something not even Noelle could bring herself to mention in any capacity. The one time she had remotely attempted, she teared up immediately and had to leave the room for well over half an hour. Susie didn’t need to say who it was, or what Kris was exactly talking about - she knew, and somehow, Susie knew that Kris knew, too. Even though she didn’t know the full picture, Susie felt as if she had heard enough from
the little information Noelle was able to force out.
“You didn’t do anything, dumbass,” It came out a little harsher than she intended, but Kris didn’t seem any more upset than they already were. “...Sorry. What I’m trying to say is, uh… it was just a dream. We’re all still here, y’know. I’m still here, and… Hometown’s still standing. Obviously.”
“But—“
“And even though I dunno what really happened with… her,” Kris’ eyes fluttered shut for a moment as Susie scratched a particularly nice spot in their hair. “I know for certain that it wasn’t your fault at all. Next time I hear you blaming yourself for shit you didn’t do, I’m gonna bite your face off, y’hear?!”
Kris let out a watery laugh, nodding against Susie’s chest as they instinctively nuzzled further into her, their body going limp in her arms. It had been a long while since they were comforted in someone’s arms like this, and they had forgotten how nice it was, even if during some of their worse nights, they had attempted to substitute the warmth of another person with one of their plushies out of a primal kind of desperation. It never felt the same, of course, but for what it was worth, it worked quite nicely - though, never as comforting as this was. Not even close.
Meanwhile, Susie breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t expect them to find the comment so funny - but, hell, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t as happy as one could be about it.
“…I love you,” It was something Kris had said without much thought. Not out of a deep-seated, burning desire, either - perhaps they had actually meant to say “thank you” instead of… that.
Admittedly, Susie hadn’t expected them to say that. In fact, she hadn’t expected for anyone to tell her such a thing, regardless of how she viewed them as. No one had ever loved her before. At least, she didn’t think anyone did.
…It was a nice feeling. Being loved. An unfamiliar warmth enveloped her whole body as she tightened her embrace around Kris ever so slightly. Somehow, she knew exactly what they had meant by it.
“Uh…” Unfortunately, her mind had also gone completely blank. “I… love… you…. too…? But like– In a… hm… agh, you get the point, Kris!”
Another giggle bubbled up from Kris’ throat as they fully relaxed in Susie’s embrace, the last embers of their fear finally fizzling out. Now exhausted from the earlier peril, they let out a mighty yawn - for a moment, Susie thought back to that one time she had visited Asgore’s flower shop moments before closing time - before their eyes finally fluttered shut, the tension in their muscles disappearing fully. Before long, the only sound in the room was Kris’ soft, comforted breaths.
Susie simply patted their head for a few moments longer, breathing a short sigh of relief. Hopefully, Kris wouldn’t be going through any more nightmares for the time being. Judging by the peaceful look on their face, Susie figured that they were likely having pleasant dreams about a certain pink-horned fluffy boy.
Speaking of which… maybe it’d be worth taking them to Castle Town after school tomorrow, Susie thought. With all the fretting they’d gone through during the night, she figured that they would want nothing more to see that aforementioned fluffy boy again.