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Asriel exhaled. White smoke left his lungs and lingered in front of him for a moment before fading. He looked at the blunt in his hand, its lit end the only light in the room other than what trickled through the blinds - whether it was the moon or the sun Asriel could not know. The goat monster felt his throat itch, and coughed a few times. An itch. Yeah, that was about the only thing this was making him feel. He made a mental note not to buy from that guy ever again.
Asriel breathed in, which turned into more coughing shortly. If his mother knew he could very easily tell what was and wasn’t good quality weed she’d probably be mortified. Asriel kept coughing until he started to feel lightheaded, and his ears rang. Then, once he stopped… silence. In his dimly lit room, nothing but his slow breathing. In the darkness, just him alone.
Asriel looked around himself and sighed.
Weed would probably be the least of her worries, actually.
…
He turned his eyes to the blinds.
Nothing had happened that day. The sun had probably risen and then fallen, like it always did, but no light had filled Asriel's room. He couldn’t remember if he’d ventured further than the reaches of his bed, he couldn’t remember how long he’d slept or been awake. Nothing happened anymore; not to him at least, not today nor yesterday or the days before, and Asriel was sure nothing would happen tomorrow. The sun would rise and fall countless times, and Asriel's world would remain unchanged, stuck. Like it had been since that day.
He took another desperate puff. Still nothing.
How long…
His eyes then glanced over to a small rectangle laying alongside him on the bed.
Something.
Anything, other than this.
Slowly, Asriel reached for his phone. The first thing he did was click the button on the side, and saw a small amount of light appear below it, confirming it still had charge. No backing down now. His hand hesitated for a moment before finally turning the phone and coming face to face with the lockscreen: a photo of him and Kris when they were kids. He grimaced at the bright light of the screen - overwhelming even if at its lowest setting - as an uncomfortable sensation spread through his chest, a shuddering accompanied by some heat that made his body itch and his hand tremble.
Come on. Sluggishly, Asriel typed a familiar number on the phone's keyboard, on increasingly numb fingers. This is what I wanted, isn't it? The number lingered on the screen for a second before unlocking his phone. Asriel was then assaulted by many notifications from many different apps. Reminders, missed calls and texts, spam emails… One by one, he swiped them away, his eyes glazing over all of them. His phone had become a machine with the singular purposes of messaging Kris sporadically and calling back home at scheduled times to speak with his mom, so all other unrelated notifications could be safely ignored.
All of them but one.
A voicemail from his mother. An unusual sight.
Asriel lingered for a moment, his finger halfway to swiping the notification away, before deciding to tap it instead. He brought the phone close to his ear and was greeted by the slightly tipsy voice of his mother.
“Asriel, my child! I know it’s not the usual time, but I just wanted to call to tell you I am so excited for you to come home for the Festival like we talked about! I know, I know. It is still a long time away. But I am looking forward to it very much! I will bake your favourite pie just for the occasion! I hope your studies are going well and your roommate is nice. Kris and I miss you a lot. Well, I guess that is all. We will call this week. Love you! How do you hang up on this-”
The voicemail ended, and Asriel breathed out.
Every other Saturday, Asriel would call home. Toriel would bombard him with questions and would always eagerly share the latest happenings of the neighbourhood, while Asriel smiled and nodded. Kris would join in most of the time and add a thing or two, even if they normally kept contact through messages much more thoroughly. Asriel would then cheerfully tell them both about college, his career and his friends, sometimes mentioning his intriguing human roommate too.
And after a short while, they would say their goodbyes and the call would end.
It was the fall of the curtain, the actors returning to their places, their masks left aside.
Asriel returning to the dark and the truth, in stark contrast to the picture his family had of him.
The festival.
He sucked air through his teeth. His breathing turned into a low murmur as he glanced down at all that surrounded him. Dimly lit as it was it was hard to parse, but Asriel had long passed the point of his eyes having to accustom to the dark. The air was stale and still as everything else, the only sign that someone yet lived there the mess that was the bed he rested on. All frozen in time, specs of dust in what little light seeped through the blinds.
If I make it…
He stood at the grave of one who was destined to do so much, yet accomplished so little. Maybe he wasn't truly living there, after all.
… Who knows.
The goat monster shook his head and continued on, taking note of the mounting pressure on his chest. Go on. He scrolled down until he found his phone's file system, and navigated through it. Folder after poorly named folder, he dug through his own memory until he came to something buried deep within. A singular folder simply named “AA_SONG_V2”.
Asriel tapped the folder. Inside was a single audio file, its name a date in a strange format that he was thankful was hard to read. Asriel felt his heartbeat rise as he looked around the disorganized mess of his bed in search of his headphones.
He came across them soon enough, and put them on.
His headphones on his ears, he willed his finger to move against the noise already on his head - or perhaps goaded by it.
I hope this hurts.
▶️ PLAY
The first second was already too much. Asriel reeled at the grating noise of someone fumbling with a camera being picked up by the microphone.
“Dude, are you recording?”
Her voice. I wish I could still remember it saying anything else.
Asriel remembered giving a thumbs up then. It had been a video once, but for ease of editing it had been reduced to a single audio track. Perhaps the original remained only in a folder of her computer, or just consigned to memory.
“Alright, here it comes! One, two, one two three!”
He wasn’t sure if the culprit had been Dess’ room or his lack of experience with that old camcorder, but the acoustics of the recording were not the best. Regardless, they had made due with what they had at the time. Asriel had heard a fitting quote long ago, when speaking with some colleagues about retro consoles: “The limitations of what you have now are the first things you will strive to emulate when you no longer suffer from them.”. It was true, he supposed.
He wanted nothing more than to mess up more recordings in that dark room.
Asriel knew for a fact there were no more words in that recording - his or hers. Instead, what followed suit was the first and only recording of a song, the only evidence of its existence. It was a slower song, a serenade, one that was different from the ones Dess usually composed. It was for that reason that he had been the first she’d called to hear it. “This is the one, Azzy! I bet people will like this one.”.
Maybe they would have. They should have.
He felt every strum, every poorly reverberated note coming from what would have been Dess’ red guitar. Asriel held his breath as the notes progressed through the song, wishing the sound of the strings could fill him. His body trembled and ached, and he could feel the sounds from outside slowly fade. The world grew darker and darker. As Asriel’s eyes closed, there were only the notes of the guitar.
He was… he was back there. He could be there, with her. Recording her, in her room, while she played the guitar for him.
Asriel opened his eyes.
And in the darkness, Asriel saw a figure. An indistinct shape at first, standing in front of him, in the middle of his dark room.
It was her. Or it should have been.
Instead, it was a hole. It was the lack of something, of someone. The outline of her in a video long discarded, her movements fluid and indistinct as his brain attempted to fill in the gaps. She was pure light, white noise, static, featureless smoke, for nothing could ever be her. As much as Asriel sought her in his phone's gallery when he could bear it, no picture could ever be all of her. No single snapshot of a point in time could truly capture who she was. Who she had been. Who she should have been. What she could have done. The girl whose memory his mind had begun to chip away at.
Asriel reached out his hand, trying to follow the figure's motions. They had not danced then, but they had held each other close many other times, even if now those memories faded away into each other. Close together, never to be apart, he had thought then.
Then, the song stopped.
It was a short recording, marked both at the beginning and the end by the sound of an inexperienced boy fumbling with a camcorder. And with that same sound, Asriel was robbed even of that absence.
It was only dark, again.
I wish it were enough.
Asriel felt his body tense and tremble.
But it will never be.
And he decided to sink into the darkness further.
Not until…
He closed his eyes again, and he allowed himself to see. A reflecting shimmer of light, glimmering like a dagger's point and always calling, hungry, thirsty. Train tracks, leading to and from far away from home, far away from everyone. The view from his apartment's window, one he had found beautiful once. A roiling sea from above a cliff, its waves crashing fiercely on the jagged rocks of the shore. The rooftop of his apartment building, where he'd gone to smoke before the memories had become too strong to bear. The ceiling fan above his head, who he'd asked many times but yet not found an answer. It was only a small push, he knew: a flick of the wrist, a single step, a split-second decision, closing his eyes. Only a single motion to answer the deafening call of the static, the one that repeated his name in a voice that had become painfully unfamiliar. Only one to see her again. To dance, to laugh, to be scolded for forgetting to take the lens cap of the video camera. To see her smile again. By the Angel, her smile.
This time…
Then Asriel's body betrayed him, a primordial part of his brain struggling enough to force his jaw open and his eyes wide, as he took in a few hasty breaths.
His room, again. His life again. His mistakes, again.
He raised a hand to his face.
Tears. It had been so long.
The goat monster looked to the window, unsure of how much time had passed. The blinds were still shut, but they could be opened, the door could be stepped through. This time, maybe. Asriel balled his fist and breathed in…
… and then had it drop to his side, breathing out. He leaned back, once again sinking into the still soft bedding.
Pathetic, ha ha…
Couldn't even manage that.
…
I'm sorry Dess.
Click!
Asriel turned his head before his brain could register the source of the sound. The door to his door was open, and a bright light came through the doorway - bright in contrast to the darkness of his room, at least. Standing in front of it was a thin figure, their bright red eyes were visible even in the shadow they projected, and they were fixed on him with a familiar intensity.
“... ‘Sup Azzy.”
Asriel raised himself from his position slowly, easily feigning grogginess. The curtain calls, the actors to their places - “Chara, dude, I was sleeping. What do you need?”
The human did not move an inch - “At 3PM. With your headphones on.”
3PM. Figures. Asriel shrugged and put on a very practiced smile, almost challenging the one that normally lingered on his roommate’s face - “They keep the noise out. Look, I’m just a bit tired, you know? Been a busy day.”
Asriel studied the human’s face closely. Their expression was harder to read than any monster’s he’d ever known, but over time Asriel had come to notice the little nuances and small detail that would distinguish a particular emotion from another - or that’s what he thought. But as those ruby eyes held his gaze, he found himself unable to tell what the human was thinking. For what felt like far too long, they stood still, staring him down.
Finally, Chara relented, and sighed as they broke eye contact - “I got us take out.” - they produced a white plastic bag from behind them, branded with a logo depicting a shrimp giving a thumbs up.
Asriel kept up his smile - “Thank you, but I’ve already had some food.” - A lie - “... I’m not hungry.” - A truth.
“... Fine. I’ll leave the leftovers in the fridge.” - the human said, turning around on the doorway.
But Asriel was not afforded a respite. Chara stopped for a second, then turned back around. For a moment, Asriel could have sworn he saw something flicker in their face. Something that he couldn’t quite place.
“Asriel, the dude you sometimes speak with - what’s their name, Jockey or whatever?” - Asriel nodded slightly, carefully maintaining his expression - “They asked me about you. You haven’t been going to class and they were worried.” - the expression became slightly harder to maintain, as it seemed the human redoubled their efforts and stared harder than ever before at them - “I don’t know how busy your day has actually been - doesn’t really matter actually.”
“Just, tell me… is everything alright, Asriel?”
Asriel was then made painfully aware of what his friend's expression held for him.
Pity. They pity me, like they should. That is all I am, all I have. Pity. There is nothing for me but this. I am empty, hollow, fading, living only still in the minds of those unlucky enough to have known me as when I still was, as a cruel parody of their memory; for what can I offer anyone anymore but a mirror, a warning? I am nothing, someone no more, going nowhere. And thus in time I will spare them all of this, I will at least do them that single favor. I will make the goodbye easy for them. I will make them glad to have me gone. That is the most I can aspire to. The least I owe them, after everything.
Asriel faked a cough - “I've just been a bit sick is all. Don't get close to me, you might catch it ha ha!” - Please don't get close to me.
The human's expression held firm for a few seconds, and then changed again - “Alright man. Get some rest.” - and as they turned to leave, as their own mask cracked while Asriel's held firm, the goat monster witnessed what truly lay below it. It was not pity, no.
“Let me know if you need anything.” - Chara closed the door.
It was… something else, something much worse. Something that dug into Asriel and twisted like a hooked knife.
Asriel sighed. Nice going, Dreemurr…
… I hope they can forgive me, in time.
The goat monster threw off his headphones, and twisted the blankets around him again, sinking into the darkness. The blinds stayed shut, the air stood still, specs of dust suspended within.
Nothing had happened that day.
Tomorrow nothing would happen again.
He would never record her in her room again.