Chapter Text
Today was supposed to be a normal Thursday. “Supposed to” doing the majority of the heavy lifting there. But instead of being at all normal, Noelle finds herself waking up and being completely unable to move no matter how hard she tries.
“(Oh.)” she says, all in her head, “(Oh. This isn’t good.)” Her alarm clock blares in her ear incessantly, and despite all of her deep and enraged desire to turn it off, to even bash it into the table, she cannot move. It’s been like this for five. Full. Minutes. Of uninterrupted noise. “(I think...)” she thinks “(...I might just kill myself. I might actually do it this time. Oh angel, why did I have to get sleep paralysis in the morning of all times? I could understand when I’m going to bed, but really? Right when that thing is going off? This has to be some kind of cruel—)”
Suddenly, without any warning, she shoots up in bed regardless of her own volition. It’s so sudden that her vision very briefly goes dark, and she’s left speechless as her body seems to...automatically get out of bed. It starts walking stiffly, towards the table, then clumsily turns the alarm off before standing completely still. Just long enough for the shock to finally hit her. She immediately freaks out, “(WHAT!? WHAT!? WHAT!? WHY AM I MOVING!? I didn’t do that! I didn’t— Why am I just...!?)” She tries to move, but her body only shakes slightly in response. “(Wh-What’s happening to me!? Oh gosh, do I have some kind of rare disease that makes me sleepwalk while conscious? This can’t be happening...)”
She suddenly turns to her side and very quickly, still stiffly, nearly runs directly towards her desk and slams into the back of the chair. A surge of mild pain runs through her, “(Ow... Why didn’t I stop sooner? I can’t even... pull the chair out...)” But before the pain can settle, her body turns itself towards the door and quickly rushes out, running down the hall and into the bathroom where it faces the bathroom window.
Noelle sees herself, or rather her own body in the mirror. But...with something off about it. “(My... My eyes aren’t normally red, are they?)” And she just stands there staring at herself in the mirror, against her own will. She notices, of all things, that her normal chipper expression has been forced into a blank, neutral thousand-yard stare. She desperately tries to smile, but her mouth only barely moves, twitches. She’s still in her pajamas. She continues trying to move, to do anything, to blink or turn her head — anything, but she can’t. Nothing happens, at least not much. With each attempt, her panic grows, “(No... No, no, no... This is... This is a nightmare! This has to be a nightmare! I have to wake up! Why can’t I do anything!? MOVE! JUST MOVE! I... Oh gosh, I can’t even feel my legs. I—)”
Her body suddenly moves again, towards the toilet, and... flushes it.
“(What?)” she thinks, caught mildly off-guard.
It flushes the toilet again. And again. And again.
“(What?????)” she watches in utter confusion.
It flushes again. Three more times.
“(What!?!?)”
And another.
“(Why???????????)”
And another.
She falls silent, her panic drowned out by the rushing toilet water. It just keeps flushing. Her only thought until it stops is, “(...Mom’s gonna kill me when she sees the water bill.)”
And then, again, it... stops. As it reaches out to flush the toilet again, Noelle finally manages to reach through her own body enough to stop it with one command, “(No...??? Stop. What’s even happening?)”
And just like that, like magic, she manages to regain control of herself long enough to gasp for air, as she hadn’t apparently been breathing this entire time, and then gasps, out, “Oh cheese and crackers! Oh, I thought that would never end! I need... I need to get dressed and—”
But just as she managed to get control back, it is once again wrested away from her. Her body suddenly turns back around and heads back to her room as she protests, “(No, no, no, no, NOOOOO!!! Come on, I almost...!)”
Her body practically charges into her room, nearly slamming into her closet and prying it open forcefully to find her collection of several dozen identical outfits.
“(Oh.)” she realizes “(I guess it just...subconsciously did that? Wait, why did...?)”
❤︎ Get dressed Stay home and read yuri
“(...What? ‘Get dressed’? Was that a command— OH CHEESUS!)” she internally yelps as her body lunges forward to grab the set of clothes, then begins nearly ripping its own off to put them on. She starts to cry out again, “(WAIT! No! Put the underw— PUT THE UNDERWEAR ON FIRST! STOP!)”
And about a minute of desperately trying to figure out how to get her body to obey her later, her outfit is completely disheveled and her body could not apparently figure out how to put a bra on. All she can do at this point is revel in anguish. “(I... Well... I guess it’s good that I’m wearing a sweater. At least...)”
But then, it does something odd. Placing her hand on her chest, her body then reaches out with a voice to speak, as if rehearsing into the void.
❤︎ Hi, Kris! Hi, Susie! Good morning!
The words just come out of her mouth thoughtlessly, in her usual chipper tone, her expression even changing automatically as she says it, and she barely even needs to think about it. For just that one moment, she regains control just to speak before being unceremoniously shoved back into the mind-box.
In shock, she simply lingers in silence while it does it again.
❤︎ My name is Noelle! My name is Lucy!
Yet, it isn’t just her voice. It’s something else. Another voice, which resonates like a speaker on top of hers. As soon as it finishes forcing her to speak, she immediately recognizes what’s happening, “(Oh. I’m... I’m being possessed, aren’t I?)” After another moment of silence where the body does nothing but run around her room haphazardly, she starts to internally despair, “(...Why? Why do these things always happen to me? Every time there’s a ghost, it’s haunting me. Every time there’s a monster, it’s chasing me. I’m always the one who sees the cryptids! The one who gets ALL of the cursed games and weird stuff, the viruses, why is it always ME!? Why can’t it just be Berdly this one time!?)”
Her body suddenly runs out of her room and downstairs, tripping on the way down and tumbling nearly face-first into the floor. The sheer pain allows her to briefly regain control. She uses it to yelp, gasp for air, and wobble up to her feet as she starts to tear up, “Wh-Why!? You can’t even walk right! I...!”
But before she can finish her own sentence, whatever is possessing her regains control and starts to dart for the front door. She begs it, “(WAIT! At least eat breakfast first” but it ignores her and runs out the door. “(Oh, come on!)” she pleads.
But it’s too late, the damn thing already made it to the gate. But it can’t seem to open it. It just...stands there. Awkwardly.
And then, she gets control back. Finally. She uses her newfound freedom to hug herself and smile with relief, “Yes! YES! Thank you! I...” She looks back at her house “Okay, I need to make the most of this.”
She runs back into the house and VERY quickly throws the fridge door open to make herself a lunch and stuff her face with as much salad as she can get her hands on in what she assumes is a very short window of time. Having rushed her breakfast, she sighs and laughs to herself, “Wow... I didn’t know it could feel so good to just move around! I just have to...” She stares out the door, knowing that she’ll eventually have to go. “Just have to...treasure this time before it takes control again. I need to... I need to figure this out.”
For as long as she can manage to get away with, she spends her time prodding and probing around the house, looking for instances where the weird thing controlling her tries to do things, tries to come back, and then makes note of them, how it feels, how it’s doing it, and how she can influence it. She doesn’t get a terribly large amount of information, but enough to at least maintain some level of control despite the situation. Then, when she can’t delay anymore without being late, she finally retrieves the gate key from her room. Immediately, the “Entity” as she starts calling it takes control again, but she resists enough to be able to at least maintain her expression. And oddly enough, it loosens its grip when it notices what she’s doing, allowing her partial control. By the time she gets out to the gate, it’s as if she’s merely being directed by it, not outright puppeted.
Forcefully directed, yes, but still merely directed. It directs her to open the gate, and she does so. And though its method of walking is still too uncomfortably stilted, she bears with it to not make a scene out in the open. She eventually arrives at school, somehow without incident, though she doesn’t get the chance to wave at the townsfolk while she goes, and she sighs again with relief as she sits down.
“(Okay. That could have been a lot worse. I just need to—)”
Berdly sits down next to her, announcing his presence duly, “Why hello, there, my lovely Noelle! How are you, this fine morning? Not too exhausted from last night’s raid, I hope?”
“(Oh, right. Berdly. Oh dear.)” she exasperatedly recalls his general existence. “(Okay, first interaction of the day, just need to—)”
Hello, Berdly. ❤︎ Kill yourself NOW.
Noelle near instantaneously cuffs her mouth shut with both hands after having uttered that loud enough for half the class to hear. “(WHAT!? WHY!?)” she panics internally.
Berdly seems just as confused as her, but actually backs away on his usual ego at the unusual sight of an aggressive deer, “Uh... What? Noelle, I’ve never heard you... Is this because I ran ahead? I admit, I got a little overzealous, and...may have ruined our whole plan, but...”
Quickly, she tries to think up an excuse for having said something so awful.
❤︎ Sorry, it was a reference. I genuinely hope you die.
The thought invades her mind just before she says it and she begins to wonder just where it came from. “(What reference...?)”
But, it works. Berdly just...laughs it off, “Oh! I thought you were being genuine! Where did you get such a sense of humor?” he suddenly gets serious “...It wasn’t Kris, was it?”
“NOPE!” Noelle shouts “No, no, it was just...a video I saw! Yeah, it was...really funny! Too bad you didn’t get to see it, fahaha!” Her laugh bleeds desperation, but he can’t tell. She pats herself on the back, “(Okay! Good save, Noelle! Now just stop talking!)”
❤︎ Where is Susie? ...
“Susan?” Berdly asks back “Why would I know where she is?”
Noelle also starts wondering on her own, “(Wait, why did it make me ask that?)”
Berdly continues, “Honestly, why do you keep going on about her? If I didn’t know any better, I would think...”
She reaches out and quickly snaps his beak shut with the eye-twitching glare of a madwoman one bad day away from killing someone.
He quickly realizes he should stop talking. She slowly lets go and returns to silence, smiling blankly at the front of the class as everyone else averts their attention somewhere else. The two spend the rest of their time entirely silent and not speaking to each other.
Eventually, Alphys walks in and starts to explain the project that they’ll have the next week to do. Some actual normalcy for once, today, at least has the upside of making her stop thinking about the weird being beyond her comprehension currently piloting her like a meat mecha for a while. Then comes time for everyone to be paired up. Naturally, Berdly stands up and proclaims, “Myself and Noelle shall be partners, Ms. Alphys! Only the top two should—”
❤︎ NO! ...
Noelle finds herself standing up as she yells this, having subconsciously slammed her hands onto the desk in the process. It takes a second, but she eventually realizes what she did and stands up straight to apologize, “Oh, um, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... Um...”
Alphys tries to console her despite being visibly taken aback, “I-It’s okay! You can... speak your mind! (Even if it was awfully forward of you...) But, uh, who ARE you going to partner with, then?”
❤︎ Susie Kris
Alphys gets stunned into complete blank nonexpression. A second later, she regains her wits, “O-Oh! Uh, but, Susie isn’t here yet. So you can’t—”
❤︎ She will be Give it a second
Her voice came out far more ominous and detached than she intended. So much that Alphys and Berdly just stare at her with worry written on their faces.
“I-I mean...!” Noelle fumbles, trying to salvage this interaction “She’s just a little late, is all! I’m sure she’ll be here! And she’ll need some extra help, right!? So I’ll just...”
Alphys stops her before she goes off on a tangent, “It’s okay! You don’t need to justify it, I’ll... mark you down as partners!” she stops smiling awkwardly and side-eyes the door “...If she shows up. And that leaves Berdly with Kris! ...If they show up, too.”
Berdly looks absolutely devastated.
A while later, as Alphys is just getting done explaining the ins and outs of the project expectations, the door opens. It’s Kris. They don’t say anything. Alphys tells them that they’re to be paired with Berdly for the project, but they just give her this...scornful, hate-filled scowl unlike any Noelle has seen before, but tinged with confusion. She can’t quite place her hand on it, but something inside her starts to feel like this situation is off by a mile. But they don’t say anything. They just sit down like they always do, head buried in their arms against the desk. Almost...moping.
Noelle, in a twinge of empathy, stands up and offers in front of everyone of her own will, “Um, Kris? Maybe you and me and Susie and...” she hesitates for a moment “Berdly...can all be partners?”
But Berdly, despite his misgivings, protests, “Noelle, that is patently absurd! A group of four people? That’s not a pair at all!”
The compelling presence in her head is about to tell Berdly to shut up, when Alphys interjects, “...I’m going to have to agree with Berdly on this one, Noelle. Four people is a little...much, for a class this small.”
With a defeated sigh, she’s about to sit down, when the urge wells back up, and a voice speaks for her.
Why does it matter? ❤︎ Don’t you like multiships?
Noelle freezes up pale at the words it makes her speak. Berdly stares up at her in a confused, silent outrage. Everyone else glares into the back of her head. Alphys sweats profusely at the mere mention of the word.
“...Well...” Alphys tries to cover for herself “I, um... That’s... Haha, you know, um...”
The classroom door then violently swings open to reveal...Susie. In all of her purple glory, entering stage right. Everyone turns their attention from Noelle and Alphys to her, and they both exclaim to her at the same time, in the same tone, “Susie!”
Susie just stares at her from behind those shady bangs of hers. “Am I late?” she asks.
“W-Well, that doesn’t matter!” Alphys insists “We were just...picking partners for the group project! You—”
You're in my group ❤︎ You’re mine
In any other voice, that would have sounded completely normal, but Noelle just so happens to say it in the most unusually suggestive way possible without even realizing it. So much so that she feels the need to add, “MY PARTNER!” to the end. “For the project!” she adds again, just to be sure. Susie looks at her directly, her expression unreadable as always, just like Kris’, but seemingly more interested than she was when she first came in.
❤︎ And Kris ...
“O-Oh, right.” Noelle recalls “And Kris.”
Berdly perks up hopefully, “...And me?”
And Berdly
❤︎ Ignore Berdly Tell Berdly to shut up
NO!
Noelle bites her lip as she looks down at Berdly, silently begging him to read the room. She has no tell about if he gets it, but she quietly and regretfully ignores him. Hell, everyone just about falls silent waiting for Susie to respond in any way to this. Kris sure as hell isn’t saying anything, though they look the slightest bit intrigued.
Finally, she says something, “...Whatever.”
But as she’s about to go to her seat, Alphys reaches for the chalk and realizes, “...Oh! But before we start class, Susie, you just came in, why don’t you go and get some chalk from the storage closet?”
“Fine.” she says dismissively, hands in her pockets as she turns to leave, slamming the door behind her. Practically everyone except for Kris flinches.
After a moment, Alphys then asks, “...Kris, could you please make sure she actually comes back?”
They get up without a word, as if their actions are scripted, and start to leave. But soon after, Noelle finds herself shooting up again.
❤︎ I’ll go too! I'll go instead!
She had already been thinking it, but the presence put the words into her mouth and shot them out. Alphys tries to tell her not to, but she’s already up and stiffly speed-walking out of the classroom.
Once outside, she runs directly into an altercation between Kris and Susie, her holding them up in the air as she threatens them, “...How do you feel... about losing your face?” with her mouth reaching wide open, dagger-like teeth showing on full display. Noelle is immediately an odd mix of flustered and paralyzed in fear...
Am I interrupting something? ❤︎ You can eat MY face
Susie jumps just a little, gaze turning to Noelle with her mouth still wide open. She ends up in such stunned silence that she drops Kris completely, “...What?” An uncomfortable smile makes its way onto her.
Noelle shuts her own mouth with both hands, face turning pure beet red as she internally panics, “(OH GOD, WHY DID I SAY THAT!? WHY DID IT MAKE ME SAY THAT!? WHAT!? WHY!?)”
“...You uh... want me to eat your face...?” Susie asks most incredulously.
“(I NEED TO KILL MYSELF!)” she keels over in embarrassment, but then suddenly realizes, “(Wait, NO! DON’T SAY THAT!)”
❤︎ I need you to kill me, Susie! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry
“(NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!)” she screams internally, despite having just said that in such a happy voice.
Susie backs up a step, visibly freaked out to the point that her usual cool demeanor is defeated, “Uh... Whoa... Hold up, that’s kinda... Look, let’s just go get the stupid chalk!” She quickly runs away and seems to impatiently wait there for them.
Kris just gives her a suspicious stare, as they are prone to do, and follows after Susie without a word. Noelle, left to calm herself down, has to slap her own face several times and groan into her hands with an exasperated sob before she can even think about continuing. When she finally manages to, she’s still flustered so badly that she wouldn’t be able to even look at Susie if the presence weren’t currently controlling her.
And finally. Finally. They reach the supply closet. The closet that supplies things. That closet. Without hesitation, Susie opens the door and...darkness. Pure, unadulterated darkness. All three of them take a step back in response to its presence, but Noelle doubly freezes up on the spot. The presence has to take control just to get her to move and—
❤︎ Flirt Just go inside
She isn’t even surprised at this point. Just confused. But despite her better judgement and will, the words leave her mouth, “So, um, are you up for seven minutes in heaven?” She cringes internally, “(AAAAAAAGH! WHY DID YOU SAY THAT!?)”
Kris and Susie say nothing, merely giving a look as Susie says, “...Let’s... just find the chalk and get out.”
They all walk in, only for the door to close itself behind them. Noelle jumps, quite literally, only for her to quite literally fall into an infinite void, screaming the entire time. Susie follows, yelling Noelle’s name as she reaches for her, and Kris silently braces themselves for impact.