Chapter Text
...
...so here you are again.
back under the angel doll.
susie and noelle, so close, yet so far.
inches from you, oblivious to your presence.
oh, how you wish you could talk to them.
you wish you weren't stuck under this stupid doll, unable to tell susie about the code in the guitar.
you wish you weren't stuck possessing some poor kid wrapped up in so much horrifying stuff, constantly wrestling with them just to be able to exist.
you wish you had your vessel.
<...>
<something in the air shifts.>
...Okay, what do we do? throw it out?
Umm... let's think about it, first. If it's a mouse, it could be cute as a pet...
Heheh, alright. And if it's a severed hand...
Susie never got the chance to finish her thought.
Instead, her focused was siezed by the sudden sound of the front door swinging open, revealing behind it what appeared to be... a human? It was clad in an ashen-grey striped hoodie and a long, dark brown skirt. A long, shadowy mane of hair draped down from its head to its waist, obscuring much of its seemingly-blank grey face.
Its apparent lack of facial features was unsettling.
After only a moment's hesitation, it began to walk towards the table, its motions rigid and mechanical, every step laden with deliberation and intent. A heartbeat later, Susie began to feel the doll's payload begin to weakly push against its prison, towards the interloper.
H-hey, who the hell are you? What're you doing here!?
It paused, and stared directly at her. Its response was as precise and calculated as its motions.
I have come for The Angel.
It pointed at the little angel doll on the coffee table.
The hell you want with some stupid Christmas ornament?
You misunderstand. I have not come for the ornament. I have come for The Angel.
It
pointed again to the little doll on the table. She is imprisoned beneath. Liberate
Her.
...
The MOUSE!?!?
The weird human took another step forward. The Angel,
it corrected.
Susie, I... maybe we should just... give it to them? I mean, we don't even know what it
is yet. Maybe it's their escaped pet or something,
Noelle chimed in nervously.
The human(?) seemed to take great offense to the latter half of Noelle's comment, immediately shouting, She is NOT some mere
pet
, She is The Angel, and you will release
Her immediately.
... Part of Susie hated that she didn't have any rebuttal to Noelle. Like, really? This asshole comes in here, demanding whatever the hell it wants like it owns the place, and they're just supposed to listen?
A low rumble slipped from between her clenched teeth.
FINE. Just take your stupid mouse or whatever and get out,
she growled, as she pulled
the little doll from its wearer.
...
... That.
Was not a mouse.
Before either party could react, the little red heart flew across the room, into the intruder's chest.
A flash of crimson light filled the air as body and SOUL reunited.
Just as Susie opened her mouth to demand the stranger explain itself, its expression shifted, and all of a sudden, her blood ran cold with a hundred thousand hellish memories of every feeble attempt at a life she had lived in her sixteen or so years alone and adrift in the world.
A heartbeat later, the terrified human turned tail, and bolted for the door.
...
one look.
one look at the fury in her eyes.
the fury towards you.
that was all it took, to send you bolting through the door like your life depended on it.
not a single attempt to explain yourself.
not a single word of apology for what you'd done to kris, something they've almost certainly told her by now.
you didn't even tell her about the blinding guitar you worthless good-for-nothing parasitic piece of shit--
...Angel?
his voice is soft, gentle, almost... fuzzy, even. just as it always is.
...
yeah, i guess i am.
he quietly approaches, stepping over and around the various parts of yourself splayed out across the ground.
Where are the others?
Are they okay? Did something happen to Kris? Whose body is that?
a thousand other worried questions whirl through his head, unspoken yet heard all the same.
back at noelle's place. they're... fine, i think. both of them.
ralsei nods, and you can feel a bit of the weight lift from his shoulders.
...only a bit.
even if you couldn't peer into the minds of those around you so effortlessly as to almost struggle to look away, you'd still know exactly what he was about to ask next.
this body is... mine, i guess. i made it a while ago, back when i first connected to this
world. something happened, though, and i... wound up in kris instead, i guess.
as for why i'm here...
well, my vessel somehow managed to find me, back at noelle's house. it managed to piss
off susie, and when i ended up back inside it, she was still mad, and i... guess i just kinda panicked.
I see.
...you finally take a moment to process everything.
you're at the precipice of castle town, slumped against a wall and sprawled out across the ground.
your only company, besides your own body, is ralsei, standing just a foot or so away from you.
he looks... smaller, than you would've expected.
...or maybe you're taller than you thought.
it certainly wouldn't be the most extreme change this body experienced down here, deep in the darkness.
there was... certainly some stiff competition on that front, between the four arms, the frankly excessive number of wings, your legs being replaced with some long, serpentine tail, the way your skin cast a brilliant crimson glow upon everything around it, the subtly writhing mass of long, prehensile tendrils that had taken the place of your hair...
you... weren't sure how to feel about it all.
it was... different, that much was certain.
still...
you... didn't hate it.
you were pretty sure that you weren't supposed to not hate it.
that you weren't supposed to take satisfaction in becoming something other than mortal.
that you weren't supposed to enjoy being twisted into some massive eldritch thing with a hundred wings and a thousand eyes and more hands than you could ever hope to count.
that you weren't supposed to find fulfillment in knowing that the people of this town prayed to you like you were some sort of god, and not just some depressed college student that could barely get up in the morning.
besides, it's not like they're really praying to you, anyways.
they're praying to some made-up sanitized marketable-plushie version of you that lived in their heads with all of its ducks in a row, filed down and defanged into something perfect and all-loving and all-caring and all-powerful and all-knowing and all-understanding and all-the-answers-having that could never ever ever make a mistake ever. a perfect golden idol, scrubbed free of all the rot and the worry and the regret and the anger and the uncertainty and the cowardice and the stupid impulsive instincts that conspired to ensure that you not even attempt to do the one thing you told yourself you would do if you just had a body to do it with.
oh, how you envied that other, better, more confident, more self-assured, more able-to-focus, more perfect version of you that they envisioned.
the version that was actually cut out for this.
the version that could pick up an instrument and actually learn to play, instead of just using the rest of the orchestra as a crutch when you couldn't keep time or move your fingers fast enough or keep your bow in line with everyone else's or do vibrato or show up to your lessons or keep track of where you were on the blinding page.
the version of you that doesn't run from susie like a coward as soon as she finds out you exist.
...
on one hand, you should probably drag yourself to the save point.
on the other, you... weren't exactly in the mood to drag yourself through castle town, not when that would almost certainly mean having to answer all manner of uncomfortable questions about yourself and who you were and what you were doing here and why you looked so weird and where was the rest of the fun gang and whatever other rot you absolutely do not have the energy to deal with right now.
...screw it. you take a deep breath, get up, drag yourself to the flickering silver light, and save, before making your way to the castle and curling yourself around the lonely prince's cauldron.
as you close your eyes, you can't help but think about what susie and the others were doing.
...