Chapter Text
It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming… On days like these, kids like you…
You’re late for class. Again. You’re always late for class, of course, so it doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no point in trying to rush yourself.
You drag your feet as you walk to school. You stop at an alley and head down it. You grin. Someone has refilled the bowl of milk that gets left out here every day. It gets refilled every morning, and no one else seemed to want it. You slurp it down, paying no mind to the mess you make.
You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and burp, and then walk back up the alley. School time.
Ugh, school. You hate school. It felt like every lesson was designed to make you feel stupid, like you didn’t know anything. You knew things! You knew lots of things! You didn’t need someone else teaching you stuff. It was all confusing garbage, anyways. You weren’t sure you’d ever need to know any of it in the real world.
You roll your eyes. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. If you didn’t show up, they were going to make you redo the school year again. And that sucked, big time. So, you had to keep going to school. At least, some of the time.
You stare up at the outside of the school. It’s a small school, in a small town. A town called Hometown. Who named this place, anyways? you wonder vaguely to yourself, but then you catch a sign of movement in one of the windows. Ms. Dreemurr.
You duck inside, hoping she didn’t catch sight of you as she taught her class. She was nice enough, when you met her the other day, but you feel slightly embarrassed about the amount of crying you did.
You swing open your locker on the way to class and pull out the box of chalk that you stole from Ms. Alphys yesterday. Perhaps a snack before you head into your classroom…
You eat one and then shove the rest into your pocket. You might be able to get away with eating during class, if you were careful. You sigh and stretch your arms up over your head. Time to head into class.
You open the door, a little harder than you intended, and watch as the room falls silent. You’re used to this, by now. Everyone falls silent when you enter a room, or becomes hostile, or avoids your gaze. There’s no point in trying to make friends with any of these people. They already hate you.
“…Hi, Susie,” Ms. Alphys says, after a moment. Her voice shakes. You know that it shakes no matter who she’s talking to, but you can’t help but feel that it’s worse when she’s talking to you.
“…Am I late?” you ask.
“Ohh, n-no!” Ms. Alphys lies. “You’re fine! W-we were just uh…”
She glances at the room, and you notice now that everyone is paired up, except for Kris, who is standing at the front of the room.
“Ch-choosing partners for the next group project and… Ummm. Susie you’re with Kris!”
“…Great.”
You don’t like Kris. They’re so annoying, all of the time. Whatever. At least you could make them do the project by themself.
“N-now that everyone's here I'll write the assignment!” Ms. Alphys says. She turns to the blackboard, and then hesitates. “Uh… Has anyone seen the chalk? This is the third time it's gone missing and… Y-you all know I can't start class without some!” Ms. Alphys waits, looking at the group of children in front of her. You feel the chalk in your pocket. You say nothing.
“H-how about this? If no one speaks up… E-everyone gets in trouble!” Ms. Alphys puts her claws on her hips, a weak attempt at intimidation. You don’t care if everyone gets in trouble because of you. “A… Anyone? P… please?”
Ms. Alphys sighs. You roll your eyes.
“Hey, there might be a box in the supply closet…” Noelle says, raising her hand as she speaks.
You like Noelle. She let you borrow her candy cane pencil once when you forgot your own pencil. Noelle might be the only person the entire school that you didn’t hate talking to, besides maybe Ms. Dreemurr. Noelle didn’t speak to you very often, though. You couldn’t tell if she hated you like everyone else and was just too polite to say, or if she was just shy. Either way, she was still kinder than a lot of other people had been.
Noelle sends a look your way, and then tilts her head. “Miss Alphys, why don’t Susie and I—”
You blink.
“G-good idea Noelle! Susie s-since you came in last…”
You glance at Ms. Alphys, who wilts under your stare.
“W-why don’t you go get it for me?” She smiles nervously, clasping her claws together.
“…Whatever,” you say. You didn’t even have time to sit down, and now you’re leaving the classroom again. Good excuse to skip class, then. Ms. Alphys knows you showed up, and if she asks why you skipped, well, she did tell you to leave.
You lean against a locker and take out the chalk. Tasty. You chomp down, licking your lips to get all of the dust off of them. The chalk is dry, and it’s coating the inside of your mouth. You probably need to go get a drink. You lean forward, and…
Kris is standing there, suddenly. You narrow your eyes at them.
“Kris. Didn’t see you there,” you say.
Their eyes dart down to the chalk left in your hand. You shove it in a pocket. You wonder what the punishment for eating chalk is.
“Hey. You didn’t see anything just now, did you?” you say, putting on your best menacing voice. You’re good at that, too. Kris takes a step back.
Kris remains silent, staring at you. You snarl slightly.
“You can’t even say?” You take another step forward. Kris takes another back.
“Kris,” you say, pushing Kris further back. “Let me tell you a secret.” Kris’s back is against the wall now, and you take another step forward. “Quiet people piss me off.”
You grab Kris’s collar. They don’t even seem afraid of you, just mildly annoyed that you’re inconveniencing them. Their eyes dart down to your claws on their shirt.
“You think that just ‘cause you don’t say anything, I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking? ‘It’s over! I caught Susie eating ALL the chalk! This was her LAST chance! Now she’ll FINALLY be expelled!’”
Kris raises an eyebrow and opens their mouth to say something.
“C’mon, Kris. Don’t act shocked. You know it’s true. Everyone’s waiting for it. Everyone wants it. So, congrats Kris. You got me. I’m done for.”
Kris shakes their head slightly, and then they open their mouth again. You decide you don’t want to hear them speak.
“Just lemme say one little thing.” You tighten your grip on Kris’s shirt and lift them off of the ground. “Seems like a waste to get expelled just for having a snack. So, Kris, if I KNOW you're gonna pull the trigger…” You slam Kris against the lockers, and their body goes limp. They don’t even try to fight you. It’s honestly even more annoying than their silence.
“Why don't I just get expelled for some REAL carnage? Kris… How do you feel…” You lean in close and show Kris all of your teeth, making sure they get a good look. “…about losing your face?”
There’s a flicker of emotion on Kris’s face before it disappears. This isn’t fun anymore. You don’t really want to hurt Kris any worse than a few shoves and a trip, but it’d be nice if they at least showed how scared they were of you mauling them. Whatever.
“Nah,” you say, like you changed your mind abruptly. “Kris… You've got a good mother. It'd be a shame to make her bury her child.” That sounds pretty menacing, you think. You drop Kris onto the floor and watch them crumple. They’re so tiny.
You turn away from Kris, who is sitting on the floor, still. That satisfies you. You must’ve scared them enough that they can’t just bounce back from it. You stretch and glance at a clock on the wall. No point in waiting out here any longer. You were getting bored.
“Alright. Let's get this over with. We'll get more chalk. Mosey back to class. And then, Kris? YOU'LL do our project. How’s that sound?”
Kris shifts behind you.
“Don’t bother answering. If you haven’t got it by now… Your choices don’t matter.”
Something about the phrase annoys you, but it’s too late to take them back. Besides, it’s true. Nothing you had done so far had made anything better for yourself, and no matter how hard you tried, you still ended up falling behind. If nothing matters, anyways, why even put in the effort?
You walk down the hallway, not bothering to wait for Kris to get up. There’s only four classrooms in the school, plus the storage closet. You glance back at Kris, who’s finally gotten up.
“God, can you walk any slower or what?”
Kris glares.
“Nah, I get it. Not used to walking around without someone holding your hand, huh?”
Kris opens their mouth again, but you turn and walk towards the storage closet. If they wanted to take forever, you weren’t gonna make them walk any faster. Maybe you’d have time to hide all the chalk before Kris got to the closet, too.
You wait at the closet door, watching Kris stop to look at everything in the hallway, as if they’d never seen it before. God. How annoying. Maybe you should reconsider eating their face.
By the time Kris finally makes their way to the closet, you’re already sick of this whole thing. You just wanna find the chalk, get back to class, and maybe take a nap, or something. You swing open the door and mock gesture for Kris to go first.
Kris takes a step back. You glare at them, but then look into the closet.
“Uh. Hey, Kris, is it just me, or is it… Really dark in there?”
Kris nods in agreement. You stare into the darkness. You’re not scared of the dark, normally, but this is even darker than dark. It’s so dark that it almost feels like it’s pulsing. You swallow hard.
“Well!” you say, turning to Kris. “What’s the holdup, huh? Are you gonna go in or something?”
Kris looks at you with wide eyes and takes another step back.
“Fine! If you’re going to be a WIMP, then I’ll—” You stop and look at the dark closet. You swallow again. “We’ll BOTH go in at the same time!” Before they can protest, you grab Kris’s arm and yank them forward and into the darkness.
You kick some papers around on accident as you plunge forward, and feel a shelf along the side of the wall. You feel relieved, even though you knew it was just a closet in here.
“See? What were you so scared of, Kris?” you say, barking a small laugh. Your voice sounds weird in the small space. You stretch and then shake yourself a little bit. “Let’s try to find the light switch.”
You check the wall next to you, while Kris checks the wall on their side. Neither side seems to have a light switch. It must be further in. You and Kris start searching further in, groping blindly in the darkness for the walls.
You can’t even find the walls, much less a light switch. “Uhh, Kris? I think this closet’s… Broken.”
You heard Kris shuffle around a bit and then come to a stop. You look around helplessly at the darkness, and then back at the door. “Well, we’ve worked hard enough. If Alphys wants her chalk so bad, she can get it herself. Let’s split.”
Kris doesn’t reply, which is especially annoying now that you can’t even see if they nod or shake their head or anything. As you start walking away, you can hear Kris behind you moving towards the exit. For some reason, that comforts you.
You’re almost out, when the door slams shut in front of you. “Wh-what the—?” you say, grabbing the door handle and twisting it. Locked. From the outside. You bang on the door. “This isn’t funny! Let us OUT!” You beat on the door some more, picturing yourself punching whoever is on the other side of it in the face.
Kris moves behind you, and you wheel on them in the darkness, not sure what you’re going to do.
The ground shifts beneath you.
“…?”
You pause. Surely, Kris felt that, too.
“The floor, it’s—”
You have no time to finish your sentence, as the floor is suddenly yanked out from underneath you. You and Kris plummet into the darkness below, your stomach doing a flip. Oh, you are going to kill whoever locked that door if you survive this.
-
You groan as you sit up. Your head hurts; you must’ve hit it on the way down. You glance around.
…Where the hell are you?
You stand and look up to where you fell from. There’s nothing to see in that direction, just endless darkness. You glance around, at scenery you’ve never seen before anywhere near Hometown. Or… anywhere else that you’ve been to, for that matter.
You take a few cautious steps forward, looking around at the gray world. There’s a strange… is it a plant? You can’t tell. It shakes back and forth as you pass it, making a weird noise. That doesn’t really answer the question of whether or not it’s a plant.
You keep walking, not sure what else to do. As you walk, you hear movement rustle behind you. Your pulse quickens.
Your eyes dart around. There’s some sort of bush up ahead, you can hide in that and then try to figure out what’s following you. You dive in. Now that you’re in it, it seems more like some sort of pile of… Dust, not a bush. But there’s no time to worry about that, now.
Whatever it is— Whoever it is walks up to a dust-bush you hadn’t noticed and thrusts the dust aside. They glance around, and then walk towards your dust-bush. You scramble out of it and towards the next bush you see. Are they trying to find you? What are they gonna do if they do find you? Is there some sort of monster-eating creature that lives under the school’s storage closet?
You dart to the next dust-bush, heart pounding in your ears. You peek out of the dust-bush. The creature following you has looked through all of the dust-bushes except for the one you’re currently hiding in. You take a deep breath. There’s nothing to do now but fight. C’mon, where’s the intimidating monster you were just a little bit ago? Just… threaten to bite their face off.
“H-hey!” you say, your voice wavering. “B… Back off! Come any closer, and I’ll—”
Kris tilts their head at you, wearing a perplexed expression. You exhale a little bit.
“Kris?” you ask. Kris nods. They tilt their head at you, and their armor clinks. Strange… They weren’t wearing armor before. In fact, you realize, their entire outfit is different. When did they have time to change…?
You punch them in the shoulder. “Hey, don’t scare me like that, dumbass! Unless you WANT to get clocked in the face.” You lean back, hands behind your head, trying to seem like you weren’t even scared in the first place. Kris rubs their shoulder.
“Enough screwing around,” you say, trying to sound assertive. “We gotta find a way out of here. Where… is here, anyways?” You glance back at Kris, who shrugs.
“It doesn’t matter!” You push Kris forward and stand behind them, arms crossed. “You got us into this mess, so you get us OUT. Lead the way, Kris!”
You glare at Kris, who gives you a cool expression in return. You narrow your eyes. You can never tell if Kris is trying to be annoying, or if their face just does that.
You follow Kris for a few paces, but Kris, yet again, seems determined to do nothing but take in the scenery.
“Oh, my god,” you say, when Kris stops to inspect the dust-bush you just came out of, as if it might be hiding someone else, too. “Never mind. You’re WAY too slow.”
You push past them, ignoring the way their eyes follow you as you do. Kris is easy enough to push around, you think, even if they are hard to get a reaction out of. They’re tiny, though, and weak, which means the fun of harassing them is mostly just shoving them when there’s no need to.
You walk forward, catching a glimpse of Kris stopping to look at a wall out of the corner of your eye as you turn down a new path. You roll your eyes. What a weirdo.
Movement catches your eye, and you look up to see… Well, you’re not sure what it is, but it’s waving at you. You stare for a moment, trying to see into the shadows to get a clearer idea of what sort of thing it was.
Kris comes down the path, and you glance at them. “Hey, Kris. There’s someone up there. Waving at us.” You point a purple claw up at the waving figure. “Any idea what they want?”
Kris shrugs again, and then they wave back up at the figure. The figure laughs, and all of a sudden something is flying at your face faster than you can process. It hits you in the gut, and you fall, gasping.
There are more of these things, whizzing at you and Kris like bullets.
“Run, Kris!” you yell, stumbling to your feet and running without bothering to check if Kris is following you.
The bullets fly past your head as you run, and you weave through them as best you can, although not without taking small amounts of damage. One of them trips you, and as you scramble up, you glance back to see the shadowy figure still laughing, and bullets still flying.
You come to the edge of a cliff, and glance down. There’s a slope that you think you can slide down. You hesitate for a moment, as a bullet wings past your hair. No time to think. You jump down, trying to control your descent.
Bullets are still flying past you, but you manage to dodge the majority of them. You land hard, and then roll over to look back up, trying to see if that thing is still chasing you.
You see a shape moving at the top of the cliff. You squint. The glint of metal reflects down at you, off of a chest plate.
“Kris!” you call. “Down here!”
Kris hesitates, too, but then follows down the slope, trying to dodge the bullets like you did.
When they land, you hover anxiously for a minute, trying to make sure they’re not injured. They stand and give you a thumbs up. You lean back, stretching as nonchalant as you can.
“Oh, you’re not dead. Sweet.”
Kris walks past you, accepting your disinterest in their health without missing a beat. You cross your arms and lean back against the wall, ignoring Kris ignoring you.
After a moment, you realize that Kris has left you where you were standing, and you hurry after them, not willing to be left alone here.
Kris leads you— not that you’re a follower, or anything, just that Kris doesn’t seem to care whether or not you go with them, and there’s no where else to go down here— to a small clearing, and as you glance around, your eyes land on a huge castle. Your mouth opens slightly as you look up at it. Just exactly how far did you fall?
“Got any idea what the heck this place is?” you ask Kris. Kris shakes their head, and then starts towards the castle.
“Me, either,” you mumble. Kris is examining a building in front of the castle, and you wander around with them, looking into the windows of all of the abandoned buildings. There’s no one here.
“Maybe this place is an abandoned theme park?” you offer. Kris gives you a look, and then opens their mouth to say something. “Wait,” you say, and Kris closes their mouth again, “where are the rides then…?” Kris nods. “Maybe they abandoned it 'cause there weren't any.” You rotate that idea in your mind for a moment, trying to this place as a bustling theme park.
Kris rolls their eyes and turns away from you. You glare and stick your tongue out at the back of their head.
You look at the castle again. “Maybe there’s someone in there.”
Kris glances at the castle, and then turns back to the building they’re looking at. You cross your arms and huff, impatient.
Whatever. Kris can spend hours looking at empty buildings. You want to see the castle.
You march determinedly towards it, walking up a few steps. You hear Kris start to follow you, but you don’t bother turning back. You don’t care what they do, anymore.
In the middle of a small courtyard, there’s a small glowing… star? It looks like a star. You bend down and reach out to touch it.
…
You feel the soreness from the places where the bullets hit you fade away, and you breathe a little easier. You glance back at Kris, who gives you a thumbs up again. Whatever the hell that was, it seems to have made the both of you feel better. You straighten up and look ahead.
In front of you the castle looms over the empty town. A black geyser emerges from it piercing endlessly into the sky. The power of this place shines within you.