Chapter Text
Black, Yellow, Pink.
The scene repeated in her mind tenfold.
A snowstorm. A cat. Frozen tears.
Dess, just barely out of her reach.
An answer. A path.
The path of the mage, the mage. The forbidden trail, led by ice. The girl will follow.
Noelle didn’t get much sleep that night. The thought of Dess, all alone in that bunker. The cold, the banging sounds in the endless dark. The things she’d have to do to get her back. The things she… already did?
Over the course of the week, her dreams shifted from Berdly chasing her down the corridor, to something unforeseen.
At first, it was just a cat. A harmless animal, really. She didn’t think much of it. Maybe the stress of midterms was getting to her head.
However, it only grew. Images of things she never did. Kris, staring at her mindlessly, like she was completely at their mercy.
Then, she heard its voice. Slinking in the darkness, shifting, breathing. A shallow, raspy echo. A sound that sent her heart down to her stomach. The voice, the things the voice said. The things it encouraged her to do.
Snowgrave.
It sounded so intimidating, but what really was it?
The word made the room feel colder. Made her heartbeat dampen, and her eyes water. An urging feeling pulled at her chest, as her morals held her back, but her soul, longing for closure, told her to proceed.
Her alarm went off. Useless, really. It wasn’t like she slept.
Noelle showed up to school, on time, as usual. Berdly had already been sitting there, and immediately began talking her ear off about what today was about. She admittedly, zoned out a majority of his rambling. Only picking up small details about how they had a project, and they needed to pick a partner, and the two smartest students in the class surely had to pair up.
Nodding aimlessly, she rested her head in her palm, eyes dazed. The bird was on the verge of a concerned ask, when the door slammed open.
She picked her head up as Kris strolled in, and Alphys stumbled to turn her attention to them.
“Oh… K-Kris…! We thought you weren’t coming today!’
“We’re doing group projects this month… Uhhhh… so, walk around and find a partner, ok?”
Kris stared blankly at the lizard for a moment, before making their way straight to Temmie.
Ignoring Berdly’s snarky comments about Kris’s lateness, the doe kept her attention focused on her friend. Kris, who she had been detaching from as of late. The figure in her dreams made her aware that they were her key to Dess. Now, she just had to get them on the same page as her.
They eventually made their way to Noelle, standing in front of her, blankly. Knowing Kris’s movements by now, she knew this was their way of asking if she was free. She glanced over at Berdly, who had been staring at Kris smugly, assumingly because he knew Noelle would deny them, but…
“Kris, you… want to be partners? Well…”
Glancing up from her friend, she found Berdly glaring daggers at her behind them. Averting her gaze, a guilty smile replaced her dazed expression.
“S-Sure…! I don’t see why not!”
Berdly threw his wings up in the air in disbelief, gawking at the two of them like he had just been left hanging off a cliff.
“Oh, Kris, you found a partner? Great, well, I suppose Berdly ca-”
The door slammed open again. Susie stepped in, hands in her pockets, scanning the room. Alphys shrunk down, her shoulders drooping. Even she was scared of her, the school bully.
“h… h-hi! S-Susie!”
“Am I late?”
“N-No…! We were just.. Um..! Choosing partners for the new assignment and you-you’re with.. Berdly!”
Berdly let out an audible groan of discontent.
“N-Now that everyone’s here.. Let me write the assignment!”
Silence filled the room. Alphys made her way over to the chalk board, frantically glancing over the shelf, assumingly for the chalk.
“H… Has anyone seen the chalk?”
“This is the third time it’s gone missing and…”
“You… all know I can’t start class without some.”
Susie looks away, careless. The class remains silent, as Alphys laughs nervously.
“H… How about this? If no one speaks up.. E-Everyone gets in trouble!”
Nothing.
“S… Someone? Please…?”
Noelle lifts her head. This is painful, and she is teetering on the edge of her seat. The dreams… they mentioned the supply closet. At first, she thought it was just her imagination, but…
“Hey, there might be a box in the supply closet… If you want, Kris a-”
“Good idea, Noelle! S-Susie… since you came in last, why don’t you go and get it for me?”
Susie glares at Alphys, and she shrinks down again.
“...whatever.”
She swings the door open, letting it slam shut on her way out.
Alphys stares at the door for a moment, realizing, Susie is probably not going to come back with the chalk.
She looks over at Kris, and it’s like the lightbulb ignites over her head.
“K-Kris, would you go with her and make sure she… gets the… chalk?”
Kris straightened themselves up to begin their departure, but Noelle’s hand, which had found its way to their wrist, tightened its grip.
Kris turned their head to stare down at Noelle, their expression contorting with confusion beneath their bangs. Realizing what she was doing, she pulled her hand away. The human lingered for a moment, before rushing out after Susie.
Noelle watched them walk off in defeat. She had messed up, what if she had thrown the entire thing out the window?
Berdly turned to her, a frown on his face.
“Pardon me, but… what the what was that, Noelle?!” He whispered angrily. “I thought we were going to demolish this project together!”
Whispering a bashful apology, Noelle turned her attention back at Alphys, trying to instead focus on the assignment details. Berdly, stopping his whining after Noelle stopped paying attention, gave her a concerned glance before he huffed, and slumped back into his seat.
Final period finally passed, and so did Noelle’s volunteer work for the evening. A handful of days every week, she takes responsibility to help the school with cleanup, and the teachers with any miscellaneous tasks. She had nearly forgotten about everything from the morning, until she found herself in front of the supply closet.
Broom in hand, she stared at the doors. A foreboding black mist billowed out from underneath the door. A part of her wondered how no one had noticed it yet, or… was it there just for her?
The temptation to step inside battled with her common sense telling her how unsafe of an idea that was. She had always looked down upon herself for that fact. Her inner fear about nearly everything held her back from a multitude of things. She resented it. She only wished to be as strong as Kris was.
Snapping herself out of her thoughts, she reached a hand out towards the door, slowly curling her fingers around the handle. Something stopped her, though. She felt as if she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, suddenly her vision was darker.
An eerie laugh echoed behind her. She yelped, flinching, causing the broom to slam to the ground as she spun to face the source of the laughter. There, she saw it.
A black figure, slithering across the ceiling. The hallway was dark now. The lights were merely flickering, making it hard for her to see anything. It morphed and melded, and the only sight she could make out was its face. A bright grin, almost painfully so, with its sharp, prominent teeth. The eyes, one yellow, one…
That’s when it hit her. It’s the cat. The same one from her dreams. The same one she saw, in the forest, when Dess…
“So… you found the first one.”
The sinister voice snarled across the empty air. It felt like it was consuming Noelle wholly. Her body felt numb. Her ears rang. Her fingers trembled.
“Oh… Don’t be scared, child.”
The cat-like figure slithered down to the doe, wrapping its pointed tail around her leg, raising its head to stare at her.
Noelle’s mouth hung agape, her jaw quivering. Her lips formed to assumptively ask ‘who’, but nothing came out.
“Hmm…”
Deep, the cat’s voice resonated, whilst it slithered around her, to face the side of her head. Its smile widened when Noelle turned her head to meet its gaze.
“You don’t recognize your FRIEND?”
The cat’s face leaned in closer, and the doe’s eyes shut tight in fear.
“Well. I guess it has been a while since I met your sister… ha ha…”
Noelle’s brows furrowed, her chest tightened.
“Oh… yes, you remember her, good.”
“I’ve heard you… talking about her.”
The cat pulled away, releasing her leg. Noelle collapsed to her knees, her entire body trembling. She raised a hand to wipe the tears pulling at the corner of her eyes, lifting her head to look up at the being. A whirlwind of emotion filled her eyes, deep, behind the fear. Anger, sadness, determination. Enough to will her to speak.
“W- What… what do you want…?”
The cat tilted its head. Its eyes narrowed into a squint, then opened up wide once more.
“It’s in my name, isn’t it? I’m your F R I E N D, dear. I want to help you.”
Noelle’s pained expression tilted into confusion.
“How… how is… scaring me… helping?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t like the things you saw, hee hee.”
The figure turned its head upside down, raising itself up on its tail.
“You see, in another world… you have seen this before.”
“I suppose I… got bored of the same old, same old… And when I learned this new trick… I thought it would be perfect for you.”
“You want your sister back, don’t you?”
The doe’s eyes widened at the mention of Dess. She righted herself up on one hand, the best she could do to lock her gaze in closer.
“I-I… I thought… Dess… was…”
“Dead? Oh, no no no… hee hee.”
The figure turned its back to the girl, and a small smoke cloud appeared near the ceiling. More black nonsense, however, as Noelle squinted her eyes..
There she was. Dess, lying on the ground. She looked young.
Little Noelle was behind her, screaming as a tail dragged her sister away. The same tail that laid before her in that moment.
The image shifted, distorted for a moment, and then, a new figure appeared. An angular head. Horns, like a deer’s, but pointier. Then, the image diminished as if it was never there.
The figure turned back to Noelle.
“I thought you’d appreciate a hint.”
It winked, then moved up close to the girl again.
“Remember what I showed you?”
“The… snow.”
Noelle slumped against the door. The image of the snowstorm from her dreams replayed in her mind.
“You’re much too weak to see her now.” It paused, laughing again. “Get stronger. Maybe then we can… reconvene.”
Then, just like the fog, the figure faded away. The lights flickered back on. It was as if time had restarted. Finally able to breathe again, Noelle forced herself up off the ground, holding her chest as she took in the air, her breaths wheezing.
She felt disgusted. The fear had eaten her up, like a parasite that grew rapidly within minutes. She was weak. Just like when Dess was taken. She stood there, and she did nothing. Not anymore. The creature was right.
Noelle needed to get stronger.