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Rudy knew he should have been more careful.
The problem was, he’d been up on this ladder for far longer than the doctor had approved of. His body wasn’t ready for all this exertion, especially after he’d already tired himself out enough by attending church yesterday.
Plus, his mind was elsewhere. He wasn’t even thinking about his own health. No, it was his daughter he was worried about.
Why had she been acting so strange these past few days? So jumpy, so oddly persistent, so… paranoid…?
All his thoughts were driven out of his head when his foot suddenly slipped.
He should have been more careful… he shouldn’t have pushed himself so hard…!
Some surreal alien instinct took hold of him at the last second. His hand reached out with superdeer reflexes and grabbed the ladder rung, barely just managing to keep him in place and stop his predetermined tumble to the ground.
What… was that? How had he done that?!
Astounded, he stared at his hand, then looked up at the sky as if expecting to see the angel right there, giving him its blessing…
But no. There was nothing. No divine miracle that had just prevented what would have otherwise been a serious injury, if not worse.
“Jingle my bells, I was almost done for there,” he muttered to himself. “Better be more careful…”
He took a few moments to regain his strength, then he very slowly made his way down the ladder. He wasn’t taking chances anymore.
A few more steps… and… there! He was safely back on his own two hooves, on solid ground rather than a rickety old ladder. No need to worry about him. He was going to be just fine!
It was 3 in the morning. A clock chimed somewhere in the distance, the sound echoing through the still night air. Aside from that, it was deathly quiet.
Noelle was sitting upright in her bed, not even trying to sleep. How could she? There was too much to be thinking about, with nothing to distract her from it. She repeatedly pressed that little thorn into her finger, pushing it in as far as it would go until it hit bone, then pulled it again until it was almost falling out, then in, then out, then in…
It had to have been real. Why would this thorn still be there if it hadn’t been real? It was the ‘Thorn Ring’, wasn’t it…?
But there were two distinct sets of memories in her head of today’s events, and only one of them felt real. The one that, by all accounts and all evidence, didn’t actually happen.
She could recall it vividly. Pulling Kris into the lake with her, sinking into the waves, more alive than she’d ever been before, so filled with adrenaline and spirit that the pain of water pouring into her lungs couldn’t even faze her…
…only to end up back on the beach. And everything was ‘normal’.
Yet it was like a dense fog had descended back on her, numbing her to her surroundings. Everything continued on as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. She had gone through it on autopilot, merely following a script, a million miles away, barely feeling a thing.
Should she be… happy about that? Drowning in the lake would be anyone’s idea of a nightmare. Somehow she’d managed to escape that. She’d instead spent that lakeside evening with Susie, getting to have everything she’d previously dreamed of. Nothing bad had happened.
But… this thorn in her finger… and the fact that Kris had been acting strange once they’d woken up, the way Susie looked between the two of them with concern written all over her face, like she had noticed something too…
It really did happen. Kris must remember.
She shoved the thorn back in as hard as she could and stood up, mad energy coursing through her again. The thorn was proof, wasn’t it? That she had control over something, even if it somehow reset afterwards. No matter how painful or horrible, it was better than the sheer tedium she had dealt with before.
If Kris’s memories hadn’t reset, just like hers hadn’t… if they could tell her that they remembered it all too… What would happen then…?
She couldn’t wait until morning. Before she knew it, she was clambering out of her bedroom window. Jumping down to the ground. Running over to Kris’s house. Climbing up to their window and sneaking into their room the way they had taught her many years ago, though she had never actually used that knowledge until now.
“Kris? Are you awake?”
Her voice came out louder than she intended. Regardless, it looked like Kris was indeed already awake. They were lying on the bed with their daytime clothes and shoes still on, curled up and clinging to the sheets so hard their knuckles were popping out through their fleshy human skin. It looked like they hadn’t got any sleep at all, just like her.
The second they saw her, the colour drained from their face.
She rushed up and put a hand over their mouth before they could say anything. “Shhh. I… I need to talk to you about something. Come with me…”
Taking their shaking, sweaty hand, she pulled them to their feet without too much effort and began leading them back out of the window.
No way was she talking to them about things right here in their room, considering their tiny house with its thin walls that Toriel would absolutely be able to hear them through. She had to take them somewhere else, where no one would be ‘listening’.
Outside in the fresh air, she took a good look at them under the moonlight as they continued walking. That sickly appearance definitely lent credence to the idea that they had nearly died in the lake earlier. She had wondered if they would try to resist her somewhat, but they were following her without any prompting at all. Like a puppet or something.
Within a few minutes she brought them back to the lakeside where they had spent such an exhilarating time earlier. The air here was so cold, so invigorating! She took a deep breath in, before finally releasing Kris’s hand and turning to face them.
“Hey, Kris… You remember earlier, right? What happened here?”
They were looking down now, their face in shadow. Completely silent.
“Come on… All you have to say is ‘I remember’, and I’ll understand… I know you remember…”
They mumbled something, but the only word that Noelle could really catch was ‘Susie’. Why were they saying that?!
“That’s not the part I’m talking about!” she said, her annoyance mounting. “I’m talking about before that! Stop acting like it didn’t happen!”
No response. More silence.
“It… I-It wasn’t a dream. I know it wasn’t. Just tell me again that it wasn’t, like you did before…!”
Finally she got a real reaction from them, but it wasn’t the one she wanted. Instead of coming clean, they just turned their head away, still downcast.
Why were they being like this, after everything that had happened? Why would they try to go back to that dreary monotonous hell, after having such an irresistible taste of lucidity, of control, of power for once…? How could they possibly back off from all that?
Worse, why would they give Noelle that brief moment of lucidity, only to take it all away?! She couldn’t lose it again! Not now!
The next thing she knew, her hands were digging into Kris’s shoulders and shaking them, trying to get any kind of recognition. Maybe showing them how strong she was would jog their memory… She dug her nails in even further, hoping Kris could feel it under their sweater.
“You’d BETTER remember, okay Kris? I know what happened here, and you know what happened…” She glared hard. “You’re not going to get away with acting like you forgot, it’s too late for that!”
It wasn’t working. Their face was going even greyer, their trembling getting more prominent. It was clear they were frightened.
Was she… going too far? Were her nails really hurting them that much?
The thorn sticking into her finger reminded her what the true purpose of pain was. It was to make you stronger.
But even so, this was eerily similar to what had happened earlier… when she’d asked Kris to tell her to ‘proceed’, but they’d only told her to stop… over and over again… until she just started saying it herself instead…
Perhaps it was time to change tactics. Kris had mentioned Susie just now, right? Clearly the fake, ‘reset’ version of today’s events were still playing on their mind and stopping them from accepting the truth.
In fact, Noelle herself was hit with a sudden melancholy pang as the image of Susie bubbled up in her mind’s eye, carrying her around in the shallows, saying all sorts of sweet and heartwarming things to her… But she forced it back down without mercy.
That hadn’t been real. Susie was just… one of those other, normal people. Not like Noelle and Kris. If Noelle had carried on down that path full of sunshine and rainbows, nothing would change. Life would still be stuck in a loop of tedium. As fascinating as she used to think Susie was, Noelle had since then experienced several levels beyond what she could ever have thought of as ‘interesting’. In comparison, Susie was still well within the realms of normalcy.
It… hurt to let go, though. To let go of something she had once tried so hard to achieve…
She changed track by softening her grip on Kris and trying to appeal to a different side of them. To convince her own self, if anything. “Kris, are you thinking about me and Susie? Is that the problem?”
They still didn’t say anything, but at least their shaking wasn’t getting any worse.
“Because, um, you don’t need to worry, faha… She doesn’t know the things we know… She hasn’t seen what we’ve seen, or done what we’ve done… So you can tell me the truth, you know. Tell me it was real. You don’t have to worry about her right now.”
The expression on their face was so familiar. Where had she seen it before…?
Oh yes… in her room yesterday. When the two of them were sitting on the couch. When Noelle had been musing over the time Kris had come to give her watch back to her. She had slid over to them, closing the gap between them, and Kris kept backing up further and further until suddenly slamming their hand over her mouth to shut her up.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure why she had tried getting so close to them. All she could tell was that it was giving her some kind of thrill, something she needed to chase, the same thrill she had got from stepping into the lake with them.
A powerful thrill. An urge to do something crazy…
Chasing that feeling once more, she took their chin in her fingers and tilted their face up to look directly at her, gazing right into their eyes.
They’d known each other for years, better than anyone else… She could see it in their expression. Of course they remembered it. It was real.
But she couldn’t truly believe it without hearing them say it. She needed the undeniable proof that they really had changed. She wanted them to believe in it too. To be a willing part of this. They were the one who had started it, after all. She couldn’t do it without them.
Leaning in close, she lowered her voice and spoke much more softly. “Just looking at you, it’s like I can read your thoughts too, so there’s no use denying it… You may as well admit it…”
Her heartbeat was picking up. That thrill was growing. Could Kris sense it too? The electricity that was causing her fur to stand on end? The fire running through her veins? The thorn in her finger, strengthening her resolve with all its might?
If she could just prod them into becoming ‘new’ Kris again and leaving their old shell behind…
“Tell me what happened here earlier, at the lake… Please, Kris, I… I need to hear it…”
She had half expected them to back away, like on the couch, but they seemed frozen in place. Unmoving, like a deer in headlights. A feeling that Noelle knew all too well.
Being on the other side of it this time, however… being the one to cause those feelings…
…It surprised her just how enjoyable she found it.
This must be how Kris had felt yesterday. When they’d regained their strength, grabbed her hand, and shoved the Thorn Ring back onto her finger. She could finally understand it. It was horrible, it was twisted, she knew that… but how could she resist a feeling like this…? How could anyone?!
That urge to do something crazy was enveloping her completely. Too strong to fight back. Drunk on power, or love, or control… or…
She had to get Kris back. Make them feel something. Anything.
Gently, she held their face in her hands and pulled them up towards her so far that their toes were barely resting on the ground. Then she did what she had, deep down inside, wanted to do yesterday in her room. Wanted even further back, perhaps, when Kris had come to deliver her watch back to her. Or maybe even earlier… as early as the first ‘proceed’.
She kissed them.
This wasn’t selfish, she told herself. In a way, she was trying to transmit some of her own courage to Kris. Telepathically or something. Courage to break themself away from whatever was tethering them to their old life.
She continued to firmly tell herself that, as she leaned deeper into it, a pleasant fuzziness igniting in her chest, shivers running up and down her spine. Maybe it was true that she had wanted this, and hadn’t fully realised it before now, but… but she was doing this for Kris, really, she was…! Never mind how intoxicating it was to feel her closest friend’s lips on her own… the ends of their hair brushing her face…
Was it working? It was definitely working on her, no doubt about it. Rather than alleviating her newfound insane desires, it was only fuelling them. Pumping her full of adrenaline and madness.
And what about Kris?
Well… though she couldn’t tell for sure, considering that she didn’t have anything to compare it with, she got the feeling they weren’t kissing her back.
She opened her eyes – when had she closed them, again? – and put Kris down, stepping away a little to see that they were actually blushing slightly. That… might be a start?
“S-See?” she said, smiling brightly and trying to get her nerves back to a normal level for the moment. “I told you, just forget about whatever you thought was happening here with Susie… That was the OLD me. The NEW me is right here, and… I know the new you is here too, Kris, you just have to accept it…”
They were staring at the ground with their hands over their mouth, so she grabbed those hands with her own and held them tight. It was surprisingly easy to do something so bold now.
“Come on, I’ll remind you! You’ll see in a minute…”
Do something crazy. Again.
She had pulled them back into the lake water within just a few moments. It was significantly colder now than it had been earlier, but hey, pain barely meant anything to her anymore.
Together they stood, facing each other, hands clasped together with their ankles below the surface. It was an exact repeat of the scenario from earlier. This was bound to have some kind of effect.
Giving their hands a squeeze, Noelle tried to prompt them. “You remember. Say the word.”
But they didn’t. Their breaths were quickening.
“You’re supposed to say ‘Proceed’.” She repeated her words from earlier and pulled them further into the water.
Their hands had gone clammy now. Why was human skin all weird like that? She just ignored it and carried on.
“Proceed.”
She knew she could only go so far on her own. This wasn’t something she could simply do herself. The water was getting higher now, reaching the lower part of her skirt.
“Proceed.”
Without Kris saying it too, it wouldn’t work. Not properly. But they were still as silent as ever as she brought them further in.
“Proceed.”
They were pointedly avoiding her gaze, hair covering half their face, the shaking returning to their hands. It was almost exactly the same as last time. The water was rising rapidly.
“Proceed.”
She would drown them again, she didn’t care. She would do anything to reawaken their instincts. Whatever it took. And when they did, then she would truly be able to cross this lake, truly be able to do anything… truly break out of this horrible cage that had been encircling her since the day Dess had gone…! She just needed them to say it!
“PROCEED…”
The lake floor curved away from the two of them, leaving them floating in the depths with their dense clothes weighing them down. Like last time, it only took a few moments for them to sink below the waves.
Noelle kept a close eye on Kris up until the last moment, but they didn’t say a word. It was almost like no one was in there at all, like they locked away their entire personality.
Would they really go that far just to deny her…? Why?!
She wanted so badly to bring it back… she needed it… the water filling up her lungs burnt her inside and out, just like before, the pain making her feel more alive and more powerful and stronger than ever…! Everything was going white… All she needed was Kris to just tell her they knew, they remembered… that it was real, they just needed to say it, ‘proceed’–
She suddenly sat up in bed, coughing and gasping for air.
What just…?
Looking up at the clock, she saw the time. 3 in the morning. A distant chime rang out somewhere. There were no other sounds, aside from her ragged breathing.
It was… exactly the same as…
…as before.
No. No, it couldn’t be… It couldn’t have just been a dream! But everything had snapped back to normal once more, nothing had changed, Noelle was just Noelle and…
Wait. That dripping sound…
Her eyes still adjusting to the dark, she watched as a drop of water from her hair rolled down and landed on her pillow with a soft plop. Then another. And another.
She slowly raised a hand to her head, hardly able to contain her sudden excitement. Sure enough, her fingers touched what was undeniably sopping wet hair.
Her hair was wet…
Her hair was wet!!!
Even now, as she rejoiced silently to herself, the hair began to dry far more rapidly than should have been possible, and in just a short time it had returned to normal. But still, nothing could quell the certainty of what she had just confirmed. The evidence may have been gone, but even here in the dark, for those few moments… it HAD been real! It wasn’t a dream!
Alright, so what exactly was happening here? She tried to calm down and think.
She had taken Kris into the water again, and they had both succumbed to the depths… and just like before, it was erased. Everything they had done and felt was real, but there were no consequences. Absolutely none. For any of it.
They truly were free to do whatever they pleased. Whatever mad fancy took them.
With the two of them working together, where could they go? What could they achieve? And if anything went wrong, couldn’t they just… ‘reset’ it? They were free to live out anything. They could DO ANYTHING.
Perhaps in the morning, fresh and well-rested, the two of them could… leave this town for real…
Noelle tried to go back under the covers for a while and get some sleep, but this revelation was too much. She couldn’t resist it. She had to do it again. Something crazy, over and over, breaking whatever was ‘normal’, escaping from her miserable life, even if it reset again, even if it wasn’t ‘real’, the sheer rush was absolutely worth it…!
Back on her feet, she climbed out of her window again and went over to Kris’s house. If there were no consequences, she hardly even needed to be careful anymore.
Reaching their bedroom again, she opened the window and entered it to see…
…Oh. There was no sign of Kris.
She searched around for a while, even peeking into the other rooms and checking the usual hiding spots from their old games of hide and seek, but Kris was nowhere to be found. Eventually she left the house and wandered out onto the road, glancing around but having no clue where to start looking.
Had Kris… run away? Guessing in advance that she would be coming, and getting out of here before she could find them…?
Come on! Were they really trying to chicken out again, after all that? Didn’t they know it was futile?!
Unless they were using this to test her… to test that she was worthy of their partnership, strong enough to chase after all this… It was what Berdly would call a ‘4D chess strat’ or ‘epic gamer move’.
Berdly…?
A sudden dizziness gripped her, sending her stumbling to the ground.
That time when she… with that Thorn Ring, and that spell…
…No, it was making her feel sick. Bringing back memories that should stay buried.
Don’t… think about… Berdly…
It took her several moments of breathing heavily through gritted teeth, balling her hands up into fists, until the nausea subsided. She was stronger now. There were sacrifices. It was horrible, but it had to be done. Why dwell on it?
Don’t think about Berdly. Ever again. Just don’t.
She pushed herself back onto her feet and made herself carry on. For a while she just walked around aimlessly, but eventually she realised she had drifted off towards the side of town that had the pizza place.
Wait, no… to be more accurate, her feet were leading her to the spot where the Ferris wheel had stood several hours ago.
It was just an empty patch of grass now, but the imprint was still visible. To think that she had been on this thing with Susie earlier, like she’d been daydreaming about for who knew how long, and yet she hadn’t even been nervous!
Well, she’d already planned to leave with Kris and cross the lake. She had never intended to come back. So spending one last day with Susie, trying to give her all her money, enjoying the Ferris wheel ride, eating snacks together… It was like a last farewell to her old life. A farewell to the old Noelle. And a final farewell to Susie… casting her off and never thinking about her again…
At least, that had been the plan. And look how it had worked out.
She shook all thoughts of Susie out of her head – they were nothing but stupid temptations. Distractions.
Alright… why had she subconsciously come here, of all places…?
Because of Kris, no doubt.
Something within her was telling her that Kris must have come here too, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Kris probably left their house, came over to the Ferris wheel area, saw that it had been packed away already, and… and…
That was it! She knew where to go!
Without waiting any longer she turned around and headed to the part of town near her mother’s office, where all the festival rides were always stored when not in use. It was out near a little side road that not many people knew about.
Sure enough, there were a line of trailers with packed and folded rides sitting atop them, nothing but cold and ominous shadows now in the darkness of the night. Some of them had thick tarps shielding them from the elements, but there weren’t enough to go around. Right there at the end was the Ferris Wheel. It had been partly flattened and dismantled, but one of the compartments was hanging off the edge of the trailer and was close enough to reach from the ground.
There… They must be in there…!
Noelle ran over, her heart thumping, and peered in through the window.
It was too dark to make out any details, but she could just about see Kris curled up in the corner. They didn’t react at all to her presence. Were they asleep…?
She slid open the door as quietly as she could, stepped inside, and shut it again behind her. She didn’t want Kris to be able to leave before she was done talking to them. And if they thought that was unfairly villainous of her, well… what about the time Kris had been the one stopping her from leaving, forcing her into a forcefield with no other way out? Or threatening her with her watch in the hospital, backing her up against the wall while telling her things weren’t a dream? Or on the sofa in her room, advancing on her with the Thorn Ring…
Kris had done all those things to her, and it had worked. Wouldn’t it work the other way round too?
Something suddenly caught her eye. Kris was not just curling up to keep warm – they had something grasped in their arms.
It looked… familiar…
Noelle gently slipped it out without waking them, then turned it over in her hands to take a look. This was… oh, it was a photobook from Kris’s house. She’d seen it plenty of times before. From the looks of it, it had been opened to a specific page.
The photo of the two of them riding the Ferris wheel as children.
This photo… had Kris been looking at it while they fell asleep? What on earth were they doing that for? As if they didn’t get to see it every time they went over to Noelle’s house, hanging right there on the wall in view of everyone! As if either of their parents didn’t whip it out at every opportunity to talk about how cute they had both been when they were young!
So why were they looking at it now? What could they possibly need it for…?
Squinting in the low light levels, Noelle studied the old photo in search of a clue. They really did look so small back then… so fragile and innocent, completely unlike what either of them were now. Little Kris had that stupid creepy grin on their face that used to make her laugh so much, and as for little Noelle… she looked…
…happy…?
She could hardly remember that day anymore. Maybe she really had been in a good mood. It had been before Dess’s disappearance, after all. Life had been much rosier back then. But she had grown up now, and those rosy days had long been left behind.
Was… was that why Kris had been looking at this photo? They wanted to see her happy?
But she was happy now! Or she would be, if they could just join in with her and stop pretending it was all fake! If they wanted her to smile again, they already held the key!
Or were they reminiscing about the good old days… the days before their lives fell apart…
A weird sense of nostalgia welled up within Noelle before she could stop it, mixed in with the usual grief over her sister. She sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve–
Kris’s eyes snapped open from the sound.
“K-Kris!” she said, her voice coming out a bit strangled. “I knew I’d find y…”
They hurriedly scrambled back and pressed themself against the far wall before she’d even finished speaking. It was a massive departure from how calmly they’d been lying there just a few seconds ago. Now they were shaking in fear once again, breathing so hard she could see their chest rising and falling, the colour rushing out of their face.
It was obvious now. Kris was…
…afraid of her.
Not just afraid of consequences, not afraid of what she was trying to make them do, not afraid of unbridled power, or anything like that… they were afraid of her, Noelle Holiday.
Something twisted was unravelling itself deep within. A horrible, disgusting part of herself that she hated.
The part of her that liked it.
How many times over the years had Kris scared her on purpose? What about all those times in the last few days alone where they had pushed her beyond her limits and outright terrorised her? Was it really so bad for her to feel some vindication on getting the upper hand for a change…?
But she knew, as much as she couldn’t bring herself to admit it, that what she really enjoyed about this was the feeling of being powerful… so powerful that even her own friend could fear her…
And she liked it. She liked it!
I’m… I’m doing this to help Kris.
She remembered that they could read her mind, and she tried to channel her thoughts directly at them.
(I want you to feel this way too, Kris…)
(I want you to feel powerful like you did before. I want both of us to feel like that.)
(I’m doing it for you…)
Was it working? She couldn’t tell, since Kris wasn’t budging from that back wall. Perhaps they needed some more time for their brain to wake up before they could pay attention to her words. She switched to speaking out loud again.
“Kris, I know why you ran away from your house. It’s… because of what happened last time, isn’t it…?”
They looked away, still shaking.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to take you to the lake again! Not right now anyway… it’s too cold, faha…”
She took a step closer, making sure to still keep herself as a barrier between them and the door.
“…But seriously, Kris, you DO remember what I’m talking about, don’t you? Any time things happen… any time we do anything weird or crazy together, something that normal people can’t do… even if it goes back to ‘normal’ after… YOU remember, right?”
Still not looking at her, they mumbled something in their old voice. “I… I-I’m going home…”
They made to leave, but she rushed forward and pushed them back. “Not yet. Just tell me the truth first, that you remember all these resets, and then I’ll let you go home. Okay?”
She couldn’t let this turning point go. For some reason she was terrified that if she let them leave before confronting them, everything would truly snap back beyond salvation. Everything that she worked so hard for would slip away, all her pain and suffering would have been meaningless…! A point of no return…
All of a sudden, Kris shoved a hand into their pocket and pulled out their knife.
She instantly backed up a little, actually nervous now. They had finally turned to face her properly, holding that knife up with clenched fingers, a new look of determination on their face.
“Um… y-you’re not going to use that on me, are you?” she asked, trying to play it off as something funny.
Kris didn’t respond. Their hand was quivering so much that she could easily tell how tenuous their conviction really was. They clearly didn’t have the guts to truly threaten her with something like a knife. Only with a tiny thorn…
Well, if they were trying to regain their lost strength, maybe she would have to help them.
“It’s okay, I know the feeling… It’s natural, isn’t it? You’re trying to become stronger…”
They still just held the knife there, unmoving.
She whispered that word to them, the word that always worked on her. The word that would make them do something crazy, without fail.
“Proceed…”
For a moment Kris’s eyes flashed bright red. They lifted the knife high in the air.
Had she done it? Had she finally unlocked that side of them? The new Kris…?!
WHOOSH.
They plunged the knife into the floor between them.
There was a blinding flash, a loud rumbling somewhere between a waterfall and a roar, followed by black smoke pouring out of the spot the knife had hit. Noelle staggered back, but it was too late to avoid breathing it in. The smoke rapidly filled the entire compartment, sending everything into a wash of pitch-black.
Then Kris’s red eyes shone out of the darkness. Their surroundings began to take form.
The compartment had transformed into a vast, caged box that they were both stuck in. Noelle looked down to see that her clothes had turned into…
…those clothes. The ones she had worn in her ‘dream’.
Even the thorn in her finger had turned back into the Thorn Ring. Everything about her appearance was just how it had been back then. Down to the smallest details. As for Kris, their clothes had changed into that knight-esque outfit she remembered them wearing in the dream.
What was happening? Had Kris somehow reactivated that dream world? She didn’t have a clue what was going on or how it worked. No one had explained anything to her.
But if she really was here again… and this Thorn Ring was on her finger… if she really was in her ‘dream’…
Her stomach heaved. Two very conflicting emotions were struggling for dominance within her, and neither were letting up.
The terror… the pain… remembering just how traumatic the whole experience had been, how it had scarred her, how she couldn’t sleep…
And an energetic madness. The power that was filling her with every passing second. The need to unleash it. Not wanting to sleep.
Whatever this dream world was, it was much larger than the cramped Ferris wheel compartment. With more space now, Kris stood up properly and put their knife away. Oh, how powerful they looked…! How regal, like they were made for giving orders. Just like they had done back then, when they had started being the new Kris, and started making Noelle stronger… this was truly how it all began. Maybe it was going to begin anew.
She was about to speak when Kris suddenly walked right up to her and, carefully, tenderly, took her hand in theirs. Holding her fingers as if they were handling delicate lace.
It was enough to leave her speechless. She hadn’t considered that Kris would just… do something like this. Be like this. It was a complete surprise.
Was this proof that they did, in fact, remember the last reset? Considering what she had done back then… taken them in her arms, and… given them quite the enthusiastic kiss...
...Her surprise quickly turned to confusion, then anger. Kris was not trying to be romantic. Instead they had taken the Thorn Ring in their fingers and were trying to slide it off.
She immediately let go of the photobook and grabbed Kris’s fingers, holding them in place. “Don’t… Don’t take that off, Kris.”
They ignored her and pulled on it harder.
“No, you’re not taking it away from me again!” She shoved them away from her, so hard they fell over.
There! That should do it! Why would they ruin a perfectly good moment like that, anyway…? She had thought they were maybe were going to… to…
Her cheeks heated up, and she quickly stopped thinking about it. No getting distracted right now!
Kris evidently hadn’t given up on getting the Thorn Ring off her. They got to their feet and rushed her, trying to grab her hands again. She pushed them away once more, using the fact that she was physically taller than them to her advantage, but they just leapt right back up.
“Noelle… g-gimme the ring…” Their voice was as shaky as ever. Nothing like the cold, commanding Kris that she wanted to hear so much.
“No.” She projected all that attitude into her own voice instead. “You gave it to me. It’s mine now.”
They recoiled slightly. Was she being creepy? Good! Someone here had to be!
There was a faint flapping sound behind her. She saw Kris’s eyes flick up to glance at whatever was causing it. It seemed to have distracted them momentarily, so she took the opportunity to turn her head and have a quick look.
An oversized book floated there several feet above the ground, flapping like a bird to keep itself aloft. Pages were tearing themselves away and drifting around, as if by magic, larger than life, displaying their contents up in the air.
It wasn’t just any book. It was Kris’s photobook.
How had it grown so big? It must have been the magic of this dream world. It looked almost like it had a mind of its own, throwing photos out left and right. A particularly large page was unfolding and laying itself out now, in front of all the other ones, as if screaming to be looked at.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away. There, magnified to an impossible size, was the picture of her and Kris on the Ferris wheel. Hanging there across her entire field of vision. It was all she could see.
Suddenly in such high quality… so lifelike…!
It catapulted her right back to that day. The two of them had been on the Ferris wheel together, and Kris had shaken it, and… and… something was tugging at her memories, begging for her to acknowledge it…
…Only for a sharp pain to smash all her thoughts into pieces.
“O-OW!!”
Something had hit her hand. Something strong. The pain was so fierce, so paralysing, that she doubled over, tears springing to her eyes. What could that possibly have been?! She looked down to see what had happened, but the sight that awaited her almost made her pass out in shock.
There was a gaping, bloody hole where one of her fingers should have been. And on the floor by her feet, in a pool of blood, lay that missing finger. The one with the Thorn Ring on it.
Stars spun in front of her vision. She wrenched her gaze away and tried to get her breathing under control, clutching her bleeding hand and gulping down the bile that was rising in her throat. Instead of letting herself get overwhelmed, she focused her eyes on Kris, who was standing there across from her, shivering and refusing to look at her.
They had a sword in their hands. Judging by the blood dripping off it, that sword must have been what cut off her finger.
Kris… did that…?
Did Kris really cut off Noelle’s finger?
Perhaps it was just adrenaline from the pain driving her mad, but a crazed laugh began to escape her. She couldn’t help it! Kris had just done something crazy! Wasn’t that what she’d been asking of them? Wasn’t that what this whole thing was about?!
And even if they’d done it to her, well… she had drowned the two of them twice now, so it wasn’t that big a deal. Especially when pain made her stronger. Especially when she could just…
Heal it all away.
It only took a second. The magic spell came back to her in an instant. There was a sparkle of light, and her finger was attached to her hand again, the Thorn Ring safe and sound before Kris had got the chance to grab it. The pain melted away until it was back to the usual stable level, the amount that was just about enough to give her that powerful buzz without becoming a detriment.
No consequences at all, just like a reset. It was perfect!
Kris’s face fell. Their feet shuffled, as if readying their stance. Poised to attack again.
They… were doing this for the wrong reason, weren’t they…? They just wanted to take her ring away, by any means necessary. They weren’t trying to make her stronger, or prove to her that they could do something crazy, or anything like that… No. They still hadn’t given up this stupid sentimentality.
Well, she hadn’t given up either. She would just have to show them.
When they rushed at her again, she was prepared this time. Not only did she dodge, she struck back by sending a flurry of ice at them. They tried to attack her again, and again, and again…
It was turning into a true battle. She deflected each of their charges, getting more and more worked up every time. The air was growing colder, the wind picking up, photos flying around everywhere. Was she doing that? She couldn’t even tell. Her power was growing, just like it had done in that other dream world, that giant city filled with enemies to defeat.
Kris was pleading something now, but she didn’t pay much attention. What were they saying? Something like “Fine, I’ll leave you the ring, just let me go home”? It was hard to hear them over the howling of the wind, and the ringing in her own ears.
Besides, she couldn’t just let them go! Didn’t they find this battle as electrifying as she did? Couldn’t they feel that rush of pure power?!
Flecks of white began mixing into the storm surrounding them, soon coming so thick and fast it was hard to see. The darkness gave way to great bright streaks of light.
This was so familiar…! It was so cold… so icy… a blizzard of snow, encasing the entire world, blinding her, suffocating her, forming great crystals of blue and white and plunging into the hearts of both of them–
Her eyes opened. The familiar view of her bedroom greeted her.
No! Was she back here again?
She looked up at the clock. Sure enough, it was 3 in the morning. As if on cue, a distant chime rang out.
For several seconds she couldn’t move. Bits of ice and snow littered her hair and clothes, quickly melting away into nothing and leaving no trace. It took far longer for her heart to unfreeze from whatever hellish prison it was stuck in.
That snowstorm… it was reminding her so painfully of… of…
She desperately shoved it back down into the recesses of her memory. What did it matter? She was stronger now! She had proven it!
Yes, proven it by using that spell on herself and Kris just now, without even consciously realising it…
And they had paid the price with their lives. Again.
She fiddled with the thorn on her finger, still in a daze. Even this time, you could call it an accident, right? It wasn’t like she had intended to kill them both. It was the same with the lake. She didn’t want to drown them, so it couldn’t be called murder… right…? And even if it could, it had all been repaired now… vanished away…
…It was no use. Her thoughts were too loud to let her fall asleep. She slipped out of bed and over to the window, not even sure where she wanted to go–
“Noelle. Need to talk to you.”
“K-KRIS?!”
Kris’s head had popped up at the window just as she’d opened it, scaring her half to death. What were they doing here? Could it be possible that… that the Snowgrave had unlocked their hidden side again…?! It was about time!
She tried to help them inside, but they clambered in on their own and pushed her back, speaking quickly. “Listen… You want the ‘new Kris’, not the ‘old Kris’, right?”
“H-Huh? I… Y-Yes, well…”
“Then you can have the new Kris. J-Just… just take them away from me, keep them yourself…”
They had a deranged look on their face, halfway between a smile and the twisted expression of someone in deep pain. It was the kind of look that got Noelle’s heart pumping. But what were they talking about…? What on earth did they mean by…
They suddenly shoved their hand deep into their chest and ripped out something blisteringly red, bleeding profusely. Noelle jumped back in shock. Kris, unfazed, gleefully held it out at her.
“Go on! Take it!”
She gulped down a fresh wave of nausea. “B-But Kris, that’s your…!”
Soul.
A little heart-shaped object. The real deal this time, not just a pillow. Noelle didn’t remember much about human souls, but she at least knew that it was a part of Kris, and a part that they definitely needed.
That thing… in their hand… squelching and pulsating, oozing blood…
It horrified her. She tried to back away, but Kris grabbed her hand and shoved the soul into it, closing her fingers around it.
“There, that’s your new Kris… N-Now leave me alone…”
What did that mean?! They had let go of her and were walking back towards the window now, leaving her standing there with this… this thing in her grasp, so disgusting and dreadful she could hardly keep herself from retching.
Whatever was happening, this was really bad. She grabbed Kris’s arm to stop them. “Wait! Kris, you have to put this back in! You’ll die if you don’t have it, right?! And then how can the two of us…”
She trailed off, realising her words were useless. Kris no longer seemed to care about dying. Had these repeat deaths caused this? Made them so blasé about their own mortality? Sure, she could always try the ‘resetting everything’ trick afterwards, but still…! Dying wasn’t the point! She wanted them both to experience things! Things other than death!
They were still struggling against her, so she pushed them against the wall, found the crevice in their chest, and forcibly shoved the soul back into their body.
There! Exactly where it should be!
Kris immediately tried to grab her hand to pull it back out again, but she didn’t let them. She kept her fingers squeezed tightly around that soul, pushing it deeper into their body so that it wouldn’t come out. The thorn’s edge must have been digging into it too. Could Kris feel it? Was it painful?
Did it make them feel strong? Because Noelle certainly felt strong like this. The power to keep Kris alive, right there in her hand…!
“L…L-Let… go…”
Their voice came out raspy, interspersed with coughs. They were bleeding from the chest now, but she carried on putting all her strength into it. She had to keep going until they stopped fighting back. Until they left that soul in their body. Until they stopped trying to resist this tidal wave…
With their spare hand they suddenly pulled their knife out of their pocket and drove it into the back of Noelle’s clenched fist.
“O-Ouch…! Kris, what the–!”
She finally let go and leapt back in pain, but she barely had time to register it. Kris was already trying to tear out their soul again, and she couldn’t have that!
Ignoring her own predicament, she rushed forward and slammed her injured hand back into the crevice in their chest, shoving them into the wall with force and making them wheeze.
Their face was turning a ghastly greyish green now. They started slashing at her wildly with the knife, but she refused to let up. There were bursts of pain in her arms, her face, her chest, as some of their hits landed… She didn’t care! She couldn’t let go! In a rush of adrenaline, she put her other hand around Kris’s neck and pressed in hard with all her fingers and nails.
Pain all over. Blood was pouring into her eyes, splattering over both their clothes. Neither of them stopped fighting – Kris doing their best to die, and Noelle doing anything she could to save them.
All she knew was that she had to keep that soul in their body. Even if it killed them, even if it killed her…!
Everything was awash with red now, spots clouding her vision, dizziness overwhelming her. The room was spinning, the view of Kris in front of her was fading… all her wounds were crying and aching, Kris’s dim face was going blue… she didn’t let go, she squeezed harder and harder, thinking of those words that could push her to do anything, proceed, proceed, proceed–
She opened her eyes, back in her bed. Breathing so hard she was practically hyperventilating.
For a moment she could still sense blood pouring out of her hand, her head, her body… still feel that soul clenched tight in her fingers… Kris’s neck, bruised and strangled…
By the time the distant clock chimed thrice, the blood had vanished. Just like the lake water and the snow.
The memories, of course, were all still there.
Without thinking about what she was doing, Noelle forced herself out of her bed, ignoring her heavy and exhausted limbs. If she didn’t get to Kris’s house immediately, they would… they would probably do something terrible without her…
Their face, blue and choking and bleeding, popped up in her mind’s eye without warning. No! She had to see them alive and well! Had to get this horrible, haunting image away from her brain as soon as possible!
I-I didn’t kill them, she told herself. I was trying to save them… and they didn’t kill me, they were just… trying to… stop me…
It was no use. Of course she had killed them. Not as a side effect or a by-product this time. She had done it with her bare hands. She had even… kind of enjoyed it. In a distant, abstract way.
It wasn’t real, she tried to convince herself. Look, everything’s reset, so…
Wait a second. Wasn’t she supposed to be convincing Kris that it all WAS real?!
Her head hurt far too much to think about it, so she pushed it all away. All that mattered right now was seeing Kris again. Saving them for real this time.
Their house loomed up from out of the darkness. One of the lights was on, but it was the bathroom, not Kris’s bedroom. Noelle climbed up the wall as usual, ignoring her shaking hands, and entered through the window. Kris’s bed was empty.
Right… they were probably in the bathroom then.
She crept down the stairs and tried to pull the door open, but it was locked from the inside. Should she break it down? Toriel would probably hear, and that would be a hassle to deal with… No, she had to get in some other way.
Making her way back outside, she went over to the bathroom window and picked it open, using those ‘ninja skills’ her family were so proud of for some reason. She pulled up the blinds… climbed inside…
…only to see that it was already empty. The door was wide open. Kris must have heard her trying to get in and escaped during the short span of time they were able to.
All that was left was their knife, lying on the counter, and an alarming amount of blood running down the sink.
Noelle’s heart leapt into her throat. There was no time to waste. She grabbed the knife and followed the trail of bloody footprints leading out of the door, out of the house, onto the street. It was hard to see much, but she could just barely make out a figure staggering off into the distance. That must be Kris! She hastily ran after them.
How much blood had they lost? And why would they do something like that…? Perhaps they had been trying to escape the quickest way they could think of…
Well, she had the knife now, so at least they weren’t in danger of hurting themself further. And this time she wasn’t going to hurt them either! No Snowgraving them, or drowning them, or strangling them, or stabbing them… This time, she would try to be gentle about it.
After all, violence wasn’t the only way to do something crazy. To get that rush.
Her lips still tingled when she thought about that kiss down by the lake…
Would it be worth trying that again…? It replayed on loop in the back of her mind, over and over… flooding her blood with adrenaline… her fur standing on end again…
She had almost made it to the church when she heard a smashing sound. Rounding the corner, she saw that one of the big stained-glass windows was broken, leaving no doubt as to where Kris must have gone. Before she knew it she was following them inside, climbing carefully through the remains of the window, past the rock which must have been used to break it, running through the atrium and flinging the doors open into the main hall.
I have to save them, I have to save them no matter what…!
Her footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
There in the middle of the isle was Kris, collapsed to the floor, blood dripping from their arms.
Real blood was nothing like ketchup. How many times had Kris tried that fake-blood prank? They’d even done it right here in this church, scaring her half to death… There were a lot of memories the two of them shared here, in fact. Always messing around when they were little, trying to make each other laugh in the middle of the sermons…
Laughter…
The photo of the Ferris wheel sprung up in the forefront of her brain before she could stop it.
No! What was the point in dwelling on those old memories? Everything was different now! Kris was different now too, and it was better that way, because the alternative would be going back to her hellish, tedious, soul-sucking, repetitive, depressing life, and she couldn’t bear that…! ANYTHING was better than that! Even all this death, all this killing… even being a murderer…!
It would all be worth it… just to get away from the miserable feeling of being herself…
She had to tell them! Explain it to them!
Her voice died on the way out. The blood was flooding out much quicker than she had realised, pooling around Kris’s body. It was enough to strike terror into her.
She ran forwards and knelt down to turn them over and get a good look at them. A deep gash ran down one of their arms, with blood quite literally spurting out. From their other hand dropped a colourful piece of glass from the broken window, its jagged edge smeared in blood.
No… Even without their knife, they had managed to…!!
“No, no, no… Kris, y-you can’t…” She tried to use her sleeve to staunch some of the blood flow, to little avail. Everything was getting soaked in red.
Kris managed to get out a few feeble words. “J-Just… let me die this time…”
This time? This time?
It was the closest they had come to admitting that they remembered everything…
Except that Noelle hardly cared about that right now. Her friend was bleeding out in front of her, and there was nothing she could do! Did anything else matter if she couldn’t save them?!
It’ll… I-It’ll make them stronger…
She didn’t care. Tears were pouring down her face now, her breaths coming in gasps and hiccups. She took Kris in her arms and held them close. Blood mingled with tears.
It wasn’t too long before they stopped moving.
Noelle didn’t let go. She stayed right where she was, time stretching out endlessly, her muscles cramping and stiffening until she was as rigid as a corpse herself. Kris’s body had already been cold, but it slowly started cooling down even further. Some of the blood was beginning to congeal.
How long had she been sitting here…? Holding Kris tight…?
Memories seeped back into her brain, memories that she had held off for years.
Kris grabbing the sides of the Ferris wheel… grinning and shaking it like a lunatic until Noelle stopped crying…
She remembered it all now. For years afterwards, when they had drifted apart, she had told herself that Kris had just done it to get back at her. That they were mad at her for making them vote for the two of them at the festival, mad that they had to do whatever she made them do… and so they had shaken the Ferris wheel to scare her.
But she had liked it… of course she had liked it. She’d always like stupid pranks like that, and Kris knew it.
They’d always been pulling pranks on her back then, to cheer her up whenever she was down… making her laugh, and yell, and laugh some more…
And they weren’t doing it because she had made them. They simply… wanted to.
Now they were lying in her arms, dead. She pulled them closer and curled right up around them, trying to bring those moments back. Ancient, as if from another era altogether. The two of them cuddling together to fit into the same hiding spot while playing hide and seek… clinging onto each other out in the woods at night… play-wrestling in her room…
So many moments like that, all ground into dust once Dess was gone. Things had changed between them. Life became that eternal nightmare.
If only Kris could do what they did back then… find some way to cheer her up, like they always did! Why had they stopped doing that?! They had been there the whole time, they knew her better than anyone else, they were the only one capable of breaking her out of this cycle, this life she hated so much!
Maybe Kris had felt it too… the exact same tedium that she had gone through. They must have been sick of it. Desperate to break out of it. And then they snapped, and they started pushing her down this dark path, even when she didn’t want it, even when she was begging them to stop…
…Which was exactly what she was doing now. She had literally killed them. She’d even driven them into killing themself.
They’d both gone way too far. Kris had just been slightly ahead of her, that was all. First to break, first to drive the other mad, and then first to feel regret. She was following the same journey they must have done.
All she really wanted, deep within… was to have her old friend back…
Beyond anything, she wished she could tell them all this. Even telepathically, if she had to. As long as they could hear her, in whatever way it was.
But they were dead. Stone cold dead. All she could do was cling to them and cry.
Just let me die this time…
They didn’t even want her to bring them back, too scared and sick of it all. Part of her wanted to respect their wishes and leave them in peace. After all, what if she went crazy again after the next reset? What if she hurt them more? What if she killed them again? She could hardly trust herself now, not after every horrible thing she had done tonight…!
But no… it couldn’t end like this! She had to at least TRY to make things better, right? She needed the chance to apologise to them, to make amends… And she couldn’t let Kris’s family and Susie go through the pain of losing them, she didn’t want anyone to have to experience such a horrible feeling.
Kris just needed to be FUN again. Even if Dess was gone, life was still… it was still worth living. Still unpredictable, amusing, interesting…
It didn’t need to be creepy or violent. It could be something as simple as shaking a Ferris wheel.
Noelle made up her mind. One more reset, and she would break them both out of this for good.
Of course, there was only one way she could think of to trigger that reset…
She slowly unfurled her frozen fingers and extricated herself from Kris. Laying them down gently, she sat upright and took hold of their knife. It was time to let out all the crazy from her brain in one final burst and get it out of her system. Hopefully forever.
One last deep breath… a moment to mentally prepare…
Proceed.
Then she repeatedly stabbed the knife into her own chest. Over and over, until she slumped to the ground beside her fallen friend.
She awoke to the sight of blood gushing out of her chest and spreading across the bed covers. It was 3 in the morning again.
So it had worked… They hadn’t necessarily needed to die simultaneously…
The blood evaporated away quickly enough, but the pain was taking a lot longer to subside. Noelle clutched her chest, wincing, sucking in air through her teeth. It was a very deep pain, and she suspected a good chunk of it was probably emotional.
Well, she wasn’t going to let it stop her. Within a few moments she had got out of bed, escaped through the window, made it back to Kris’s house again, climbed into their bedroom…
Kris was lying on the bed this time. They were facing the wall, unmoving.
“Kris?”
There was no response. They weren’t… already dead, were they…? This short a time into the reset? Was it impossible for her to have gotten here in time?
She crept over to their side to find that they were still breathing, thank goodness. There was no reaction from them as she felt the feverish skin on their face, or when she pressed her ear to their chest to check for their heartbeat. She sat down beside them and took their clammy hand in hers, and they just lay there still as a statue. Were they even awake? Would they be listening?
She had to try anyway. Hoping, wishing, praying that they would hear her no matter where their mind was.
(Kris… You can still read my mind, right? You can hear what I’m thinking… So you know I’m not going to lie to you about anything I’m about to tell you. It will all be the truth. Direct from my heart.)
Kris didn’t move an inch. Noelle focused her thoughts and continued.
(Kris, I… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry! I couldn’t stand my life, I thought anything would be better, but I… I-I can’t bear seeing you die anymore. I don’t want to hurt you anymore…)
(…I took it too far. We both did, didn’t we…? And you realised it sooner than I did, which is why you tried to stop it… You knew it wouldn’t be worth all THIS, and yet I kept pushing you…)
She was crying now, feeling like such a kid, but unable to hold her emotions back. Tears dripped down off her face.
(You know, when we were little, things were so fun, life was worth living… I didn’t think it was possible to recapture that without Dess and Azzy here, but… do you think… we could try…?)
(I-I know back then you were always trying to cheer me up, make me happy, in your weird, stupid, Kris way. And I know things aren’t the same anymore, and we’ve both changed, but please…)
(Kris, I think just having you by my side the way you used to… might be the only thing that can keep me away from turning into THIS again… I don’t want to be this kind of person anymore… It’s horrible, I know it is…)
(Kris, I-I need you back…)
It was all too much. She just put her head down over their enlaced hands and cried, wishing she had realised all this before the bloodshed and horror, before she had those images of Kris’s corpse burned into her brain and knowing she was responsible. It could never be erased.
She just hoped Kris could understand… and accept it…
For several moments more there was silence. Nothing but the sounds of her muffled sobs in the cold night air.
Then a quiet voice spoke.
“…I remember.”
She lifted her head. Kris was stirring a little, their fingers closing around hers, their body turning over so they could look at her.
Their face… oh, they looked awful. Wide-eyed with a thousand-yard stare. A sheen of sweat sticking their hair to their forehead. But even so, they managed to speak again.
“Y-You wanted me to say it, didn’t you? Well yeah… I remember all of it… the lake and the snow and the knife and…”
Noelle was stunned into silence. She hadn’t really thought they would possibly admit it directly at this point, even if it was obvious. Why were they even telling her this now?
Of course she had wanted to hear it, she had wanted it more than anything! Did this mean Kris trusted her, at last?! But on the other hand, it meant that all the things she did, those horrible, unforgivable acts, were all real… and Kris knew about it. All of it.
“You remember me killing you,” she mumbled.
To her surprise, Kris cracked a tiny, wobbly smile. “…Not gonna lie, it was kinda based.”
“W…What?!”
“I dunno. You were kinda badass.”
“N-No I wasn’t! I… I strangled you! And drowned you…! A-And…”
“Yeah, and it was hot.”
She gave their hand an indignant squeeze, a familiar emotion returning to her. “Kriiiiis! I JUST turned back to the good side! Don’t encourage me to start killing you again!”
They were grinning now, almost giggling slightly. Of course…! They were trying to cheer her up, weren’t they? Saying stupid things, being silly, annoying her on purpose… Just like when they shook the Ferris wheel. They were trying to make her happy. Genuinely happy, without having to indulge in her scary, creepy whims. Just the good old Kris, making their friend laugh.
That was exactly what she had just asked them to do. Were they… just doing what she made them again? Or did they want this too? Want her to be happy? Could she even tell…?
And a dark part of her wondered if Kris expressing such admiration for Noelle violently killing them was a sign of some of their suicidality slipping through… suicidality that she had witnessed firsthand…
Well, she had made them suffer enough. They were the one who really needed cheering up, so it was her turn to join in.
“You stabbed me with a knife,” she pointed out. “I, um… I think that was pretty cool of you, haha… like a horror movie villain…”
Kris let out a little laugh – still shaky, but so adorably Kris. “I like knives. They’re awesome.”
“You were actually kind of, um…” She could sense herself blushing hard. “…a-attractive…? Like, when you were… trying to give me your heart, I mean your soul, and… um…”
It was such a ridiculous conversation, she could hardly believe she was saying such things. The whole scenario had been ridiculous, in fact. They really had gotten completely carried away, hadn’t they…? In hindsight it was all turning into a nonsensical blur.
As soon as she’d said the word ‘soul’, she noticed that Kris, still holding her hand, was gently brushing their thumb over the thorn still stuck in her finger. Were they about to take it out again?
“I’ll explain,” they said quietly. “Tomorrow. I’ll explain all of it. And Susie will help… there was stuff she wanted to tell you too…”
Oh yes, Susie…
Who knew what Noelle was going to do about all that. Guilt began eating away at her as she remembered how little attention she had paid to poor Susie, who had been baring her heart open back at the beach. Part of her very much still did want that moment back. This time to experience it properly, actually concentrating.
But that beach had also been where she’d taken Kris’s hands in her own and entered the water with them too… not to mention the kiss.
The kiss. The kiss. The kiss.
She hadn’t truly been able to get it out of her head this whole time.
It was a very strange feeling. Kris was looking pretty kissable right now, in fact, and… Wait, no, what was she thinking? Where was her head?!
Maybe it would be best to just talk to both Kris and Susie about it in the morning. They could all sort it out together, because she sure wasn’t going to be able to do it without their help. Her emotions were far too turbulent and fragile for that right now…!
She just squeezed Kris’s hand tighter. “Okay, I’ll wait for you two tomorrow then. So, um… no more dying tonight?”
Kris returned the squeeze, sending her heart into sudden loops. “No more dying tonight. It really sucks. It sucks so bad.”
Their stupid words sent her into a fit of laughter again. Kris tried to shush her, warning her that Toriel might hear, but she could hardly help it. Kris was back… Kris was really back…!
Just like when they’d given her watch back to her… they would always come back in the end.
More than them being scared, or powerful, or controlling, it was this Kris she loved so dearly. Her wonderful, silly, oddball Kris. With their chaotic behaviour, their stupid pranks, their flaming androgyny, their deadpan voice, their hand grasping hers, their... face...
It was doing something to her. Something crazy. Something good.
Overwhelmed, she leaned over and brought her face close to theirs, so close she could feel their breath.
Should she…?
Did they… want this…?
She hesitated, remembering that last time they hadn’t responded at all. Perhaps they didn’t want to. And she was tired of forcing them to do things for her benefit.
But Kris didn’t back away. Instead they gripped her hand even tighter, pulling it in towards them a little, as if telling her it was okay.
The truth was, she had wanted this for far longer than she’d ever admitted to herself. It wasn’t from Kris telling her to ‘proceed’, or from anything that had happened recently. Even all those years ago when she’d told them to vote for the two of them at the festival as Flower King and Queen, she’d been imagining it… in a kiddie, puppy love way perhaps, but still… hanging up sprigs of mistletoe around her house and hoping she could catch Kris under one of them… hugging them for longer and longer each time they came over… listening to them playing the piano, imagining it was a concert just for her…
So she did what the old Noelle would have wanted her to, and she went for it.
This time it wasn’t like kissing a statue. She could feel Kris clinging onto her tight, like they were happy she was here with them. Could taste their relief at having her back. She kissed them slowly, deeply… nervous and curious at the same time. Wanting to keep going… wanting it to never end…
All the same she pulled back and took another look at them, not quite trusting herself. Kris was still okay, right? Not scared of her?
She needn’t have worried. Kris seemed perfectly fine.
“Hahaha, you kissed me again…” they muttered, with another big grin.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Um… how was it…?”
“…D-Dope...”
Their silly attitude only lasted a second before they covered their blushing face with their hands, looking aside in embarrassment.
Ugh, it was far too cute to resist. She grabbed their face and kissed them again, not bothering to hold back this time. They could talk about it in the morning… for now she could just indulge, sinking deep into it, not a care in the world.
They would both be alright this time. They would survive…
She returned to her room and crawled into bed. The distant clock rang out, and she held her breath as she counted the chimes.
One… two… three…
…
…four.
It was 4 in the morning.
Time had finally moved on, and would continue to do so. No need to kill anymore. For now, she could trust that life would improve and drag itself out of the hellhole it had settled into.
Deep inside, a faint whisper…
But what if it doesn’t?
Well… if she did end up getting tired of the tedium again, then… then…
She pulled her knees to her chest, shivering a little. She’d had a taste of it now. Of power, control… of ‘being stronger’. It was undeniable. And it felt SO good.
One day, would she succumb to it again? Would she end up having another night of horrors to purge it and ‘reset’ her own brain? Staving off the madness by occasionally drowning herself and Kris in the lake? Or worse…?
They’d already weathered this storm together… if it happened again, they could handle it. She had to believe that.
The memory of Kris, bleeding out in the church by their own hand, would forever haunt her, keeping her insanity at bay. The memory of them sinking under the waves. Lost in the snow. Her hand around their neck, choking them into silence.
She remembered… and they remembered too.
Those memories could never be reset.