Work Text:
[This is a private post. Only friends can see this.]
Noelle took a deep breath at her computer, as the moonlight crept in through her room’s window. Her fingers curled at the joints and hovered over her keyboard, as the empty post draft on her blog waited to be filled with life and letters. What was there to say? How could she convey what’s been on her mind this week with just words? These private posts were essentially just a fancy diary with profile graphics, meant only for her eyes, but they still should mean something. Even if nobody but her will read them.
She began to type,
They’ve been acting strange this week. I can’t put any fingers on it, but I can just tell.
I feel like nobody else can tell, or they think everything’s normal, and it’s like “Hello! Can’t you see the obvious??”
But maybe that’s just me. Maybe they haven’t changed, and I’m just imagining things.
When Susie was over at my house, she acted like she didn’t notice anything different, and I don’t get it! Her and Kris used to be.. Well, they used to be anything but friends!
Now they’re closer than ever, doing everything together, and she can’t notice something’s different?? It’s driving me insane!! Urgh.. XC
Am I crazy?? Am I jealous?? I don’t know..
I don’t even know who I’d be jealous of! @_@
On one hand, I’ve known Kris my entire life. We used to do everything together. Go everywhere together. There was a time when I thought I’d spend my whole life with Kris. Those nights they’d be over and we’d listen to music and watch scary videos about evil video game characters. I’d get scared, have to pause it, and then they’d act like the video was real and scare me more XD.. so mean.
Then, they stopped doing all that. Stopped coming over. Stopped having meaningful conversations in the schoolyard with me. Stopped sharing music they liked. Stopped trying to scare me. Everytime we’d lock eyes in the hall, I’d just see.. distance.
I always wondered if I did something wrong, but I think.. I think my whole life, they were just forced to be my friend. Just doing what they were told by their parents. Maybe when.. Dess left, it gave them an excuse to find a little more freedom away from my family. Away from me.
Now Susie gets to be their friend.
On the other hand.. Gosh, Susie’s amazing.
She feels so.. brand new! She doesn’t look at me and get pity in her eyes like the people around town do. She doesn’t expect anything of me like mom does. Doesn’t ask me to keep up appearances. She’s scary, sure, but.. not in a bad way. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s an exciting type of fear, maybe. Does that make sense? Maybe not XD.. anyway,
When I talked to her earlier today, it was like I was talking to somebody I’d known for months. Remember that embarrassing dream I talked about? Where she rescued me from an evil queen? Like in Dragon Blazers 1? It was like I was talking to that Susie..
The real Susie. The one that, like me, isn’t formed by how the people around her want her to act.
But.. she’s Kris’ friend, first. They went to the diner together while I waited for them at my place. They.. hang out in the school closet together for some reason? Oh man, I hope it’s not why I think!!
I don’t know if she’ll feel the way I feel about her. Maybe she’s like Kris, and I’m reading too far into feelings that aren’t there. Maybe she was only over at my place to.. Actually study, and I’m just the smart girl! Faha! That’s my job, duh!
That’s not a very nice thing to think, Noelle.
It just feels like, in the blink of an eye, they’ve become entirely different, happier people, and I’m just.. here. Still the same girl.
I need to do something. At the festival, I need to say something. To either of them.
Maybe then these thoughts will get out of my head!!! ARGHHH!!! XD
Click. Post. Another addition to the wall of unlisted, private diary entries. Noelle closed the tab to her blog and went back to her music player, listening to any proper music one should listen to when writing an angsty blog, sad video game OSTs. Lament Of The White Cloak from Dragon Blazers 2 was one of her favourites. She always felt like it spoke to her directly, reminding her of putting her hand to the window and wondering when her sister would come back when it snowed outside.
Listening to it through headphones as she neatly folded up her weekend homework into a stack and tucked it into her desk, hoping to finish it all tomorrow after the festival. Maybe. If she has time. Really, she’s hoping her going with Susie isn’t going to be just a pity thing and maybe it’ll evolve into a proper day together, as friends but also please, please not just as friends.
The thought that Susie could feel the same way, if even a fraction of her feelings were reciprocated.. Noelle hugged herself and giggled as she threw herself onto her bed, excitement for what would happen when she awoke filling her body.
As she laid down, however, her thoughts took a different turn. Her mother nearly outright forbade her to go to the festival entirely. There was a fury in her eyes she’d rarely ever seen, and it was hard to imagine that anger was directed entirely at Susie, somebody her mother had barely met before.
So why..? Did mom really not want her to go that badly? Why wasn’t she allowed good things, things she wanted? There was some puzzle piece missing that she was for some reason being denied access to, and it was driving her crazy. Her mother’s sudden insistence on staying home, Kris changing so suddenly, Susie being in her house for the first time ever..
Maybe it’s all just a prank. Some big joke that she’s not allowed to know the punchline of until Kris grabs her ankles from under the bed again. Maybe she reads too much into things, just like she read into her relationship with Kris. Maybe her mother was just angry that Susie disrespected her house. Maybe Susie just wanted her to study off of, and Kris happened to be there.
Or maybe none of that was true, that there WAS some big secret hidden from her, and they thought she was $!$$ing stupid and would never notice.
Maybe, maybe, maybe..!
DING! Her phone buzzes beside her on the bed, displaying a comment on one of her Holidaygirl1225 posts. The one she just made.
‘A user commented on your Holidaygirl1225 post!’
CatPetterzFan
Your friends sound interesting. :)
Oh sweet Christmas. Her fur stood on end as she realized that somehow, someway, she’d added somebody to her blog’s private whitelist. Somebody had read her private post probably on accident, looking for some of her guides or something. Her hands quickly snatched up her phone to stare at the notification in horror. What should she do?? Anxiety grips her to the mattress like a thousand tiny hands holding her legs down in paralysis.
Nobody’s supposed to see those posts. What if they were all public, suddenly? Her close friends follow her! Oh Angel, if they read some of the things she wrote about people in her life, she’d never hear the end of it. If any of it got back to her mom..!
Rushing to her desk again to throw her headphones back open, she re-typed the login to her blog and scrambled to type a response, typing at a feverish pace to apologize and clear up the situation before they read any further.
Holidaygirl1225
OMG I’m so sorry you saw this!! I didn’t mean to add you to the whitelist I don’t usually post this stuff sorry!!
Holidaygirl1225
I’ll remove you right away! Just don’t mention these posts to anybody pleaseee!
As her clammy hand moved her mouse to the whitelist for her private posts, a notification popped up. A response that fast?
CatPetterzFan
It’s okay. I don’t mind!
Then another,
CatPetterzFan
You seem unhappy. Do you want to talk about it? We don’t know each other, so your secrets are safe. :)
That.. was NOT how internet safety worked. Noelle knew that, obviously. She wasn’t an idiot. There’s no way she should accept this. She’s never seen this guy before! But.. they WERE right. Who else could she confide in except somebody she didn’t know? That had no expectations of her? Kris used to be that person, but that was long since gone. Her dad tried his best but could never quite break the barrier of father and little girl to be the confidant she needed, and Susie didn’t deserve to have all that baggage dumped on her right away.
Maybe.. Maybe what she needed was to vent to a total stranger.
Noelle bit her bottom lip in thought and glanced around her room, her video game music playlist cycling through songs. Lament of the White Cloak transitioned to the Cat Petterz 2 No Cats music. The non-corrupted version, that was just a slightly dissonant version of Jingle Bells.
She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t! Her mother would call her insane! Call her crazy! It was a terrible idea!
..She was never allowed to make crazy, terrible ideas though.
Holidaygirl1225
Do you ever feel like your life is the same, repeating day?
That was coming on too strong. Way too strong. This is a TERRIBLE idea. Either this person’s gonna get freaked out and run off or they’ll leak all this and ruin her life and–
A response.
CatPetterzFan
You feel like you’re trapped in a routine that goes on forever?
Noelle paused. That was exactly right. Sixteen years of her life, almost seven years of being alone in her house, and this was the first time somebody had ever put how she felt into words that weren't her own. Noelle took in another deep breath as her music settled, and continued typing.
Holidaygirl1225
Yeah. There’s so much that I’m expected to do IRL and I just can’t keep up sometimes! It feels like I’m the only person who’s aware of the motions we all go through. Like everyone else is hiding from the truth.
CatPetterzFan
And you see right through that, huh? So do I. It feels like you’re the player character in an RPG, right? Like in Dragon Blazers, when all the townsfolk run out of new dialogue.
Holidaygirl1225
YES!! And I feel like I’m losing my mind! It also feels like the only two people who’ve learned to do something unique are avoiding me because of it.
It felt unfair. That’s what it was. It felt unfair that she’d spent so much of her life longing for something new, for a chance to break the chains placed on her by her mother, Hometown, and Dess leaving, only for that elusive ‘something new’ to avoid her at every step. It felt unfair that Kris, somebody she thought was her closest something in life, had changed for the better with somebody else. It felt unfair that Susie, somebody she’d had a crush on for months at this point, had seemingly become completely enthralled with Kris practically overnight! Why did they suddenly become happy? What did they do that she didn’t? Why did they deserve that freedom, and she did not?
..Those are terrible things to think, Noelle. She slunks at her desk, staring wistfully at the keyboard of her computer before the notification sound rings in her headphones again, almost overshadowed completely by the music but just audible enough to make the dopamine in her brain spike.
Whoever this was, they just get her. They understand the things she keeps at the back of her mind. The unpleasant, nasty thoughts she couldn’t tell anybody. Her nerves scream that this entire conversation is a terrible idea, that this will come back to haunt her, but it feels so freeing. A secret confession nobody will ever see, except somebody she’ll never see again. She clicks the notification.
CatPetterzFan
If you could do anything, what would you do? :)
What would she do..? Noelle put a fist to her lips and thought, thinking of a world where she could do anything. A world like her dream had been, where she was in a sprawling city of lights and sound. Where she went on fantastical quests with Kris and Susie. A world where she was able to stand up to somebody for once. A world where she didn’t have to be stuck in this town by herself. Without Dess and Kris and without her mother’s insistences.
Her thoughts, alone with the music and the dark of night, then drifted to those same not-nice places. Kris, Susie, they acted like they did in her dream, suddenly different. Suddenly happier. It felt like they were leaving her behind.
Would they be happier without her? Kris certainly seemed to be, and Susie probably didn’t know her enough to care.
Holidaygirl1225
I’d go somewhere else. Somewhere nobody could find me, and I’d live the life I always wanted, I think.
CatPetterzFan
I think you’re looking at it all wrong!
Noelle paused, blinking a few times as that response shook her out of her depressive slump, sitting up straighter in her chair and adjusting. The ridges of her eyebrows creased together and her eyes re-focused as she typed slower now, her head feeling a fuzzy kind of empty from confusion.
Holidaygirl1225
What do you mean?
With bated breath, she waited for the mysterious account to respond. It took a while, removing her headphones to think about what it could all possibly mean, when a strange noise caught her attention. Running water, just down the hallway. Somebody was using their shower. “What..?” Noelle muttered, standing up from her desk and quietly tip-hooving her way to her door on the other side of her room.
Her mother often had late nights that left her cold and exhausted, but she wasn’t the type to do something like this at such a late hour. She insisted things follow strict schedules. Her dad wasn’t the type to stay up, and he wasn’t even home now, so who could possibly be taking a shower right now?
It reminded her of late-night sleepovers with Kris, when they’d show up exhausted late at night and climb in through her window without warning. Tumbling onto her couch like a zombie. She’d scream, sitting at her desk, and then laugh and tell them to at least text her next time, but it would never come. Then her parents and Dess would insist on making sure Kris took care of themself, and they’d all have breakfast in the morning after her mother called Toriel to tell her where her child was.
Was Kris in her house right now, again, after all this time? Sneaking in at night to use her fancy shower and play on the piano? Were they ever going to check if she was awake? Did this place still feel.. safe to them? Like a home?
Noelle leaned against the wall by her door as tiny drops of water pricked the corners of her eyes. So close to a deeper understanding, but the door that separated her and a long-awaited reunion felt like an impenetrable barrier of spiked steel. “Why won’t you just talk to me..?” Noelle mutters, listening to the rushing water of the showerhead down the hall, like a rainstorm miles and miles away.
Ding!
Another notification. Her head shoots back in the direction of her computer. Noelle wasn’t sure why, but her every thought hung on whatever this strange someone had to say. Every ring of the notification sound for her blog, which sounded like one second of what you might hear when getting a phone call, made her fur stand on edge. It was scary, but most things were, and she just needed to know whatever advice this person had, whoever they were. Noelle rushed back, as quietly as she could, to her chair and checked the response thread.
CatPetterzFan
I think you’re the only one who’s noticed something big. Something others don’t think you’re worthy of, and you should take it. Take it for yourself. If your friends don’t think you deserve it, who are they to decide? You can just take it. It’s not like they’re real! :)
Holidaygirl1225
What do you mean?
CatPetterzFan
You said it yourself! They’re like characters with limited dialogue, and you’re the protagonist. The only one who can see what they are. Your mother, Kris, your town, they want you to play your role, too. That’s why they force you into it. But if they’re not real.. you can do anything you want to them! Take whatever truth you want!
CatPetterzFan
It’s like in Dragon Blazers. They’re NPCs! You can just kill them. :)
..What? Noelle rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times. She thought maybe, for a moment, that it was the sleep deprivation and the general unnerve she felt playing tricks on her, refocusing her eyes. Still, the message remained unchanged. The air in her room felt colder, like it did when she knew her mom was approaching to lecture her.
Noelle fumbled for her keyboard, typing something, then deleting it, then typing something else, deleting that too, and hurriedly scrambling to type anything that stuck until they simply landed on a nervous and worried single word.
Holidaygirl1125
What?
CatPetterzFan
Don’t act like you haven’t thought about it! You know it would be freeing! Just like in your dream, when you squeezed Berdly’s collar and thought about throttling him off the roof. You could have. You should have!
Holidaygirl1225
How do you know about that???
CatPetterzFan
You wrote about it! You said it felt good. That you felt strong! And when you stood up to the Queen, you felt strong then too. Admit it, Noelle. You like being bossy, and violent, and so headstrong. You deserve to be.
Her head feels light. The room feels like it’s spinning, and the cold air is uncomfortably undercut by how her skin felt like it was clinging shrink-wrapped to her bones, smothered in surface-level sweaty heat. The thoughts won’t stop, piling on in her mind. They’re not her, she thinks. The things she writes for herself do not comprise her, but.. but the person on the other end of the thread was right. She felt good in those moments. Could she really say those thoughts weren’t her if, somewhere deep down in there, she liked that power? That right to choose?
The messages kept coming. Her blood ran freezing.
CatPetterzFan
They’re over right now.
How did they know that?
CatPetterzFan
You’ll never get another chance. You’ll never get another chance to talk to them as they are. Are you going to let them walk away from you again? Or will you do SOMETHING CRAZY? :)
The running water from the shower had stopped. She can hear it now, taking off her headphones. There’s some footsteps running down the hall as slow and stumbly as possible, and she instinctively gets up to start following them. Trying to forget the mysterious messenger on her computer, but it’s almost as if she can read the messages in the back of her head. Open the door. Find them. Let them know your anger. Let them know anything! Kris.. Kris..
“KRIS!” She throws the door open, expecting to catch them trying to flee down the stairs, but the only thing that greets her is.. a snow-filled fog encapsulating her home. Comprising everything she could see that wasn’t inside her own room. Even turning her head to look out the window yielded only a blizzard outside that not even the trees could be spied through. Noelle slowly extended a hand to feel the chill, feeling the wind run through her fur in the same way one would pinch themselves to see if they’re dreaming.
No, this felt real. It felt exactly like her dream, with the same prevalent cold that Cyber City had, but she knew it had to be real. Her body shivered as she took slow, methodical steps out of her room and into the cold, and as she struggled to focus her eyes she realized she was dressed in that same white cloak from her dream, her hair a shimmering white-gold hue, and her fur a pinker tone. Noelle exhaled, and caught a glimpse of her breath in the air.
“...So freeing.” She muttered, quietly, to herself.
“Isn’t it?” A voice whispered through the fog, and Noelle jumped in shock and turned to her left to spy.. Kris. Looking almost exactly like they did in her dream. They had strange, almost glowing blue skin, and were dotted in silver plates of armour emblazoned with the DELTA RUNE and a heart on the chest, over a skin-tight black bodysuit for flexibility. It looked like an outfit right out of Dragon Blazers, just like her own did, and how Susie’s did.
Before, looking at Kris in this attire made her head feel funny, trying to find those crimson red eyes hidden in their hair and catching a glimpse of their moon-like glow made her heart wrench, but something was different about them now. They were slouched, and instead of a bright pink cloak draped over one shoulder, they now wore a black mantle with an imposing collar and a striking orange underside, almost vampiric in appearance.
Noelle had never seen Kris smile quite like this before, either. Tilting their head to begin to speak with her some more.
“It’s too bad you’ll never get it for yourself.” Their quiet, mumbling voice sounded 1-1 with how Kris had been in the past, but had seemingly grown out of being overnight. It sounded so familiar that it made her feel at ease, but the words were laced with a sadistic spite that made her feel sick at the same time.
Noelle squeaked out a quiet “W.. What..?” as the Kris doppelganger laughed, taking a step towards her. The sound of their metal boot striking the ground echoing through the blizzard that trapped them both. Her room was gone.
“I don’t want you around. Weak, scared little Noelle. The fact that I was forced to put up with you for so long..” Kris continued, each word another twist of a sword in her gut, drawing litres and litres of her blood. “I dropped you the first chance I got. Stop acting like I’m ever going to come back. You’re embarrassing me.” Their voice had changed, suddenly. Sounding like the always on-speaker and attentive Kris they were this week, and in her dream. It chilled her spine, like a spider crawling down her neck.
“STOP IT!” Noelle screamed out, as the blizzard ran more intense, as if commanded by her anger. Tears thoroughly streamed down her face, turning to crystals as they dripped off her chin. “WHY?!” She yelled again, as the smiling Kris stepped back as she approached. “I needed you, Kris! I needed you and you ABANDONED me!”
Kris scoffed, giving her a cruel look with the one eye she could see. “You just can’t stand that I’m happy without you, can you? It’s written all over your face, Elly. We’re happy without you and you hate it.” Suddenly, they raised the pitch of their voice to mock her own, mouth contorting into a fanged and sharp-edged grin. “Oh, that’s a HORRIBLE thing to think, Noelle!”
“You’re horrible.” They whispered, an orange glow within their mouth as they leaned in towards her, goosebumps running just under her fur down her entire body.
Before Noelle could have common sense grasp her brain, her hands grasped Kris’ neck first. It was easy, being so much taller than them, to just reach out and tightly wrap frigid palms around their warm throat and squeeze, as Kris fought her wrists and tears filled her eyes. It felt almost effortless. It felt right.
Kris pulled back an arm and jabbed her in the stomach to try and escape, sputtering out sounds that got lost in the blizzard as, in response, she brought them to the floor and pinned them down, feeling frost spread from her palms and onto their skin, turning it from a vibrant cobalt blue to a pale and sickly almost-white, frostbite spreading over their skin slowly. As the struggle continued, she thought in the back of her head that she should be screaming out something, yelling out words of defiance or a grand speech, but none came to her. Just the rush of acting out like this that flooded her mind with fireworks.
Some words did come to her, eventually. Sobbing them out as her nails dug into freezing skin and she felt the ice crack.
“I hate you.”
There was a sickening crack as ice overtook metal and grew like crystals, and the struggle from Kris stopped as Noelle’s eyes cleared themselves of fog and she could see what she did in high detail. The washed out, pale Kris with an expression of horror, frozen over in the snow. Arm still outstretched to try and grab her wrists to wrench her off of them. Noelle let out a pathetic sob and a sickly gasp as she stumbled back on her rear to scramble away from the body, panic filling her lungs.
“Oh.. G- God.. what.. What did you just.. Noelle..” She mumbled to herself in the third person, covering her mouth. Her palms still feel colder than anything she’d ever felt before, a reminder of what she’d just done that she couldn’t even ignore by closing her eyes. Why did she do it? It was instant, like second nature, to freeze them solid and make that taunting voice shut up. But now, in the silence, all she wanted was to hear it again.
But it felt good. That’s the big thing on her mind, right now. How good it felt to take the power she had and use it. How good it felt to take control of her life and assert herself like that. It was the most free she’d felt in years. She COULD change, she COULD take life into her own hands, and she COULD do something different. Her hands tremble in horror as she stares into her palms, the blurry frozen body of Kris just behind them.
“Get it all out of your system?” A strange new voice appeared, as a large shadow manifested from the foggy blizzard over Kris. This huge, cloaked figure had a jagged orange smile like the one Kris had sported moments ago, and their entire body rippled in the wind. Spindly hands extended from the sleeves of their cloak, and underneath she could hear what sounded like cat purring as she glimpsed pink and yellow eyes dotting the inside of the mantle.
Noelle said nothing in response, just looked up at the shape with tear-filled and pinpricked eyes.
It smiled wider. “Good! Good.. oh, look at those eyes. Like shimmering snowflakes. Don’t you feel like you’ve BECOME STRONGER? I know you do..” It reminded her of the final boss of Dragon Blazers 2, and it spoke in a strange, warped, sing-songy voice. It almost had a childlike quality to it, reminding her of when Kris was much, much younger.
Shaking as the nightmare-being approached, Noelle outstretched her palm towards it, threatening to cast the same spell she’d just used to kill– freeze Kris. That’s all. They’re just frozen. In response, its face twisted into a look of shock, and then of howling shrill laughter.
“HAHA! You want to freeze me, Noelle..? After everything I’ve done to help you get stronger..? You really are just like Kris.. Tsk tsk. Well, I’m afraid that’s no good for you. I’ll melt!” It sounds giddy, tapping her forehead with those clawed, pitch-black fingers. Then, it plucked a crystallized tear falling from her chin, and held it up to its face. “Hmm.. maybe.. In another world, you’d be more grateful on the outside. . . instead of trying to pretend like you’re not just as excited as I am..!”
Tossing the crystal aside, it shrugged. “Oh, well. Time to wake up!”
Noelle screamed as it suddenly yanked its arm down to grab her face, its massive hand eclipsing her head and pushing her to the ground as her mouth and nose were smothered by it, choking out just as she did to Kris. Struggling to fight against this nightmare as it cackled, holding her down in the snow hoof-to-foot with Kris’ body. Maybe she deserved this. Maybe this is the punishment for daring to dream of being something other than weak, scared Noelle. This was what she deserved for the catharsis she felt, with her hands around another’s throat. Noelle’s eyes began to curl back into her head as she closed them, and gasped out one final..!
…
“HHHAAA–!!” Startling awake on her couch, Noelle’s fur was drenched in sweat and her skin felt clammy and cold. Her heart was racing a million miles a minute, as the twilight moonlight drifted in through her window. When had she fallen asleep? It felt just like her dream had been, how didn’t she realize it wasn’t real sooner? The memories are fuzzy in her head, but the feelings were crystal clear. A Mandelbrot pattern of relief, catharsis, and crushing regret spiraling around in her mind. Almost immediately, she curled up with her head in her legs, thunking her antlers against her kneecaps, and curling her arms around herself to quietly exhale until her heart calmed down. Clenching her elbows tight.
Ding!
Her phone. Her heart froze in dread for a moment as it buzzed on the floor. She must have dropped it whenever she fell asleep. It might be the person on her blog, still trying to torment her. Noelle’s breathing picked up in speed again as her eyes darted to the phone, grabbing it at record speed and preparing to type a lengthy message about leaving her alone and–
It’s a text message.
[Susie!!!]
hey
[Susie!!!]
its susie u gave me ur number at ur house remembr
[Susie!!!]
srry ik its like late n stuf but
[Susie!!!]
wanted 2 tell u that i still want 2 like
[Susie!!!]
take u 2 the festival n junk
[Susie!!!]
if ur still down!!! ofc!! and if ur mom will let you srry i think i ruined things there
[Susie!!!]
so I hope ur like okay n shit
Noelle slowly wiped tears from her eyes as a shaky, still-trying-not-to-sob smile overtook her face, typing back quickly.
[Noel]
Hiii!!!!! X3
[Noelle]
Don’t worry, I’m still awake FAHA
[Noel]
Gonna sleep soon though.. Srry.. XC
[Noel]
Anyway I’d love to!!!
[Susie!!!]
OK cool meet me @ school goodnite
Noelle’s face had now fully beamed into a smile, clutching her phone close to her chest as she kicked her hooves a little and giggled quietly. Susie always seemed to show up when she needed it most. Suddenly, all of the stress felt like it was melting away. For a moment Noelle thought that, even if Susie didn’t feel the same way, having her as a friend would still be enough.
After a moment of silence, she stood to check her computer. She’d been out long enough for it to enter sleep mode, turning the monitor back on to reveal.. An empty blogpost. No comments at all. A private whitelist empty of any names. Noelle sighed out at her desk, nails dragging against the wood. It was never real. It didn’t happen. Right?
Somehow, she just couldn’t convince herself of that. “Oh, Noelle..” She muttered, turning her monitor back off and staring at her own reflection in the black glass. “What’s wrong with you?”
The question would go unanswered as she decided she needed sleep after all, the grogginess of waking up from an unprompted nap gripping at her mind as the bags under her eyes weighed down her eyelids like steel balls on chains. Noelle turned away from her desk and approached her bed, walking towards the window next to the calendar by it to briefly glance at the forest outside.
..?!
Noelle’s eyes widen as she spies a shape duck into the trees. A hunched over silhouette that she recognizes all too well. Kris Dreemurr, skulking into the forest from her house. They were there. In her home. Hiding from her. She put her hand to the window and watched as they vanished into the shadow of the woods and she once again missed an opportunity to reconnect, wanting to yell something out to catch their attention.. but failing to do anything but watch and mutter out a quiet “..Stay safe, Kris.”
Maybe she could learn to be okay with this gut-wrenching distance, if she at least knew they still considered her home safe.
In the morning, she’ll get ready for the festival and look her best. In the morning, she’ll live out her fantasy with Susie, Angel willing, and muster up the courage to say the words she hopes will change her trapped life forever. Tonight? She’ll sleep on her couch like old times, wishing Kris was on the other end of her hooves.