Chapter Text
“Is it working?”
“Shh.”
“Don’t shush me! Is it working or not?”
“I swear, if you don’t shut up right now, I’ll-! Wait! Wait, we’re connected! It’s working! He’s there!”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it! Let’s go through!”
“... I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?!”
“I mean, the connection’s not strong enough for unrelated parties to go through!”
“Unrelated parties???”
“Things that aren’t already there, idiot. That world, it’s… complicated. There’s too many moving pieces. Too much still hanging in the balance. If we go through like this, we could be erased.”
“So, what, all that work and we do nothing?”
“No, not nothing. We can send something through. It just has to be something that’s already there.”
“... What if we send him?”
“What?”
“You said it yourself, he’s there, so why don’t we just send him the rest of him?”
“... You know, that might actually work.”
“Of course it will, now hurry up and grab his legs.”
“Why do I have to get his legs?”
“Because that’s the heaviest part. Meanwhile his head is so empty it weighs nothing >:)”
“...”
“... Look, that was a joke. The whole point of this is to get something back into his head, alright.”
“... Do you think she really stuck his mind in something gross? Do you think he’s okay?”
“Well, she stuck his mind in something, but you said it yourself he’s still there. It doesn’t matter where he’s trapped. What matters is we’re giving him a better option.”
“... You’re right. Heave on three. One…”
“Two…”
“THREE!!!”
In the forest beside a quaint house just out of sight of a car with slashed tires, a body fell with a heavy thump into a pile of rain-soaked leaves.
And within a bedroom of the house, a glowing red SOUL jolted in its cage.
Was that?
Could it be?
With a renewed fervor beyond any it had shown before, the little red heart beat itself against the bars of the cage, regardless of the damage it was doing to itself in the process.
Kris, the sole owner of the bedroom (at least while their brother was away at college), paused their attempt to climb out the window and looked at the heart in the cage in confusion. Never had their captive reacted so violently before. What was it-
Before they could even finish the thought, the heart finally hit the side of the cage hard enough to send it toppling out of the wagon it was placed in. As it fell, the door hit the edge of the wagon in just the perfect way to catch on the latch and pull it open.
The SOUL burst free.
Before Kris could even process what was happening, the SOUL shot out the still open window into the rainy night, just barely missing getting hit by a shoe on its way out in a vain attempt to stop it.
Following the desperate pull, the SOUL darted around the house and into the trees, finally, finally, returning to where it belonged, at least partially.
Kris scrambled out the window, still missing one of their shoes. They jumped to a nearby tree to climb down, and darted around their house.
Rushing into the trees where they had seen the SOUL go, their eyes searched for its telltale red glow.
Susie, who had not quite left yet, looked back when she heard the commotion. “Kris, what-?”
Kris ignored her, their eyes still searching.
There! The red heart! It looked small, and far away, but Kris was determined not to let it escape.
They made to bolt for it, but what they saw next froze them in place.
Floating above the glowing red heart were two bright red-glowing eyes shining in the darkness. Then, before Kris’s eyes, five more lights appeared above the eyes, illuminating the figure just enough to give it a halo-like effect. And finally, to complete the look that Kris refused to define, two more ring-like lights appeared on either side of the figure, gleaming on what could only be a pair of massive wings.
Then, in the space of a blink, the figure that clearly now housed the escaped SOUL gave a mighty flap of those wings, shot into the sky, and vanished into the night.
Kris could only stare in shock at the space where it had been, all their plans crashing down around their ears in one fell swoop.
“Kris, what the hell?” Susie shouted as she caught up to them, but Kris barely heard her.
What were they supposed to do now?