Darkness surrounds you. You can't tell whether your eyes are open or closed. Muffled voices come from all directions, they sound worried. They sound angry. Pressure builds up in your ears. You want to cry, but you cannot. A wave of static overwhelmed your head, blotting out all sensations, before pouring down into your body, the void dripping from your fingertips. Or was it something else?
You feel ashamed. Not for what you did, but because you got caught. You need to learn to hide.
Who said that?
You shout at the voices. You curse them. You wish you could never hear them again.
...what? You didn't do that?
They shout back at you. You flee. You try to run, but you feel something sharp in the way. A voice, the one from before, one that fills you with a still numbness. Your hands feel cold as you reach out to embrace it. You feel its flesh beneath your fingernails, now dripping with someone else's blood. It understands. You feel a dull pain at the back of your neck as the voice embraces you, its whisperings promising you the world. You feel its warmth as the ground gives way beneath your feet. Stars fill your vision.
Susie opened her eyes, her head laying sideways on her forearms, held up by the kitchen table. She pulled her hands up and straightened out, standing up from her beat-up chair as every single vertebrae in her back had cracked, the sounds of snapping bones giving her a mild sense of relief. The chiming of the bells of the church across town had awoken her, disturbing the memories of her nightmare like a pebble thrown into a puddle. All for the better. Perhaps those dreams weren't hers to remember. Noelle and Berdly should back soon.
Her apartment was meager, but cozy. A small bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom: all Susie really needed to live comfortably. She had moved into it two years ago, after working several part time jobs around town, settling in on the ground floor of that same apartment complex. Over the years, her friends encouraged her to decorate, though she never strayed far from her usual style. Cheap linoleum covered the floor and dark gray wallpaper covered the walls, a floral pattern interrupting the monotony. Though her bedroom was far more decorated, the kitchen had some highlights of its own. Pictures covered the walls of the kitchen. Some framed posters of movies she liked, though most were photographs of her and her friends: Her and Noelle at the beach. Noelle and Berdly at last year's festival, cosplaying each other. Susie and...
Something in the back of her mind made her feel uneasy, like remembering the lyrics without recalling the tune of the song. She tried to shake the feeling off as she approached the fridge, wondering what to make for breakfast. She scanned the fridge's contents: Some butter, cheese, a carton of prune juice, a jar of pickes, most of a pack of eggs, and some frozen meat she left out to thaw in the morning yesterday. Her hand instinctively reached for the meat, but the thought of Noelle made her stop. She reached for the eggs, but didn't feel like arguing with Berdly right now. Her stomach growled, she wouldn't last through another half hour debate with him.
Susie grabbed the cheese and closed the fridge, picking up the grater as she stepped to the stove, and put both items on the counter. She reached into a small cupboard and pulled out a bag of green, curly macaroni — something Noelle bought for her last month, left unopened until now. The pitch of the water filling the pot slowly lowered until Susie deemed it full enough, then placing it on the stove. She pushed a button on the front and twisted in the dial. Gas began to flow, but no spark came. Susie quickly turned the stove off. She'd have to use a lighter.
She grabbed the bag and opened it, idly looking around for where she'd placed her lighter, an odd sense of malaise dripping down her neck as she turned around towards the table.
Susie froze, the bag fell out of her hands and began spilling macaroni all over the floor. There on the table, just inches from where she had slept, stood the rusted birdcage, with the object still hovering inside. Whatever it was, it brought a sense of wrongness along with it wherever it came. As if acknowledging its existence was a crime against reality itself. A hole in the world, a red patch sewn on top in the shape of a heart.
The clattering sound at her feet snapped Susie out of her trance. "Shit— Shit." She knelt down and yanked the bag up before any more macaroni could scatter on the floor, collecting everything within her reach in her claws and placing the loose macaroni in her pockets. She stood up, put the bag on the scratched countertop, and glared back at the table.
She convinced Berdly to help her drag the cage out before Officer Undyne or Asgore would come. He hesitated at first, but after seeing her grab the handle of the cart, dragging it through the door, he grabbed one of the blankets on the floor and threw it over the cage, relief washing over when the sight of the heart left him. They ran through the forest, around the town, crossing the beach as fast as they could, before bringing it to her apartment. She's never seen Berdly this terrified before, feathers clinging to his body as he left Susie alone with it to go look for Noelle. The rest of the day was nothing but a blur.
She remembered Noelle crying in her arms, people questioning the three of them. Where they were at the time, when was the last time they saw Kris. Noelle looked distant as the questions came, hollowed out, living through her worst nightmare yet again. She remembered Noelle asking to stay for the night, unable to step inside her home without breaking into tears.
She grabbed the lighter off a shelf next to several burned out candles and lit the stove, placing the pot over the flame and sprinkling salt inside. Her hands went limp as she sat back down in front of the cage, placing them on the table, staring at the featureless object within. All those adventures, those Dark Worlds... She couldn't help but wonder about what Kris was doing right now.
But nothing came to mind.
