Susie ran through the mostly empty streets, warily looking around at every intersection, before she finally reached the very end. Looking out to the lake, in the distance, she could see a figure sitting in the sand, and though her eyesight wasn't perfect, she could tell they were shaking all the way from where she stood.

Susie quietly approached the feathered figure, standing behind him as she spoke. "Feeling better?" Berdly didn't respond, silently staring into the water, only blinking. Susie sighed and sat down next to him, feeling the wet sand stick to her feet as she pulled them in. "You're..." she began, turning to him, only to see him turn away, trying to hide the tears that were clustering around his eyes. "You're not an idiot, dumbass. I just..." She wrapped her arms around her knees, looking out into the lake. Deep inside, she knew this conversarion had to happen eventually. No friendship could be built on a lie, even by omission. "I hoped I never had to... talk about this. To explain it to anyone else. Kris didn't like to bring it up, not even to—"

Berdly opened his beak, fighting against the clump in his throat to speak, but couldn't let anything out before Susie continued.

"It's their SOUL."

The words cut through the air like a knife, severing the rope that had bound Berdly in his place, as if the act of giving it a name changed something in his world. He turned to look at Susie, who could only look forwards as she spoke. She recalled someone dear to her, someone who had told her these exact words so many years ago.

"The very culmination of their being."

Berdly's scowl relaxed. There was no shock or surprise on his face, simply idle recognition. She had noticed it too, turning to him with a raised eyebrow. "You've... heard this before, haven't you?"

He leaned back, using his hands to prop himself against the sand, his mind quietly processing this information. "I thought... I-I thought she was joking! That Kris put her up to it to- to..."

Susie quickly put two and two together. "Noelle, huh..." She pulled one of her hands down to dig around in the sand. The realization that her girlfriend told Berdly everything was not pleasant, but it wasn't surprising, either. With everything that happened, the secret was bound to leave the trio eventually. "When did she tell you?"

Berdly looked down, his fingers rummaging through the sand as if sifting through his memories. "I believe..." he began, quietly, "...a-a month or so, after the festival. After your, uh, first 'outing' with her." His voice carried a bitter aftertaste, as if his better judgement was still fighting old grudges.

"We were studying together at the library, once again, when I got the strangest sensation of Deja Vu I have ever experienced. Noelle, the erudite that she is, was advising me on an assignment, when I made a witty remark about the computer lab getting thrashed. The task at hand would've been a lot easier with the old laptop, you know?"

Susie awkwardly glanced away. To this day, she still used Queen as her main computer. "...yyyyeah?"

Berdly huffed, interpreting her gesture to be aimed at him. "Well, I thought it was funny. But then Noelle simply. Froze. I thought she didn't hear my brilliant display of wit, but when I repeated it, she... began to shake. Scratching at her arm, looking around the room, insisting everything is fine, even though nothing actually happened."

Susie leaned forward, recognizing Noelle's old habits as Berdly continued: "The way she talked about the 'dream' was way less pleasant than what I experienced. I couldn't begin to imagine what prompted this, but I apologized and clarified to her that, well, it was just a dream." He looked forward, speaking out to the water, as if Noelle was sitting right in front of him. "Wasn't it?"

His voice lowered, as did his head. "She told me, then. She kept stumbling over her words, talking about 'Dark Worlds', your 'Town' in the school, and... and Kris. I didn't notice anything different but she insisted that they were... 'possessed', but that it was all better now, because they 'won'."

Though Susie recalled their adventures with a certain fondness, Berdly couldn't look more serious. For him, a silly old dream had just become a waking nightmare. "In that moment she looked so distraught... Ah, I would've believed anything she told me, but this... Hrm." He pulled his legs in, deliberating on his actions. "And, conveniently, any 'evidence' she could've provided was gone now, and she insisted that I don't inquire about it further, with neither you nor Kris." Once more, resentment stained the fabric of his words. They weren't close, then, not as they were now, and perhaps the person he was most angry at right now was himself.

Berdly sighed, "So I filed it away. Another ridiculous prank you and Kris pulled on her because she was an easy target. That's what I surmised, then.

But afterwards I began to notice things. Small 'anomalies' around me. The way Kris acted, the way your demeanor flipped out of nowhere, and how ecstatic Noelle was around the two of you, regardless of what you were doing together. Naturally, I was jealous."

Susie crossed her arms. "Heh... I remember that. You were a total dick for a while, I thought Catti finally got to you."

"You're one to talk, Susan," Berdly huffed, pretending to get upset as she nudged his shoulder with her fist, "But, yes. I allowed my emotions to control me. I thought you were doing this to spite me, as revenge for my years of class excellence.

But then, Kris..."

His shoulders slumped, and he looked back down into the wet sand between his feet. "Ah, Kris, I shall never forget. I was walking home from school when they approached me, emerging from a tree near the sidewalk. I told them something... regrettable, and tried to move past, but they kept standing in my way. I tried to push them, but they barely flinched, I had almost lost my balance."