He took off his glasses, nervously rubbing the lenses against the inside of his shirt as he stared into the water, "They said they didn't know what was going on, but they 'missed' me. They reminisced about playing games with me, and huddling in front of my old CRT, trying to force me to fall off the track in Wolf Kingdom Racers." He stopped cleaning his glasses, weakly holding the frame between his fingers. "To, ah, borrow a phrase, I felt like a monster. And in a word, I was.
Kris apologized to me. I don't believe they even knew what they were apologizing for, then. They said they had plans to spend the evening at Noelle's tomorrow, and the two of you would be, quote, 'busy'. And that they'd..."
His fingers shook as he pulled his glasses back up to his face, and nestled them back onto his beak, struggling to speak. "They'd love to have their 'Player 2' back.
Then they ran away before I could put in a single word."
Susie tried to not laugh, realizing the sincerity of his words, instead focusing on her blurry memories of that day. "...I, uh, remember you coming by the next day. I think."
"Yes, I did. I do not regret it."
Both of them looked out onto the calm waters, watching clouds pass by as the Sun continued to creep up above their heads. Though his short-lived crush on Susie was long gone, his general affection for the purple beast had never wavered, and in that moment he was certain that, in the end, all he needed was a friend.
Feeling calmness creep up to him like the rising tide, Berdly quietly spoke, his analytical side finally winning over his emotions. "...Kris cannot survive long without it— without their SOUL. Correct?"
"Still the genius, huh?" Susie stood up, feeling her legs begin to cramp, and dusted the sand off her clothes. "You're right. Kris didn't like to talk about it, but that's one of the things I do know. Hell, I don't blame them. If I had a freaky angel-demon heart-thing in my chest, I sure wouldn't parade it in the streets."
Berdly followed, trying to find the right words to comfort them both, but only grabbing onto his anxieties. He looked to the side, eyeing the apartment buildings in the distance. "...should... we have left Noelle alone with it? W-What if it gets out?"
Susie tried to tuck her hands in her pockets, only to realize she wasn't wearing her coat. "Nah, I don't think it can. She'll be fine." She turned around, smiling to herself as she headed back to the streets. "She's much stronger than you think."
Noelle laid her head down on Susie's pillow, taking in the ambient scent of her favorite lizard with deep, slow breaths. Her hands were still wet from washing the dishes, and though she barely remembered putting them away and walking to the bedroom, her fingers didn't hurt anymore.
She opened her eyes, unable to sleep, and looked around Susie's bedroom. Doubling as her workroom, clearly much more thought went into its decor than the kitchen. An old, beat-up laptop sat on her desk, permanently charging a dead battery just to keep it alive, overlooked by a window above it, with translucent colorful stickers slowly peeling off the glass. Various papers and notebooks were strewn about, some crumpled, some detailing character arcs in her upcoming comics and webseries, some being innocent victims of her endless doodling sprees. Though she worked part-time at the convenience store and occasionally helped at the school, clearly this was her passion. Her eyes wandered over to the wall between the desk and the bed, to a large, wooden chest, the kind usually reserved for toys, and a framed glass display just above it. Various unrelated items were carefully arranged inside, including chess pieces, a TV remote, several multicolor dice, and old, faded cards, with two prominently displayed side by side in the center: The Jack of Spades, and a taped-up King of Spades.
Susie was never a hoarder, but her penchant for preserving these things reminded Noelle of her mother, even if she knew what these objects meant to her girlfriend. Inevitably, a glimpse of the horror she saw inside her home crossed her mind. She closed her eyes, trying her best not to think about it.
Though her mother tried to hold her back, Noelle ran upstairs, avoiding shattered glass and splinters that covered the floor beneath her hooves. She looked inside her room, but she saw nothing. Not a single speck of dust had moved since she woke up. The trail of carnage outside indicated as much, as all of the debris and scratches on the carpet were going not to her room, but to the one next to hers.
The police were thorough in documenting every 'affected' item, with Carol overseeing the process in person. Whoever broke in was equally as thorough, smashing every single box, picture frame, CD case, and even tearing up the bedsheets and most of the clothes inside December's drawer. Though some photographs were simply crumpled, others were torn apart, with the glass frames smashed in by a blunt object. Naturally, Carol had digitized every image in her household years ago, but this seemed like an act of passion, and not a calculated blow to their family history.
Though there was one thing she couldn't preserve.
The guitar. Her guitar. The guitar she so begrudgingly let Susie play after weeks of Noelle's begging. The guitar that, slowly, brought fewer and fewer cold tears to her face. The guitar that was now scattered across her living room. Dents and tears around the walls and corners demonstrated the extent of the intruder's rage, swinging the guitar by its neck, beating it over every surface until only the handle remained, which was inevitably shattered as well, using the one item neither the police nor Carol could account for. Her whiffle bat.
