The quiet tapping of talons against the floor made Noelle turn her head towards the doorway. Berdly slowly walked in after Susie, looking a little more disheveled than before, his appearance now matching his state of mind. He waved his feathered hand at her, weakly, with an equally soft smile, the gesture being the strongest apology he could muster at the moment. Susie looked back as the bluebird sat down on the floor with his legs crossed, yellow claws curling into neat little balls as Berdly got comfortable.

Susie placed her large hand on top of Noelle's, gently sliding her fingers apart. "We, uhh... looked around a bit more while you sleeped. Y'know, places Kris liked, but... nothing."

"Slept." Berdly interrupted, prompting Noelle to snicker while Susie stared him down. "You should hire him to proofread your stuff, fahah..." Noelle quietly remarked, trying to hide her smile. Berdly crossed his arms: "She couldn't afford my rates if she wanted to." The room quickly filled with three kinds of laughter, from a contained, but loud roar, to a quiet, refined chittering. All of them appreciated this reprieve, no matter how brief it was.

Noelle shifted in bed, putting her hooves on the ground and leaning forward, while Susie joined her feathered friend in Floor Time. "Which leaves us with..." pulling all of them back to reality, Berdly pulled out the knife from the pocket of his shorts, still neatly contained within the plastic bag, "...this."

Susie squinted. "Look, I didn't wanna ask but— You uh, didn't touch it, did you? I mean if the cops come looking and—"

Berdly quickly cut her off, raising his hand as if to demonstrate: "I don't have fingerprints, Susie. And yes, I shook off after brushing my teeth, too. For you to think I would leave evidence—"

Susie's narrowed eyes went back to Noelle, stifling a laugh. "Damn, dude. I didn't know you got dandruff. But like. Everywhere."

Berdly slammed the bag on the linoleum floor in protest, emphasizing almost every word as he spoke: "It is fragments of keratin that protect my feathers, Susan. And it is certainly NOT dandruff."

Susie let out an exaggerated sigh, doing this more for Noelle's amusement than her own pleasure. "Fine, dude. You've got magical bird dust or whatever. Can we move on?"

"Hmpf. You asked." Berdly crossed his arms, gesturing to the knife and quietly thinking of his next plan for revenge. Susie pulled the bag closer to herself and picked it up, scanning the blade within. Feeling surrounded by the two top students in her class, Susie felt the gears in her head turning at a high speed as she spoke. "Kris wouldn't just... leave it, right? They must've lost it while... running away, I guess."

"O-Or they... uhm," Noelle quietly spoke out, staring at the chipped blade, "didn't... need it, anymore. Though I can't... I-I can't imagine a situation where Kris would let this knife go, fwah..."

Though the stains on the knife were old, they didn't bode well for their situation. And with all three now knowing what taking the SOUL out of their body meant for Kris, only the worst kinds of thoughts began to creep into their minds.

Berdly looked down, keeping his eyes on the blade as he mumbled under his breath: "...stab the earth, and..." Susie turned around, "Berdly?"

He looked up at her, as if forgetting he wasn't alone in the room. "I-I was— When we ran into Kris' house, the floor was... I-It was like they ran a rake through the carpet, only to... discard their knife?" He glanced back down, pulling his shoulders in, visibly uncomfortable with the thought that was forming in his brain. "Was Kris trying to open... a-a—"

Susie bluntly cut him off: "They can't. I mean, we can't. Nobody... nobody can. We..." she slumped forward, briefly closing her eyes and trying to concentrate on her words. "...sealed them. Kris was there, we... we both were. We found the SOURCE of the darkness and... banished it. Without the source, the fountains that remained couldn't live for long" For a moment, she remembered an old friend, smiling at her, waving goodbye one last time, "...all of them," and she couldn't help but smile back.

"But if Kris knew then, why bother?" Berdly pulled his hands forward, as if reaching out for an answer, "What changed?"

Susie shook her head and sighed, shuffling back to lean on the bed frame, eyes idly wandering around the room. She had rescued them, framed them, saved them all. Her friends. But she could never see them again. Her gaze lingered on the cards displayed within the frame, meanwhile Noelle could only look at the object still within the old birdcage.

She lived through it once. She lived through it twice. She would not make the same mistake for a third time. She couldn't afford to just cry in bed all day and wait for things to resolve themselves. Not again. Noelle started fidgeting with her fingers, pulling on them, when she thought she saw the SOUL move, ever so slightly. With a shallow breath, she spoke: "W-We should try it."

Both Berdly and Susie instantly looked back at her, with the former soon switching his view to the cage. "...you want us to open a Dark Fountain? Here? In... my bedroom???" Seeing how guilty Noelle looked in the moment, Susie scuttled over. "We- We can't, Noelle, I just said we—"

"I-I agree. With Noelle." Though somehow the sight of the object unnerved him much less than before. It still made his stomach sink, especially with the way Noelle stared at it, but nevertheless, an innate sort of intuition churned in the back of his brain, and his trust in Noelle seemed to win over his doubts. "I cannot believe I am saying this but... If Kris was trying to..." He paused, trying to weave his disjointed thoughts into a cohesive argument. "We cannot ask Kris why, but maybe, we could..." His eyes circled back to the knife. Hesitantly, he extended his arm towards it, only to be cut off by Susie's claw. She pushed the bag closer, pulling it open.

"Fine. Since you two are running on the same kind of crazy today, might as well join in the fun." Susie pulled the knife out and grabbed it with both hands. She sounded frustrated, clearly, but there was something more underneath. Hidden away, in the darkest corners of her mind. Her desire to be proven wrong. "You're paying for the floor, you know that, right?"

Receiving no response from her attempt at a joke, Susie shook the feeling off, steadying her hands as she raised the knife into the air. She concentrated her will into it, focusing her thoughts and desires onto a singular goal, and thrust the blade into the ground.

In a deafening flash, sparks of ethereal energy blinded her, though she could barely hear the knife fall to the ground, she felt the vibrations propagate through the floor. A torrent of energy unleashing from within the wound, followed by pure, unwavering darkness, creeping throughout the ceiling, crawling down the walls, and seeping into every object on the floor. Berdly covered his face, unable to look, as Susie desperately crawled backwards, pushing against the bedframe as she stuttered, breathless. "N-No... Oh God, no—" All the warmth and nostalgia in her mind were overwhelmed by aching, painful memories. She tried to crawl back, only to feel herself hit Noelle's leg, who simply stared into the outpour of of the void, unblinking.

The gentle light of the SOUL quickly began to dim, as darkness overwhelmed the room.