"Stop." Susie stood up from her seat, clenching her fists, her chest tightening from all the anger and embarrassment she was enduring. "What. The HELL is all this?! That's not what happened, that's— that's not what I wrote! This is a joke, right? I mean, that last part was, uh, okay, I guess, but the rest of it..." She turned back to look at Berdly and Noelle, who, for some reason, couldn't look her in the eyes. She felt her arms begin to shake as she turned back, the words now stuck in her throat. "It's— That's not what I..."
ABAC leaned downwards as the lights began to dim, gently cupping Susie's chin as it spoke as softly as it could. "Ah, Susie, dear. I'm truly sorry. I'm afraid to remind you, but, if you could really trust your memory, then, to put it simply:
You wouldn't have made me."
Its large fingers brushed against her cheek, when it suddenly sprung back up, looking away from her. "But, I understand. Really, I do. You hated my story, don't deny it."
Susie looked up, the grief in her eyes suddenly turning to fear. ABAC put both its hands on the cover of its face, gripping it tightly. "Don't worry, Susie, I promise, I will write something... better..." Slowly, it began to pull its head apart, the hard cover ripping in half as pages flew out to the ground, a mess of crumpled paper falling into the abyss. "...next... time..." The trio could only watch as its head fell apart. The two halves tumbled to the ground as its entire body collapsed under its own weight, turning into regular pieces of folded paper.
Susie ran up to the fallen pages, trying to pick them up, only to find them lifeless. "Shit, no, no! ABAC, you-" She desperately looking through the pile to find its head, while Berdly and Noelle stood silently behind her. "Damn it, I-I'm sorry, I'll-"
Just as she spoke those words, the giant notebook descended from the skies yet again, with dozens of pages flying out to form a now familiar figure. ABAC adjusted its head, looking down at Susie, who barely had time to wipe her tears away. "Now why the long face, dear? It was only a rough draft, anyway! I know what I did wrong now, I just know it, haw haw!" ABAC shook its own hand, before waving to the three, his body slowly shifting back into regular paper as it flew back into the notebook "I'll be waiting for you up ahead, take your time, I've got plenty of scripts to rewrite~" With its head now gone, too, the notebook departed for a distant island, one obscured by the fog around them.
Susie fell back to her knees, breathing audibly. There were a precious few things that Susie hated more than someone playing with her emotions, and even worse, her mind. An uncomfortable memory surfaced from what felt like a different life, where she stood over Kris, screaming at them with all her heart. Noelle hesitantly reached out with her hand, putting it on her shoulder. "S-Susie, a-are you..."
Susie stood up, ignoring her touch. "Let's just go." Her words sounded cold, trying her hardest to hide all the emotions behind them. She stepped forward, trying to focus on the task at hand. "Focus on finding the SOUL, and don't...
Don't trust anything it says, okay?"
