Archive of Our Own

There is a hospital in Hometown. It’s fairly sizable for the population that it is serving, with two doctors, three nurses, and several on-call specialists from further out that have frequently spent more time than not attending to one Rudy Holiday. For a monster population as one-sided as Hometown is, this amount of healthcare is more than adequate. 

For the single human resident in Hometown, a traveling doctor was used for most of their younger childhood. At first the calls were frantic and often, following every minor bump and sniffle that is expected out of a young child still learning their own body. The visits tapered down to once a year, then once every two years.

Then they stopped. Nobody had time for them anymore. Kris was as healthy as they could be. They couldn’t afford to keep calling in that one human doctor from halfway across the county just to check their blood pressure or whatever. Especially not when Dad was fired and Mom had enough on her mind.

Kris had grown up a monster in all but body, they were well used to the traits of magical foods and  how it affected them. The way that food made for monsters needed to be more magic than not meant that they never quite got used to the gross feeling of actually, y’know, digesting food. Not any more than they ever needed to. 

So sue them for never actually properly trying some of the weirder human foods. They don’t need to try every kind of fruit or whatever, they had a ‘real’ apple once because they loved the smell and it made them have the worst stomach ache of their life, they’re just fine with the magical facsimile.

So it was easy; Kris just didn’t get sick. Whatever sickness they felt was handleable by themselves, and they haven't had any injuries that couldn’t be walked off yet, so they’re fine. And living amongst monsters they haven’t had a cold or fever in years, not like they had when they were younger. Monsters are people, and don’t get illnesses like that, so it’s fine. Monster food was even healthful upon the human system, they had learned that early on, so they weren’t about to die from… what was that one disease? Tetanus? Shingles? Scabies? Any of the above.

Every doctor’s trip was a production that they were more than happy to let fall to the wayside. The man who usually came would always hum and haw over some papers and ask strange questions of them and talk to Mom in quiet tones about ‘developmental milestones’ and ‘varied dietary concerns’ and blah blah blah. 

They’re fine. They take their supplements dutifully when Mom was watching, and handily ignored them when she wasn’t to go and find some other sources for those vitamins and minerals that they were still too much of an animal to be able to go without. 

Kris was fine. Why wouldn’t they be?

…

“The needs of a human are quite a bit more than that of a monster when it comes to food! While magical food is perfectly reasonable to share with humans, their physical bodies mean that while it is good for energy and tasty, it doesn’t have the right nutrients and minerals in it that allow a human body to grow healthier. Listed in this chapter are a few of my recommended recipes for your child; keep in mind that it may take a few tries to get human-style cooking figured out! Try for at least one physical food a week so that your child’s system can get used to it if they are accustomed to magical food.”

…

Kris’ world ended one day in March. It had been after Azzy and them had gotten home from school and Kris had followed him over to the Hollidays’ house, because despite Noelle being the same age as Kris they thought Dess was the coolest thing that the whole universe could ever come up with. Kris kicked socked feet in the air as they carefully tried to follow the lines of the dragon picture underneath the paper they were scribbling on, determined to make it perfect this time. Dess was working on homework at her desk, because Mr Boom was a billion years old so he gave out way too much homework, according to Azzy. 

“Hey Krissssssss-tal?” Dess spoke up, letting the ‘s’ in their name trail like a flag banner. “I learned something neat today.

Kris gave a hum that Dess would know is a yes. They’re too busy tracing to focus on trying to talk right now. 

“So Mr Boom was talking about like. Animals and all that. Bugs and birds and those things, right?” Kris nodded, despite Dess facing the other direction. “Well I learned that apparently humans are an animal too. That’s pretty neat, yea?” 

Kris knew they were a human, they weren’t a baby anymore and they knew the horns didn’t actually work to make them a monster like Mom and Dad and Azzy. Still, something in their stomach curled up and turned all hard and crunchy (like the bits of potato that fell to the bottom of the oven that not even fire magic could entirely burn away) at the sudden reminder when they weren’t prepared for it. They stopped tracing, frowning at the paper. 

“But.” They tried to rearrange the words in their head. “I’m a person.” The bugs and birds and squirrels and rats weren’t people, not like how bug monsters and bird monsters and squirrel and rat monsters were. 

“Uh, yeah?” Dess said it in that way that she did whenever she thought she was teaching something so basic to Kris that they should feel silly for never knowing before. Then again, she was in third grade, she did know everything there was to know really.

But… it didn’t feel like that was the answer to what Kris was starting to quietly panic over. They finished their drawing, stowed the picture under Dess’ bed, and tucked the ‘how to draw dragons’ book under their armpit to carry home. 

It all came to a boil the morning after. Azzy had just finished breakfast and Kris had jumped up to follow him because he promised that they could play Super Smashing Fighters together before school and they intended to make him remember that when Mom called out to them. 

“Kris, honey, take your supplements before you go.” Mom was on Chairiel watching tv, but still had a good view of the group of tablets that had clustered around Kris’ empty chocolate milk cup like they were huddling for warmth. 

It was just the sudden reminder that had Kris abruptly feeling like they were going to vibrate out of their skin. The sudden alarm at realizing that, yes, Dess had said yesterday that -

“I’m a person!” They shook their head to try and get that vibrating bad feeling out but it only grew. 

Dad was coming down the stairs, ducking around Azzy who had escaped to play Super Smashing Fighters alone, and frowned at Kris. “You are a person? What is this about supplements?” He looked to the cup as well, and opened his mouth to probably say exactly what Mom had said. 

They beat him to it. “Dess said humans are animals but I’m a person and don’t need supplements!” It all came out in a rush, the desperate hope that if they were right then all would be ok and they could calm down and go follow Azzy and -

“Kris, bear,” Dad put a big hand on their shoulder and they almost felt like shaking their head again from that alone. “Humans are a type of person too, ok?” 

“Your father is right,” Mom said, turning the tv down a little more. “And humans need supplements, you know this.”

Not right, not right, not right not right at all. They shook their head again, and the buzzing just got worse. “I’m not an animal!” 

And, well. Where did two well meaning parents go with something like that? Dad tried first. “Hon, you are an animal, its -”

“No!” Kris didn’t even really know what they were yelling about more, the fact that Dad and Mom apparently didn’t think they were a person, or that they were not agreeing that Dess must’ve been wrong in some way.

Mom and Dad looked at each other from over Kris’ head, concerned. “Kris -” Mom started again.

“No!” They buried their face in their hands, tugging at their hair as they tried to find a way to get their thoughts sorted properly. “I… I think!” Didn’t Azzy say one time that the birds that sat in one of the big trees near the house couldn’t think, and that's why they were different from the bird monsters like Berdly and Snowy? Right, yes, right. 

They were filling up with fuzz, it was tangling between their thoughts and they couldn’t get it unstuck. They got up and rushed for the bathroom, dodging around the hand being put down to put on their shoulder. 

They slammed the door to the bathroom, pulling the stool that was put there for them to reach the sink out from underneath it and stood to stare at themselves in the mirror. It was hard to put into words why the impulse had taken them like this, but they had to see that they weren’t an animal right then. Even if they didn’t quite know how to tell.

Their eyes were red - redder than usual, from the crying. The water was turned on, and they stuck their face under it when it got as cold as it could get. The shock of cold at least helped slow their breathing, and they shook their head a few times like some of the dog monsters that lived downtown did when it was raining. 

If they looked deep into their own eyes, they liked to imagine they could see their own soul shining out. They had had to get that checked once, at the doctors, to check for any flaws in the soul. Apparently magical diseases sometimes could mutate and jump to human souls, or something, and they had seen that their own was a bright red. 

They stared deeper into their own eyes, nose nearly touching the mirror and fogging up little circles with how close they leaned, trying to find that pinprick of red light.

Their own eyes stared back at them, pupils dark darker yet darker.

…

A doodle, drawn on a scrap piece of paper. It is of a goat monster with a thick cloak and a large scarf, with red horns that shown with little cartoon sparkly effects. It is colored in a scribbled-in black - because even in their greatest fantasies Kris knew that they were different from the rest of their family in a way that not just species could separate - and smiled with a big dopey grin. 

Kris never was able to smile the way that Mom wanted them to for photographs. It was just another way this doodle was pure fantasy. 

If Kris had had more time, perhaps they would’ve tried to draw Azzy, or Noelle or even Dess alongside this idealized form of them. But they had been hiding from having to go back to class, doodling in the narrow crack of light that spilled into the room, and the shock of the storage closet door being flung open and them being discovered by Mom had overridden any of that. 

Purely metaphorical tail between their legs, they had been escorted back to class. The doodle was left behind.

The door closed, and the person that Kris had wished with childish hope to become was left in darkness.

…

Animals had blood. Kris had blood. It bubbled purple and green and yellow and all those weird colors under their skin whenever they got a bruise. One time they brushed their teeth a little too hard and blood came out of their mouth in little fractals of red spit. It was gross. It wasn’t right.

Monsters could have blood. It wasn’t unnatural. But they got it because it was a simp- a simpath- a thing that monsters do when they know other things around them have blood. Azzy and Mom and Dad all had blood because they knew that Kris had it too and something in their magic made it so they copied Kris. It wasn’t right, and that blood wasn’t actually real. They had even asked Azzy once, in the middle of the night, what his blood tasted like. He didn’t know. It didn’t taste like iron to him because monsters aren’t animals and don’t need iron in them to have blood and it just wasn’t fair.

Every time they had to swallow that giant iron tablet they always glared at it. It was wobbly and dark green and tasted of the way coins smelled when you held them too long. Kris wondered if they would be able to forget they had blood and stop having it, like monsters could. Maybe if they had no blood at all they wouldn’t need to take the supplements because their body would forget it needed those things.

It was a nice thought. It only ever lasted a few days before Mom would catch them hiding the pills and start checking their mouth after breakfast to be sure they were swallowing them. It was annoying and gross and sat heavy in them every time because they couldn’t stand the feeling of physical food at all, not when every time it would feel like there was something rotting away within them. It made them feel like a trash bin more than a person.

They stared at the iron pill as it spun round and round on the wooden table, poking at it gently to keep it rotating. Mom had looked up a few minutes ago with a huff that meant that she would tell them to just take it within a minute or two, but they could put off that until they were forced to.

Animals had blood. They needed solid stuff in them in order to keep on going. Kris had heard one time, from a late-night program on TV that had come on after Dad had gone to bed, that humans had to capture a soul in them to be more than animals, while monsters were a soul that formed a body around it. It made more sense than any of the other explanations. It meant that their soul was the only part of them that was actually a person, and the rest of them is just a… 

That thought made them feel upset in ways that they didn’t like to mull on. They sighed, then noticing that Mom had looked up again they quickly swallowed the pill dry. It didn’t flake apart in their throat like normal food did but rather sat like a heavy weight in their chest. Eugh.

…

“... believed that the independent processes in which monsters and humans evolved in nature allowed for the differing properties of each species’ souls, which give clues into the ways that each can be used. Monster souls are integrated strongly with their bodies, given the utilization of a magical matrix over a less physical makeup that has allowed for the variation in monster bodyplans. The function of a monster soul is that of maintaining the well of magic and compassion that allows for life. Human souls are less integrated, instead containing all of the magic in an individual in one location. Owing to the more physical nature of humans, this means that while humans are less strongly affected by magic, they are also less capable of affecting it in turn. Perhaps this is why it is easier for a human to be metaphorically 'heartless,' or unfeeling in emotion, since their physicality means they can be less swayed by the consciousness than a monster's can. Perhaps, in a way, it is this disconnection between body and soul that mean a human can commit worse atrocities without suffering ill effects from soul sickness. It is their animal origins, rather than the magical matrix, that they draw on for strength during acts of cruelty."

…

Asriel was busy. Kris regretted coming home from school at all when they couldn’t even bury themselves in trying to tag along with whatever their brother was doing. Mom and Dad were fighting again, and they really couldn’t even be bothered to learn what caused it this time. They didn’t even try to sneak out, just walking past them as they were hissing words at one another and leaving the way they came. 

It was early spring, so there was still a cold nip in the air even this late in the afternoon, and Kris indulged in huffing air as fast as they could to purge their lungs of all the warmth still in them for just a moment. It felt funny. It felt good. One time Snowy had bet that they couldn’t eat an entire ice bullet without getting a brain freeze and they had managed it, even as it hurt all the way going down. At least Snowy had thought it was kind of neat, though MK had called it lame when they didn’t suddenly gain the ability to breathe frost or something.

They walked around the back of the house, further from the low rumble of their parents voices. They didn’t have a proper backyard, but the forest started again a little ways further past the boundary line of the house property, and they were well used to wandering it. It was quiet today, the leaves having not grown back on the trees yet but only the barest buds of green showing up on the very tips of the branches. The birds weren’t back yet either, not even the black ones that cawed and flew around and poked at trash bins when the snow was heaviest.

There was a lake out here. It wasn’t as large as the one past Dad’s new shop, and it probably didn’t even count as a pond because the water came from a little stream that ran off of a sidewalk ditch and only really filled when it was raining or when too many people used sprinklers for their lawns. Still, it was Kris’ lake, because they had found it first and called dibs on it before Asriel or… someone else could beat them to it. Noelle would never try to call dibs, which is lame because they would definitely beat her to it as well. 

Kris’ lake was ugly and swirling with rainbow oil right now, probably from street run-off after the last snow of the winter had melted a week ago, and they couldn’t have cared less in that moment. It was quiet. They sat on the least muddy patch of grass they could find, one of those short and shrubby plants that was more dead than alive this time of year. 

It hadn’t been a good day today. It wasn’t bad, by any means, but it was one of those days where the headaches were pulsing harder than normal and they hadn’t slept well and everything was just too raw and sharp and close to the surface for them to deal with it. Their routine had been ruined when Jockington had taken the last apple from the lunch queue as well because they had forgotten to ask Mom to get more for home, and even though it was just a stupid apple they had felt like it was one last droplet on top of a whole ocean of unfairnesses for that day. And then they had come home and Mom and Dad were fighting again and Asriel was busy with homework and seemed just as irritated as Kris felt when they had disrupted him, and now they were. Here.

A low wind left trails rippling across the ‘lake’ that they followed with their eyes but not their mind. Then another movement attracted their attention. Across the way, on the far side of the lake, there was a creature scurrying down a tree. A squirrel. Kris watched it as it hesitated, then darted down, then seemed to think better and backtrack up the tree again a few steps. It was a curious little thing, all twitching whiskers and fuzzy fur and long lashing tail. It finally decided to brave the ground again and started scraping through the dirt and mud for something. It chittered.

Kris, without thinking, mimicked it. It paused, and looked up like it was caught in some heinous act. It stared right at Kris. They chittered again, a clumsy approximation of its sounds.

Then it ran back up the tree and disappeared in a flurry of rustles. They didn’t know what they expected. That the squirrel would see that Kris was an animal too, unlike everyone else in town? See some kinship in those wet mammalian eyes that they shared, that same real blood that pulsed through them? Maybe that meant that they were more dangerous than the monsters since some animals eat others. Maybe the squirrel saw Kris and thought that they only saw red meat walking around waiting to be killed and eaten. 

Or maybe it knew instinctually that Kris was just a bad person, and that it wanted nothing to do with them as a person or as an animal. 

They tucked their head between their knees and sat there as the sun set. They’d get up eventually. It’s not like anyone was looking for them.

 …

 “ My Child,

I will be leaving early for a school meeting tomorrow and will need you to get up by yourself. Please remember to take your Iron, Calcium, and Magnesium supplements before you leave. We will need to take a trip to Big City to pick you up more Multivitamins soon, I will not let you forget about those again!

Sleep well sweetheart. I will see you after school.

Your Mother”

 …

The prophecy. The prophecy. It was all they could think about. It was all they could do to not think about it in every moment. It had been a secondary kind of thing in the moments when they had almost seen what had happened to Dess, seen that she was - .

But. Now it was all that burnt bright in their mind’s eye. Staring at the ceiling of their room, the low huffy sounds of Asriel’s breathing from his own bed, they tried to recall the myriad visions that had been poured directly into their skull all at once. 

Because this was important. More than important, this was the only thing to have ever mattered, and it was somehow wrapped up around them specifically. They didn’t want to believe it. They could do nothing but believe it. How would the other two ‘heroes’ of the prophecy feel about it, they wondered. All they had seen was their own involvement, but surely, they too must…

The prophecy. The prophecy. They were the cage, they were the lantern that brought light into a world made of dark. They were… fuck they were scared and they didn’t even know what that meant but they knew that it meant that they were just parts.

And now they knew that the soul was all that was human of them, all that was needed of them because they were a cage and they had human parts and a human soul and something else would be nesting within that and that was all the prophecy had ever wanted of them, not Kris not the person but the animal who could steal a soul for itself and pretend it was like a monster.

They needed to see it. The soul. The thing that was all that kept them from being an animal, which was apparently the only part of them that the prophecy needed to take for itself, that whatever thing that would be leashed for the prophecy would take control of. What are they without it, but a dumb physical thing? 

It wasn't something they had really ever tried, beyond the one time at the doctors when they had to get it checked and they realized that it was something that could even be done. Human souls can exist outside of the body, and in the right circumstances they could be detached. It apparently wasn't really done outside of medical situations, but Kris didn't really care. They tucked themselves beneath their sheets and felt against their chest for the tiniest flicker of undirected sensation that grew sharper over where their soul must live. Last time they remembered it has felt like prickling; this time it felt like an itching. Like there were bugs in their chest that were gnawing at their ribs.  Then, hand curled with nails like claws against their bare skin, they felt something give and a burst of red light against their palm. They gasped, then tried to muffle that sound by burrowing deeper into their bed. In their grasp, sparking and spitting and glowing with a light that is all wrong, was their soul. It felt like they were falling away, going somewhere deeper in their own skull than their eyes can go, with everything centering around that burning bloody red heart that beat against their hand. 

If they were their soul, and their soul was out here… then what was it they were thinking with? What was left in them to see their own soul removed?

Their breathing was speeding up. They couldn’t even feel it, so absorbed with the heart before them as they were. They were a something that was watching their personhood exist outside of themselves. What were they then? An animal? A dumb thing made of blood and meat and bones that could only grip onto something that could make them something more knowing they stole it from the universe – 

“Kris?”

They hadn’t even noticed until a paw was on their shoulder and the covers were being drawn away and even then the sensations came in dull and far away. Asriel was in their peripheral (they couldn’t, even now, turn away from a full and unrelenting focus upon the heart) and they could feel the feeling in their shoulder, but as if pressed through many layers of thick clothing. He was speaking, there was movement around where his mouth usually was, but the words trickled in out of order and without meaning. 

The sounds got louder, but no less incomprehensible. Then a paw got in between them and the heart, and the spell was broken. They were suddenly too much in their body for their own good, a meat thing full of stress and fear and terror and oh fuck oh god oh fuck they needed to go, they needed to run there was danger  – there was this feeling like they were about to die they were – 

A paw closed over their heart, and the speeding freight train of their fear suddenly stopped, leaving them feeling like one of those cartoons where gravity only took effect once the character noticed they were over a gap. They felt… They… didn’t feel like anything at all… and the heart was… held by… 

A feeling of deja vu. A leak through the universes that will only make sense to someone who comes much later. Yellow petals. A village. A body – theirs? No, not quite, but… 

They came back to themselves in bits and pieces. A flash of light in one eye that made them flinch back before they even remembered they had a body to control. A tapping on their face that - hm, yea, they had one of those, right. 

“Kris? Honey, say something, Kris?” The words made no sense at first, and it took more effort than they thought they were capable of mustering to put them in the right order. They huffed, trying to focus their vision again.

“Asriel, tell them that Kris is awake,” the… it only looked like a white blur right now but enough of Kris was back within them to remember the smell, the sound the feel of -

“Mom?” they croaked. Arms were around them and they were suddenly lifted limply into a hug that they could barely remember once it had stopped.

“You’re ok, it’s ok you’re ok, I’m here,” the white bl- no, Mom, was petting their hair and finally, something that felt like it was actually sinking in below the confusion and strange emptiness within them. They leaned into it, still blinking lamely. Mom was still talking to them, but they could only focus on one sense at a time it seemed.

They finally focused their vision enough to see the far side of - oh, this was their room. That was Azzy’s bed, and sitting at the foot of it, tapping a foot anxiously and holding a phone to his ear was Azzy himself. 

There was a weird feeling in them looking at him. Like there was something bubbling up within them that he had put there. Like something was bouncing around inside them like an echo of a sound trapped inside of a cave. And if they opened their mouth it might come out.

Oh. No. That was a sob. They were crying. When did that start? Mom held them tighter, and every moment that wasn’t the present kept slipping from their mind but at least… at least they were a person again.

It took them almost a week (one filled with burning hot showers to remind themselves that they were inside their own skin again, with increasingly more outrageous food combos to trick their tongue into dragging the rest of themselves out of the brain numbing fog they kept retreating into) to finally realize the most terrible part of that experience. Beyond the way that Azzy now kept them at arms length even more than before, beyond the ache in their chest that wouldn’t go away from where their soul was torn free. 

It was the fact that, in that moment when they had lost connection with their soul entirely, they had felt nothing at all. Whatever was ‘Kris’ was taken with that heart shaped object, and left nothing but a vessel behind. 

 …

emrgency nunbr

emergency number medical HUMAN ONLY

monster absorbing human soul

                ebottian treaties – soul absorption clause

monster absorbing human soul accidental how to reverse

reverse human soul absorb human still alive

normal heart rate human 15 years old

how to remove human soul monster

maximum time without soul human for normal recovery 

is absorbing human soul manslaughter

human soul coloration red meaning

itching after absorbing soul

shedding after absorbing soul

permanent after effects of absorbing soul for short amount of time

why does a human lose their soul 

what can cause a human to lose their soul

human stress responses

 

hot land university fall freshman start date

 …

The Other didn’t eat. Which Kris was just fine with, even as the hunger gnawed deeper. They were a cage for a human soul, whatever the Other was it was identified as human in some way and that meant that it needed food as well. Whatever it thought it was doing by restricting food would only hurt itself as well.

And it wasn’t like Kris couldn’t get food on their own. That first night, stealing downstairs to the still wonderfully warm pie that sat on the countertop, they carefully cut one slice, then two, then three, then just took the rest of the tin because the wondrous joy of the familiar sweetness on their tongue didn’t leave them feeling gross and heavy like human food did and it was just such a nice reminder that they were still a person, despite the human soul having divorced itself entirely from what was ‘Kris.’

They stared at the bottle of supplements hidden behind a paper towel roll that the soul still hasn’t realized existed at all. They should probably take them while they were eating so much pie. Dark world food just doesn’t cut the mustard. Water was fine though. They got some water at least, and water was something that all living things needed, not just animals, so it was fine.

If they had to feel any more bad in their own body while all this is going on, they’re probably going to start screaming. They have so many days left to go, best they can tell. Better to let this coiling thing that has roosted itself in their chest and controls their actions wither and starve and die and leave them behind -

They interrupt that thought with another bite of pie. Mmm… Pie. Good. Pie never betrayed them. Pie was something that they could enjoy and know it was all ‘Kris’ doing the enjoyment. Monsters enjoyed pie as much as humans did. So it was fine. And it was even more fine that the Other, the thing that wasn’t them that now sat where the ‘person’ within them should’ve been, couldn’t enjoy the pie at the same time as them. 

Maybe they were an animal then, in the end. A thing that pretended to be a person. They must be, if there was still so much ‘Kris’ left over without the soul. 

Stop thinking. Stop breathing raggedly. Don’t think about Mom upstairs, who they will need to give over to the Knight tomorrow night if all goes to plan. Don’t think about the look in Susie’s eyes when she asked to come back to the Dark World again, at how utterly hopeful she seemed now that something Other had taken Kris’ place and acted more like a person than Kris could ever be alone. Don’t – Don’t – 

The spoon scraped the bottom of the tin and only brought up crumbs. Ah. Damn.

It’s not a surprise that the pie disappeared in record time. It’s been a long day and every bite had given them another reminder of just what they are doing all of this for. Pie is good. Pie that doesn’t sit in the stomach and feel like it's rotting inside of them is even better. They lick the knife clean and don’t even bother to retrieve it as they stumble upstairs in a fog of sudden exhaustion. 

It’ll all be fine. It’s just a couple of days and then they’ll be free of all of this. They just needed to… 

They were asleep the moment they forced the soul back into their chest, breathing leveling out like a crumpled piece of paper smoothed flat.

…

There was a man behind the tree.

There was a man behind the tree. 

There was a man - man - man - man - man - man

Why did you forget him?

Why did he forget himself?

Oh, and now there is an egg in your palm. Too bad it was too real to even consider trying to eat. You're feeling hungry.

... Was there something behind that tree just a moment ago?

… 

The Other did make one singular exception for its ‘no food rule,’ and it was starting to drive Kris mad. It had started in that jail cell, just before Ralsei had loosened the shackle of its control over them for the first time. It had stared at a patch of dark moss that had begun growing from the leaking water through the cracks of the cell. The craving suddenly reared its head ravenously, that animal part of them adding extra weight to their own tired willpower and giving them a little more of a push than normal.

Perpetuate the cycle of existence? Kris asked them, not sure what answer they wanted. If they were denied it, then perhaps this truly was the human soul, unsullied. A thing that is purely a person, unlike themselves. If they were given it… Then they were never a person, were they? If a soul separate from their own would give in to such animal desires as well?

The Other hesitated over it. Then, there was a loosening in their limbs and they fell to the floor to begin scraping at the slimy green carpet. Kris tried not to feel the horrified stare from Ralsei.

All humans were intrinsically animals, it appears. The cage has tainted the soul, it appears. Or the soul always had this capacity within itself. Kris didn’t know anymore. They sank into the pathetic relief that their hindbrain threw forward as they crunched down on the moss. It’s all they could do.

From there it almost turned into a running joke. Find a patch of moss and allow Kris to descend upon it. Kris wasn’t even sure that it knew how to interpret taste. It always just seemed to ask for visual descriptions of food, if it even remembered to do that much. They wondered if it even could feel the acute pang that rose up in them whenever they saw the moss, or if it was just a funny little action to indulge in. 

Did it think it was bonding with Kris like this? Did it think itself a god standing above these lowly desires, but still curious as to what its subject saw out of it? 

… Ok but the sacred moss was pretty damn good. In that vegetal way that they never quite got from monster food and that sat too heavy in them whenever they tried human food. The kind of food that satisfied the impulse of biting into a particularly bright looking leaf without coming back to bite them with thorns or fuzz or a gross bitter taste. They’d need to come back to the church at some point to see if there was a light world equivalent. When they… if they… got out of this. 

They were still getting out of this, right? 

The Other didn’t answer. Simply reached out and took another messy handful of moss for Kris to eat. Content to play act at being an animal without needing to stoop to that level.

…

A memory, a dream, a forgotten snippet, a different world. Your father's large paw against your back. Your breathing coming in tiny gasps that hid just how shaken and terrified you were. An alien thumping in your chest that wasn't your own soul, wasn't the Other, but an echo of something that was made similar to you nearby. The ache from kicking around what amounted to a severed body part, without even the recompense of hearing it cry out in pain at your attempts to extract punishment. 

A hot chocolate pressed into your hands by your worried father

It steamed in the cool autumn air. You needed this comfort. You felt like you would throw up the moment the cup is brought to your lips.

You'd never get to know. The Other gracelessly dropped the cup into the grass the moment your father turned his back. It ignored the look on Susie's face, her own worry that had started to curdle into something darker as your own actions became more erratic. 

It didn't care about comforts, about animal things like the enjoyment of a warm reliable cup of hot chocolate. It had more terrible, more horrific things to do than baby the creature it had torn open and made a nest in. 

Hah, there had even been a little peppermint mixed into that drink, you swear you smelled it for a moment. Or maybe it is just the smell clinging to you after - after –

You sank back into the depths of what had once been you. You can't bear to watch the Other be more of a person than you were ever capable of. 

…

The second time a patch had been noticed, a gnarled looking clump hanging out behind a trash can in the bustling streets of the cyber city, they had magnetically been drawn to it. So this was becoming a pattern.

It wasn’t bad, not the worst at least, but it had a distinct kind of plasticky taste that stuck in their mouth a little longer than they’d like. The Other watched them do this with a curiosity that almost made them wish they could ask it directly what it got out of all of this. 

Still. They couldn't help but be pleased that they had gotten some more. Maybe this'll be a running joke or something. So long as they got moss they were happy. 

Noelle was staring at them strangely and had opened her mouth to say something when - - - - -.

[ Quitting...]

Whennnn n n n n n n... 

[ Chapter 2 File 1 load...]

Kriiii -i -i -is

was... what were they doing again? Being piloted through the busy streets of the cyber city, right. Why was their head suddenly fuzzy?

There was a patch of moss behind a trash bin that Kris was forced to poke their head into. For some reason, they felt almost disappointed that they didn't get the chance to eat that one too. Suppose it was only fun the first time for the Other. It felt... strange, though. Like they could already taste it in their mouth despite being 10 feet away. 

That phantom taste was spot on, they had a sudden sense of Deja vu when, much later, the Other had piloted them back to that same patch of moss with Susie and Ralsei in tow. Then, at last, it had allowed Kris to descend upon the patch. They nearly tore into it, before hesitating.

Susie was leaning over their shoulder, gawking at the moss. "Heck yea! I didn't know there was moss here, nice find! It's totally uneaten too and... wait a minute." she trailed off, and Kris tensed. 

"Kris... were you... saving this for me? " The look she gave Kris barely met before skittering off to the side uncomfortably.  

And. Well. Kris hadn't but... if Susie liked moss too... 

Somehow, that had never occurred to them. Even in spite of seeing Susie go to town on just as many strange foods as Kris themselves had, they never considered that…

They flourished a hand towards the pile. Bon appetit. 

They shared the moss... together. Maybe this was going to become a pattern. Kris supposed it wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

Later on, when the world in the library had been closed and the sudden clarity of thought that came from returning to the light world had finished washing over Kris, they were loitering near the librarby’s front desk when the corner of Susie’s jacket smacked against a low table with a large crack . Kris had jumped and Susie startled visibly, staring down at the large square lump in her pocket that hadn’t been there in the dark world. “Shit, how long has this been here -“ she pulled a small lunch box neatly packed with pieces of by now extremely broken chalk, popping it open to stare at it. “Ahh, right, this was from just after school, right?” She crinkled her snout, looking away from Kris when she started to blush lightly. Cute.

She eventually picked one of the less splintered pieces and crunched into it, humming. “It ain’t bad, and dark world food never quite seems to feel real enough once I leave.” She proffered the box to Kris, who with only a moments hesitation that wasn’t really their own plucked a piece out to crunch as well.

They considered. Grainy, with that dryness that sucked all the spit from their mouth all at once. But had that good mineral crunch to it. They could see why Susie liked them. “Not bad. Like eggshell more though.” Why did they say that. They’re blaming the Other except they can’t really it just plucks thoughts they already had to it of their head and removes the inhibitions about saying them. 

To their entirely unwarranted surprise Susie barked out one of her giant spiky laughs, slamming Kris on the back hard enough to make them cough a cloud of chalk dust. “I knew the moss wasn’t a one time deal! Now we’re in fucking business!”

Why were they blushing now. Why did they ever think that she would find something strange out of what Kris did or didn’t eat. Not when she - 

It was probably… rude. Of them. To consider what Susie does or doesn't eat.

She had continued on to push open the librarby doors while they had tried to force blood out of their own face. “Right, there’s that huge basket of eggs at the corner store. Let’s get some, we can call it cultural exchange or some crap.” She turned her head to flash a crocodile smile that gleamed in the shadow cast from the open door. “We don’t have all day!” 

With how low the sun was starting to get in the sky, Susie was very much right there. They both skedaddled to San’s (did he mean for the apostrophe to be there? Or was Kris forgetting the way those worked again) and in the pocket change they were able to pool between the both of them they were able to get three eggs each (or… probably, 4 eggs for Susie and 2 for Kris. Or maybe even 5 for Susie, who knows how the Other will be feeling). They felt cool and smooth under Kris’ palm, and they couldn’t help but rub one back and forward against the pilled edge of their sweater sleeves. If the Other knew they were doing that, it didn’t seem to care.

In the lakeside picnic space, both of them sitting on the tables with their feet on the attached benches, Susie carefully bit down on  a raw egg, yelping wetly with a surprise when she got a mouth full of ooze. Truly she was an amateur at this. Kris had figured out the technique years back, if at first just to weird out Catti that one time. Surreptitiously palming their knife (they weren’t hiding it from Susie they swear. It was just so the Other wasn’t aware of how omnipresent it is and try to get its hands on it!) they poked a hole in the bottom of one of the eggs, then widened it with a jab from one of the slightly less gross looking pencils in their pocket. Then, letting it drip into their mouth from as high up as possible, they tried not to cringe at the texture. Egg was good. Egg slime… wasn’t. Especially when they accidentally got a gob of it on their cheek. 

But Susie thought it was cool, and that’s all that actually matters. “Shit dude, that’s so much more efficient, pass it over.” She pawed at the still kind of gross eggy pencil, and tried to use it to spear the next egg. She cursed when it split the shell into tiny shards and left her with a messy handful.. 

Taking pity on her even as she lapped at her own hand to get the slime, Kris broke open their second egg the same as the first and passed it over. They started crunching on the shell of their own egg. 

“So?” Susie was suddenly in their face again, half-empty egg held at a jaunty angle. “What’s the verdict?”

They pushed back at her. “Thought this was an exchange.”

She sniggered. “Right, right.” She popped the now hollowed egg into her mouth and chewed with enough concentration to make a sommelier proud. “Kind of… wet.”

“Wet.” They supposed that was a word for it. They got socked in the shoulder. 

“You know what I mean! Wet! Doesn’t have the right powder to it!” She extracted a bit of shell from between her teeth and showed with far more dramatics than was necessary the way that an egg shell, unlike a piece of chalk, didn’t crumble when broken. Which Kris definitely didn’t know about before she gave the demonstration, for sure. 

“So, good or bad?” They tried to prompt, which Susie just answered with bared teeth. 

They had started on their second egg, and Susie her fourth (which she had given up on cracking open cleanly pretty quickly and decided to see if she could swallow whole “like some kind of cool snake, right?” and ended up needing to be thumped on the back while coughing up pieces of shell shortly after)

Now that the eggs had been finished, Susie was starting to find pebbles to throw into the lake. “Y’know, I’m sure I can find one to skip,” she said with undue confidence. Kris watched from the table, slowly chewing on the last bits of shell from the second egg. Eggs were a rare treat, something solid that sat in them that they just… didn’t mind nearly as much as other food. It was kind of nice sharing it with Susie.

Especially if she also ate strange things. Kris had seen Ralsei’s attempts to cater to her taste, all the strange things in her dark world fridge that Susie had crowed over and made Kris wish they could ask for bits of newspaper and chunks of ice. Maybe in the dark world they wouldn’t even melt in their mouth. Susie… seemed to understand.

Susie overhand threw a rock into the lake and it landed with a huge splash that rippled all across the lake, turning the trapped sunset into a bunch of fragments of orange and pink.

Susie ate weird things. And she seemed to like to eat weird things, not just things that people would eat. It was nice to imagine that perhaps in some way that pulled Kris up from being just an animal, rather than reducing Susie to that level. She could never not be a person, not with how much she expressed herself, not with how much she seemed to just know how to say the right thing. Even when she failed to flirt or made a fool of herself tripping while trying to kick the vases in that one room in the palace, she always was so… her. So ‘Susie.’

(Susie is the coolest person Kris has ever known.)

(Maybe they could learn how to be a person in-of-themselves from her, if she was able to be so strange and so out there and so herself and yet still be undeniably a person.)

(That’d be nice.)

Susie took that moment to start throwing sticks into the lake, and Kris was finally able to push the Other to get up and join her.

 …

That diner scene was really cute, you had to admit. A chance after how hectic the last chapter had been for Susie and Kris to settle down and have fun together without there being some kind of danger or symbolism or anything. You hoped that, in some small way, Kris had appreciated it.

Then you thought that was silly. They were a videogame character. They had no internality beyond what they were written to do. 

Still, with a game so focused around choice and control and the lack there-of, it was hard not to imagine that Kris was finding enjoyment in Susie’s company. 

What was it that they had even ordered? It was hard to tell, when the sprites were so small. Was that a pizza, or maybe a tray of fries for Kris? Soup? At least the sundae was quite extravagant. You hoped they enjoyed themselves. Now you want diner food, damn it.

The thought was a passing one, just before another absolutely adorable window-writing scene and a mystery that you would chew over (what was written on that window that Kris didn’t want you seeing? What does Susie now know that you didn’t? Did it even matter?), but it was there. Did Kris eat enough? They were a teenager, and you remember how much you needed to eat at that age. They had the whole pie after chapter 1, sure, and the moss… Did that count, when it was in the dark world? What else did they have… Did they even have pancakes in the morning at the start of this chapter, or were they dragged out too fast for it? Maybe you should look up and see if anyone else was wondering about this. 

You hoped they had a good meal. 

 …

The table was laden with food and drink that would only linger for a moment or two on the tongue of any Lightner. Tea that tasted vaguely floral, like how some of the incenses in the church always seemed like it should taste like from the smell. The man had said it was chamomile, but Kris didn’t drink nearly enough tea to know what that was supposed to taste like. Probably not like this?

The Other seems to have forgotten that it needed to make Kris eat. Again. It sat dormant, listening to Susie’s story without comment (or even without reacting when Kris or Ralsei added in on occasion - maybe it had fallen asleep at the wheel?) and the old man laughing and bantering back with her. Susie really was getting along famously with him, it seems.

The tea was getting cold. The Other had only allowed one sip when it was first given to them, and they had vaguely thought it wasn’t sweet enough for their tastes, but once that window of time had closed they apparently just couldn’t lift their damn hands up again to drink some more. It was right there and they couldn’t touch it.  

Susie had finished first, draining her cup and getting up to stretch and continue on ahead of them (they swear they saw her rather obviously mouth ‘I’m getting the ladder’ their way before she fled, so they didn’t really feel the need to follow right behind her and hoped the Other agreed) and leaving the old man to interrogate Ralsei.

The tea was still there in front of them. It was well past cooled at this point. They could feel the dryness in their mouth more than ever, it had been so long since drinks at the diner earlier, and they hadn’t enough leeway to stick their head in any of the fountains they passed in the dark world despite their best efforts to plant the idea in the Other. 

Finally, the old man turned and looked at Kris. “You, I noticed you haven’t touched your tea yet.” 

They didn’t know what to do, they didn’t even get any prompting from the Other in this situation beyond what they could guess is a vague surprise that the tea was still there at all. Definitely forgot about it.

The old man frowned thoughtfully, tapping one claw to the teapot. “Close your eyes.”

Did he… know the trick too? Out of the corner of their eye they saw Ralsei’s own eyes widen at that. With great trepidation, they closed their eyes and felt the strings within them slacken a little more, like it did whenever the Other couldn’t see them. 

There was movement in front of them, then the sound of… another sugar cube? Did the old man notice their reaction to the taste? Maybe now they could -

Don’t drink it.

The Other had decided to take even that away from them, it seems. They couldn’t even sigh in disappointment, it wasn’t as if they ever had any hope at all of being able to drink it. 

The old man hummed from over their shoulder. “Well… if tea’s not your fancy, how about an apple?” 

That wretched animal part of them. That thing of meat and flesh and fats and sugars that needs needs needs constantly in order to continue to move forward in time, that machine of water and food and minerals and energy that was a body. It cried out in such desperation in that one moment that they gritted their teeth against it. They couldn’t smell the apple but they could imagine the smell and that was almost worse, in the ways that they could idealize an apple, idealize the feeling of their teeth sinking into it, they could even imagine the feeling of it sitting within them afterward, like that one physical apple that they had tried all those years before. The body, the animal, the meat that was Kris that wasn’t the Other strained towards the magnetic pole that was that singular (and entirely fake, dark world) apple that had been placed on the table in front of them with a small thunk.

They wanted . 

The Other didn’t know what to do. Or didn’t want to do anything. There was no difference, really. 

They were locked in their own body, the food so close yet so far, and they could only wail at how it was that the Person who was the Other couldn’t have inherited any of that animal part that built up a human in the first place. That it seemed to be a superego in full without the trappings of meat and instinct that Kris so despised, so yearned for, so missed. 

Ralsei broke the stalemate that they were trapped in, perhaps sensing Kris’ distress. Or the Other’s confusion. Whatever.

The apple was held up to their mouth, and eyes closed they bit into it ravenously.