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Ring…
Ring…
Ring…
Beep beep beep!
The number you are trying to reach is out of service-
Click.
Flipping her phone shut, Carol paced back and forth within the enclosing confines of her office. Her breath was harsh, the air was cold, and her mind was racing at a million miles a minute. She had been trying to contact her daughter all evening to no avail, and it was eating away at her immensely. Noelle was never the type to leave her cell unanswered. For anyone, but especially for her, no doubt because of the… conditioning… she had been given as for what happens when her calls go unanswered.
But this was different. One missed call, and she’d be miffed. Two, and she’d be roaring mad. But ten?! That’s when the worry set in. Her initial assumption that she had gone to go galavanting with Susie had long since given into icier fears. Had she grown fed up of living with her strict lifestyle and run off to hide away in the woods, like her older sister had done so many times before? Had she taken off to the local bus station to try and catch the next ride out to the big city? Perhaps she was going to crash with Asriel, in which case she’d better call ahead and see if that were the case.
There was also that third possibility in the back of her mind. A deep, dark fear that she need not entertain. For there was no way that Noelle Holiday would run off and kill herself…
…Right?
Trotting over to her desk, she opened a drawer and pulled out a fine bottle of port, left chilled in an insulated compartment, and prepped for herself a glass of the fine beverage. She made haste in downing it all, before wiping her haggard snout clean and putting the bottle back in the ice box. Anything to take the nerves off of that thought.
No, Noelle must have run off and hid, probably with Susie, and taken out her SIM Card so that none of the calls would go through. That must be what she was doing, a grand act of defiance to her mother, running off with the school bully instead of Kris, as she had said she would, going who-knows-where, and-
Ring…
Ring…
Ring…
Feeling a vibration in her pocket, Carol whipped out her phone, expecting… secretly hoping… that it was Noelle. Instead the Caller ID revealed that it was Officer Napstablook, which was… fine. She had called them earlier to tell them to search for Noelle, so this was to be expected. Flipping her phone open, she responded, cold. “Hello?”
The voice on the other end was shaky. “H-Hello, M-Mrs. Mayor....”
That was odd. Blooky never spoke like that. They always trailed off, but their voice never shook. “Napstablook, what’s the matter? Did you find my daughter or not?”
“W-We did, m-ma’am….”
Carol was getting fed up with the weak answers. “Well? Hand the phone over to her, already! I need to give that girl a piece of my mind.”
Nothing but silence followed.
“Officer?”
Napstablook didn’t say a word.
“Dammit, answer me! What’s wrong with my daughter?!”
A long, protracted sigh could be heard from the other end of the line, and when the response came, Carol felt her soul shatter within her.
“Carol… Noelle’s gone.”
The breath was sucked out of Carol’s lungs as denial set in. “B-Blooky… you said you found her! What do you mean ‘she’s gone?!?!’”
“I mean she’s not alive, C!” Napstablook shouted, exasperated and tense. “I don’t know what else to tell you, but… she’s gone.” Their voice grew weepy. “We found them and Kris floating in the lake, unresponsive. Got them dragged out, but by the time we did… both of them were-”
Click.
Slamming her phone shut and stowing it away in her pocket, Carol hyperventilated as she tugged at her hair. No… NO… NO! Without a moment of hesitation, she bolted out the door of her office, out the empty Town Hall, past where her husband should’ve been fixing up the lights, and down the quiet streets of Hometown as the last rays of sunlight vanished and plunged the town into darkness, illuminated by only the stray streetlamps that dotted the place. As her hooves clopped on the asphalt below her, tears streamed down her face, tears that she desperately fought to hold back.
Asphalt turned to dirt, and in the distance, by the water, the flashing lights of police cars came into view, with the spotlights turned down towards the ground. Officer Napstablook was there beside the Hometown car, chatting with another officer from a neighboring precinct, when Carol came barreling through them, only for her to skid to a halt when she caught sight of where the light was pointed.
Their bodies were bloated, Carol assumed from the water that must’ve consumed them, but it was heart-wrending how much it disfigured them. They barely looked recognizable as themselves. Kris’ skin was an unsightly pale, almost gray color, their wet mop of hair covering their eyes. But what pulled at her heartstrings the most was seeing her daughter, flat on her back, body as stiff as a board, her fur damp, life completely drained from her eyes.
One of the officers tried to make a move to pull Carol back, but Napstablook floated in front of them and halted their attempt. “She’s the Mayor, leave her alone with her kid,” they whispered, hoping that they were out of earshot.
Collapsing onto her knees, she scooped up her youngest, last-remaining child, and cradled her head in her arms, letting her back rest on her lap. Her hair was dripping wet, those once-sparkling amber eyes reduced to a dull brown hue, and the way they bulged out of her head was unsightly. It was a putrid scene, one that if it were any other child, Carol would want to throw up just looking at it, but the corpse in her hands was her daughter’s. There was no revulsion, only pity.
And then, dust.
In an instant, her form collapsed into a pile of white, damp powder, caking Carol’s entire body with her daughter’s remains. The elder doe’s eyes widened, and she attempted to grasp at the dust, trying to hold onto her daughter for as long as she could, only for it to pass through her fingers like a sieve. All that was left of Noelle were her clothes: a lake-soaked vest and a black skirt, colored white with her dust.
Carol felt her eyes well up with tears, and as her straightened back collapsed, she buried her head in her dusty hands and sobbed. For the first time since her eldest disappeared that one fateful day, she wept, she heaved, she wailed, she screamed. It was a guttural roar, one that was unimaginable to anyone but a grieving parent. One of the attending officers had to step away into the woods to get away from it; it was far too painful to be around.
“Oh, Elly, Elly!” she shrieked. “No! No! NO! Why’d you have to go and do this to your mommyyyyy….”
Trying to get her breathing under control, she heard footsteps coming from behind her, and assuming it was an officer coming to remove her from the scene, quickly spun around to shout him down, only for her breathing to cease altogether at the sight she was beholding.
It was Toriel.
And Susie.
Her breathing returning at an even more elevated pace, she stood up, covered in her daughter’s dust, and faced them. Susie was aghast at the sight in particular. “No… no… is that…?” Seething, Carol only nodded her head, staring down the young lizard as she did so.
Toriel’s gaze then landed upon Kris, and she let off such a horrid wail that another police officer had to retreat into the woods. “KRIS! NO!!!” Rushing over, she skidded down onto her knees and took hold of her child, tears streaming down her face and staining her fur. “MY BABY, MY BABY!!!” Their soggy body lay limp in her arms, dampening her cardigan and skirt. An officer once again tried to step in to remove Toriel, but this time Carol took a step forward and blocked him off. “Let her grieve,” she muttered, choked up, before marching over to a crying Susie, who was hunched over trying not to vomit at the sight of Kris’ corpse and Noelle’s dust.
The reptile looked up, saw Carol lording over her, and she began to tremble. “What?” she spat through tears.
“My daughter,” Carol replied, with venomous sorrow in her voice. “You were with her today, weren’t you?”
Susie’s breathing quickened, and an airy chuckle escaped her lips through the tears, not out of humor, but out of sheer mental exhaustion. “Yep, she went out with me for the whole day at the festival.” Her voice turned weak and choked-up. “She was off, though… off all day. At the ferris wheel, all she did was look longingly out the window… she wasn’t scared at all at the church haunted house set-up… at the food stand, she said she was happy to spend all of her money on me… and then we went to the lake… and she told me… to leave her there… and to bring Kris with me….”
Carol’s breathing quickened as Susie recanted her story through tears. “So I did! I brought Kris over this evening… they had slept in the entire day, and left them so they could see her as the sun was setting. And I could see the entire time that they were miserable, so I told them… I told them they meant a great deal to me… and to cheer up… and I left to go grab ice cream. And by the time I came back for them… they were gone… and I assumed that they had run off home or something, so I went to visit Toriel, expecting to see the two of them, but they weren’t there, and that’s when-”
With no warning, Carol grabbed Susie by her jacket and shook her. “YOU BLITHERING IDIOT! DID YOU NOT REALIZE WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!?! THEY WEREN’T HAVING A MOMENT TOGETHER, THEY WEREN’T HAVING A RENDEZVOUS, ROMANTIC OR OTHERWISE! THEY HAD A SUICIDE PACT! AND THEY KILLED THEMSELVES!!!”
An officer tried to get in between them, but Napstablook floated in the way, keeping a careful eye on Carol to make sure she didn’t push things over the line to where they would have no choice but to get involved.
“AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORST PART IS?!” Carol bellowed. “IF YOU HAD RECOGNIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT ANY POINT TODAY, THIS ALL COULD’VE BEEN AVERTED! HELL, IF YOU SAW THEIR BODIES WHEN YOU WENT TO CHECK THE SHORE, EVEN THEN YOU COULD’VE STILL SAVED THEM IF YOU HAD CALLED THE COPS! BUT YOU DIDN’T! MY BABY’S DEAD, AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”
Carol heaved with each breath, snarling in Susie’s face, Noelle’s dust blowing off of her nostrils and onto Susie’s snout. She knew the cops were right behind her, and openly welcomed the idea of pushing Susie’s buttons to the point of assault, to get this wretched girl out of her life for good. She saw her fists tremble, she prepared to take the physical blow…
…only to take one emotionally.
“Then why didn’t you save her?”
The dust-covered doe quaked as the weakly-delivered words registered, releasing the lizard from her grasp. “Huh?”
“THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE HER?!” Susie lashed. “YOU’RE HER MOTHER, YOU SHOULD KNOW HER BETTER THAN ME! IF YOU WERE SO AWARE THAT SHE AND KRIS LIKELY HAD A SUICIDE PACT, IF THE MERE IDEA OF THAT ISN’T SO FAR-FETCHED, THEN WHY DID YOU NOT INTERVENE?! WHY DIDN’T YOU GET HER ANY HELP BEFORE THIS ENTIRE MESS HAPPENED?! I’M NAIVE, I WAS JUST TRYING TO RESPECT THEIR WISHES TO BE ALONE, SINCE I’M JUST A DUMB TEEN WITH NO LOT IN LIFE, AND EVEN THEN I HAD A BAD FEELING! BUT YOU’RE HER MOTHER!!! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, IF ANYONE SHOULD’VE REALIZED WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING, IT SHOULD’VE BEEN YOU!!!”
As Susie’s entire body trembled in rage, and Carol was left speechless, a third voice rang out to answer them. “She’s right, Carrie,” Toriel murmured. “Kris… they’ve been off all week… even more so than usual. Just today, they didn’t get out of bed until the sun was setting… and they didn’t even eat the honey toast I prepared.” She looked down at the body of her adopted child, and wailed. “They were struggling, they were hurting this entire time, and I was too blinded by my own matters to see! The cuts on their arms, the hole in their heart, I just waved it off as teen angst, thinking that I couldn’t be my child that does it. But it was! But it was!!!”
At that last bit, she broke down into tears, and Susie rushed over to embrace her in a hug. Together, they cradled Kris’ body, and as Susie turned to look longingly at Noelle’s dust, she murmured something to Carol.
“What was that?” she asked back.
“I said SCRAM!” she shouted. “You’re out here blaming everyone but yourself for this tragedy, and for what? Your ego? If you don't have the capacity to shoulder the blame with us, at the very least give us some space to grieve for our own mistakes!”
Carol looked at Toriel, hoping that she would dissent, but the tearful scowl on her face told otherwise. Finally reading the room, she turned to the officers and sighed. “Napstablook… just… take Noelle’s dust and gather it up. Send it to the Hospital for storage. I need to go home.”
“Understood, Mrs. C.”
Like a zombie, she stumbled back onto the streets of Hometown, past the iron gates of her Manor, up the front steps, and into the foyer. She contemplated grabbing a drink, but felt in her soul that she needed to make her peace first. Trudging up the stairs, her hooves dragged on the carpet as she made her way down the upper hallway and to her door.
Creaking it open, she saw the room as pristine as it ever was. Carol knew in her heart that, much like December’s room, this one too would be frozen in time, like a snowglobe, or the bronzed snowflakes she had hung up on the wall.
All was in order, that is, save for one note left conspicuously on Noelle’s long couch.
Curiosity got the better of her; she trotted over and picked it up. From the key words she scanned in the first paragraph, she instantly clocked what it was, and felt her blood run cold. A part of her considered just getting drunk now before she read it, but she felt in her soul that she needed to be sober for this. Knowing full well what would be in the letter, she picked it up, and read it anyway.
Whoever is reading this, hello.
I suppose that I’ve been suicidal for a long time. Passively so, but suicidal nonetheless. I would draw up plans, I would fantasize what life would be like with me gone, and I would cut myself. I would sneak downstairs whenever everyone else was asleep, take one of those serrated knives, and cut myself with it. Never enough to seriously put my life at risk, but to feel the rush, to be the one in control for once. And then I would put the knife back in the block and return to bed. If I bled, I would wash it out of my fur before it would stain. The scars would remain hidden beneath it, after all.
I don’t know when I first became suicidal. It was certainly after Dess “disappeared,” but that was so many years ago it’s all just a blur. Perhaps living in such a podunk small town that’s so hostile to the romance I desire did me in, perhaps it was my overbearing mother. Perhaps it’s the fact my dad’s sick. I know mother tries to convince me he’s getting better, that he’s going to be alright, but I know the truth, I’m not stupid. He’s dying. And he’s all I have left of those happy days gone by.
All my entire life, I’ve had to play the part of this perfect golden child for my family, for my school, for my community. At first, I was more than happy to play the role. It came naturally to me in those happier days. But I’m sick of being just a Noelle in this small Hometown world. I’m sick of not having any control over my life and being some demure doll for my mother to play with. I’m sick of having to be Little Miss Perfect. I miss being able to be a rowdy, messy girl. Like my sister.
Dess. I know you’re out there. I know you’re dead at the bottom of the lake. That’s what you always said when you would run off into the woods during your paranoid manic sprees, that you were going to drown yourself. I remember how you used to panic about the end of the world, how you used to stock up on munitions and camp out in the woods, how you used to say you’d rather kill yourself than face your fears. I remember that last time you took off, right before a major snowstorm. You said you were going to drown yourself again, but the fear in your eyes, the sheer terror… I should’ve believed you. The lake iced over for the winter after that storm, and come springtime, you were nowhere to be seen. But I know you’re there. I’ll be joining you soon enough.
Sorry if this is all a bit of a ramble, my head is in a million places all at once right now. I can’t stop thinking about Kris. All I can think about is Kris. I used to think it was Susie I was obsessed with, what with how similar she was to Dess and all that. The mean bully, the rowdy rebel, just the girl I wanted to be, just the girl I wanted to be with. But if Susie was my love, then Kris taught me LOVE. They taught me LOVE when they told me to freeze my enemies, they taught me LOVE when they told me to put Berdly in that coma. They taught me LOVE when they jammed that thorn into my finger and showed me what LOVE was on this very sofa. Susie gave me hope once, but she was just a fleeting crush, a silly schoolgirl love that I was bound to get over at some point. Kris is my SOULMATE, they’re different now. They broke free from the archetype they were cast as in life, and now they’re helping me break free, too. We’ll be breaking free together, tonight. And once we do, we’ll be united forever under the Angel’s grace.
Dad, know I still love you.
Dess, know that I’m coming to see you.
Susie, know that you’re not to blame for this.
Kris, thank you for everything.
And mother, if you’re reading this, there’s something I want to say to you in particular, something that I’m only strong enough to say now, thanks to Kris.
You deserve this.
-Noelle
Carol felt her heart stop as she read that last line of the suicide note. You deserve this. You deserve this. You deserve this. That was all that was playing in her head. It was true. She deserved this. For all the verbal abuse she heaped onto Noelle. For all the times she sought to micromanage her, to control her. It was all in the name of protecting her, but in the end, what did that get her? Two dead daughters, and a sick and dying-
Ring…
Ring…
Ring…
The phone was ringing again. And oddly enough, it was from Hometown Hospital. That was odd, were they having trouble with preparing Noelle’s dust? They shouldn’t be, that was a fairly simple procedure. She flipped open her phone and answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Carol Holiday?”
The voice on the other end was concerned, and that concerned Carol in turn. “Yes?”
“Your husband Rudy, he… he fell off a ladder earlier this evening, and he… he just passed on. I’m sorry for your, lo-”
Click.
Carol stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating for good. She set her phone on the couch, and she walked down the hall, up to her room, opened the door, stepped inside, and grabbed her katana from the wall. In a mechanical motion, she inspected it, looking it over, and unsheathed it.
In the end, what did she get?
Two dead daughters, and a dead husband.
She was all alone.
And she had no more tears to shed.
All she was, was empty inside.