Hometown - Chapter 2: Homecoming

Hometown – Chapter Two: Homecoming

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

	Mother sat in her chair as she knitted strands of skin together. She hummed a tune that sounded like she had a throat infection. Maybe she did. She looked worse for wear, being covered in blood and all.

	Kris cowered in his seat. Cold sweat poured down his head as tears formed on his eyes. When the world changed around him, Kris thought he had fallen asleep and entered a nightmare. He could remember the moment vividly. Like a spreading cancer, shadows rose out from the ground and spread across the room, corrupting all in its path. The delicious food laid out in front of him on the dining table had all blackened and rotted. Then the shadows covered the walls and ceiling, leaving behind a dark-red substance that seemed to breathe and pulse. By the time the shadows had passed, everything in the house looked like it had been dragged through a slaughterhouse.

	His mother had the worse change. Kris turned towards the… creature in the living room. His mother was smiling at him in one moment, and then in mere seconds later her hide peeled open like a banana, exposing her bloodied skin. Kris might have wondered how a monster could bleed had he not passed out from shock.

	Shivering, the teen did not want to think about those memories again. He already had to remember them a second time after he woke up, thinking it was all a bad dream before he saw the state of his house. And his mother. She had holes where her eyes, nose, and mouth should be, but there were no true features: no lips, no eyeballs, only sharp, white teeth that stood out from Mother’s crimson skin. She looked like she was pulled inside out. Kris didn’t want to look too hard, but Mother was naked, although there were no visible genitals. The rest of her body was featureless as well, barring a Deltarune etched onto her forehead.

	Kris stood up. Mother’s head immediately snapped towards him like a machine. Even without eyes, Mother stared at him with an intensity that could burn skin. Kris sat back down like a good boy.

	“Wh-What…” Kris closed his eyes and feared what the monster would to do him for speaking up. “What do you want with me?”

	Mother pointed at the dining table. “Eaaat. Dinnerrrr.” Her voice was garbled, and it sounded like multiple people were talking at once when she spoke.

	Kris looked down at the black mass on his plate. It twitched and writhed like it was alive. It probably was. He recoiled back in his chair when a pungent smell smacked him across the face. His food was more than rancid, it looked like it would kill him if he took a bite.

	“I’m not hungry. Can I go to my room?” the young man said, hoping to somehow reason with the monster.

	Kris heard Mother get off her chair. He motioned to stand up as well, but Mother had beaten him to the punch and grabbed the back of his neck with a grotesquely-large hand. “Eaaat. Dinnerrr,” she murmured, shoving the human’s head towards his plate.

	It felt like his neck was going to snap. The teen groaned in pain, but Mother only pressed down harder on his neck in response. He had to eat the “delicious” food she prepared for him if he wanted out.

	Defeated, he grabbed a fork and stabbed his rotten dinner, but it was like cutting through sludge. He reached for a spoon instead, but Mother slapped it out of his hand, pushing the adolescent’s face closer to the plate.

	For a moment, Kris was content in letting it happen. “Just bend my neck so far that I’ll stop feeling,” he dared in his mind.

	Mother seemed to sense this and let up on her torture, but she maintained an uncomfortable hold over his neck that made the human relent. Kris had no choice but to pick up the plate and tilt it into his mouth, letting the black bile run into his open gullet.

	The human retched when the sludge touched his lips. Its stench had attacked his nose so fearsomely that his lungs were burning, and the taste was so putrid that he was afraid of throwing up his entire stomach along with the food. Kris hurled all over his plate, the slop hitting the ceramic so hard that some of it even splattered back and struck Kris in the face.

	Mother screeched at him from behind. She released the hold on his neck and then picked the young man up by the scruff of his sweater. Kris let out a yelp as he was dragged off his chair, followed by a scream when Mother chucked him to the other side of the room by the staircase. Kris thought his skull had cracked open when he landed.

	“Ugghhh…” Kris groaned, curling up to protect his body. His hands grabbed his head, vision blurred. He could barely see Mother stomping towards him before getting picked up again. She tossed him even further up the stairs, this time his back landing on the corner of a step.

	Mother stretched out her massive arm and pointed at the top of the stairs with a long, thin finger. “Rooom. Gooo…”

	With a groan, Kris rolled over and stood up on his knees. “I’m going to die,” he thought, head still ringing.

	Even the steps were covered in the same dark-red substance downstairs. He crawled up the stairs, smearing his once-pristine clothes on the warm, flesh-like carpet beneath him. It felt like his fingers were digging into meat, but the texture was so coarse that it was like rubbing his palms against rusted machinery.

	The second-floor hallway greeted the human at the top. The same corruption from downstairs was also here, but Kris thanked the Angel anyway for getting here without further trouble from Mother. There was a bookshelf in the hall that Kris propped himself up against to help him stand back up. A sinking feeling spread through his stomach when he saw how withered and ruined the books were. He loved reading them, but reading was the last thing on his mind now.

	With a limp, Kris moved down the hallway. There were two bedrooms up here: one for his mother and one for him at the end of the corridor. A twitching, membranous mold covered his door and the area around it. Inversely, his mother’s room didn’t have a door inside its frame anymore. The wooden walls were pulled inward like someone had fired a cannon at it, leaving a gaping, six-foot-wide hole.

	Kris could hear whispers coming from inside his mother’s dark bedroom, and it felt like he was being watched when he walked by. It took all the determination in his body to suppress his curiosity. He wanted to take a peak inside the room, but he fought against this urge. Just mere meters inside the pitch-black room, Kris could tell that something was watching him.

	“Never turn around. It will kill me.” Kris repeated this like it was a mantra, though perhaps it was to him.

	Kris reached his own room, his mind a storm of thoughts and worries. He grabbed the small doorknob, making sure not to touch the strange flesh-like membranes on the door.

	The human paused and then shuddered. Something had touched the back of his neck, and he could sense someone standing behind him.

	Swinging the door open with full strength, Kris clenched his teeth and charged straight into his room without turning around. He slammed the door behind him shut without hesitation. Kris could feel his heart thumping over a hundred times a minute as he rested his back against the door.

	He prayed he only imagined it, but he swore he saw a face looking at him from outside his room before shutting the door closed.

	Moonlight poured into the bedroom through a window, which was barricaded with iron bars. Kris turned on the lights, for what little comfort that brought him, and he approached his window. The rods looked old, but Kris could tell they were quite secure when he gave them a good tug and they did not budge.

	Everything else in the room looked… ordinary. All of his brother’s things on his side of the room had remained the same, and the human’s side was barren like always.

	Even with the lights on, the human’s eyes darted across the room in a panic. Sweat dribbled down his forehead as Kris saw threats lurking in the shadows. He thought he saw a hand reaching out from under his bed, and from the corner of his vision he swore he saw a creature hiding behind a little red wagon in his corner of the room.

	Kris repeated his mantra again. “Never turn around. It will kill me.”

	Kris looked straight at the computer on his brother’s side of the room when he heard a thump. “What was that?” he said, his voice stuttering. He thought he saw something seconds ago, but now it was gone. It looked like half a body, from the waist up, was sliding through the wall.

	When he checked again, he saw nothing. Kris shook his head. Determining what was fake and what wasn’t was becoming a challenge now. He needed time to sleep things off. He was aching all over and needed time to heal, and a part of him was hoping he’d wake up and everything would return to normal.

	Kris looked to his bed beside him. Only one thing came to mind in a situation like this when he was scared out of his wits. The human lunged onto the mattress, and with a startlingly impressive speed, he pulled the covers over him like a cocoon.

	This was good. Everything was safe under his blanket and nothing could go wrong.

	Kris was no child, however. He knew the blanket offered him no real protection, but its warm comfort relaxed him. Maybe if he forced himself to sleep everything would be fixed by tomorrow. Officer Undyne could show up and kill that monster downstairs, and Susie and his mom would come out of hiding and everything would be okay.

	“Susie…” The human’s voice was filled with concern as he thought about his friend. He prayed that she’d hide inside the bathroom and wait for help to arrive instead of doing something stupid.

	Deep inside, a part of Kris was yelling at him to stand up and be a man. It was his time to be a knight in shining armor for Susie, but the teen was only being practical. Mother looked like she could snap his back on her knee, and he was in no fighting, let alone running, condition to help anyway.

	The young man groaned as he held onto his forehead. The adrenaline from earlier had worn off, so there was no longer a reprieve from all the pain Mother afflicted on him. He whimpered and pulled the sheets tighter to his body, for what little that did.

	He tossed and turned, getting into a comfortable position. It took some time before Kris was tugged into a deep and dreamless slumber, but eventually he fell unconscious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

	Susie followed the road as the fog closed in around her.

	At best, the young monster might have been able to see about teen feet ahead. At best. She used her phone’s flashlight to guide the way forward, but the small beam of light had no effect against the thick clouds. Susie crossed her fingers and hoped she wouldn’t fall into an open manhole.

	With nothing around her but fog, fog, and more fog, Susie took the time to assess what had happened today.

	“What the fuck was that thing? Was it even a monster? It looked like it was bleeding when I hit it with the axe, and I’m pretty certain monsters don’t bleed.”

	Susie shoved her hands into her pockets. Perhaps she was shivering for another reason, but it was getting cold and dark out.

	“I… I killed it. I really messed that fucker up... Damnit, I hope Kris doesn’t give me shit for that. I didn’t know what else to do! I’m not good with words like he is… I’m really nothing compared to him…”

	Tears were welling in her eyes as she pushed on ahead through the fog. She hated feeling sorry for herself whenever shit became too hard for her to take. She has never let someone see this side of her before, not even Kris. At least so she thinks.

	“What does he even see in me? I’ve been nothing but an ass to him all his life before our adventure in the Dark World. D-Does… Does he feel sorry for me? Does he think he can make me a better person? Make my suffering stop? T-Take care of me and l-love me?”

	Susie wiped her tears away with her sleeve, but the waterworks could not be stopped. She was at least pleased that nobody could see her crying like a bitch through all this weather.

	“I don’t deserve good things. Maybe that’s why mom left me.”

	“Mom,” Susie whispered, suddenly remembering the letter she received. She pulled open her coat and grabbed the note from an interior pocket. She read it one more time and shook her head, her claws punching holes in the note as she clenched her fist.

	“This is all bullshit. Fuck ALL of this! All of this is a sick joke!”

	Susie ripped the paper in two, letting it scatter in the wind. She seethed in place for a moment before walking on. She can be mad about her life all she wanted, but that wasn’t going to bring her to Kris.

	The teen followed the torn pieces of paper dancing in the air, almost like they were taunting her. She had half a mind to reach out and rip them up even more, but the fragments suddenly landed on something in the middle of the road.

	Susie raised an eyebrow and moved closer to the obstacle, which she could see was a police cruiser. It looked abandoned, with no officer in sight. In fact, it seemed like nobody had driven it in decades. Susie lacked the automobile expertise to pinpoint its model, but the vehicle looked way before her time.

	The cruiser was covered in so much mud and rust that it would have made identification impossible anyway. It looked like it was pulled out of a lake, and that might as well have been what happened. Though how it got in the middle of a street in Hometown was anyone's guess.

	The driver’s door was wide open, and Susie did not hesitate in taking advantage of this. She peered into the vehicle, and the interior condition was not much different on the inside as it was on the outside. Everything was water-damaged, its vintage seats were covered in a foul-smelling stain of unknown origin, and there were empty beer bottles all over the floor.

	Susie looked under the driver’s seat, and upon close inspection, found a small handheld radio and, much to her surprise, an old revolver. She grabbed both, holding the radio in one hand and the gun in the other.

	Before taking things further, Susie looked around and checked if anyone saw her nicking the equipment. Nobody was around, but Susie was somewhat disappointed that she didn’t see Undyne running up to her and telling her to drop the piece.

	Susie cracked open the revolver and counted six bullets. All of them had the words “.38 SPL” engraved on them, whatever that meant.

	“Man, I’m not going to lie, this is kind of cool.” Susie smirked as she felt the weight of the weapon in her hands.

	Susie thought about fulfilling a childhood fantasy of hers by twirling the revolver around on her finger, but she uncharacteristically decided against it. In fact, she had no idea where to keep the damn thing. She looked under the seat again, but she found nothing but more beer bottles, let alone a holster for the weapon.

	Sliding the gun under her belt for now, Susie focused her attention on the radio she picked up. She had… no idea how to use it. Susie pushed a few buttons and turned some knobs around, even speaking into it in hope that someone answered, but there was nothing but literal radio silence.

	Susie clipped the handheld radio on her belt beside her revolver, choosing to move on ahead. She was not that far from her destination, and she can play around with her new “toys” when she had a roof over her head.

“Kris is going to think I’m such a bad ass when he sees me with these!” the teen mused, feeling like an action hero with a radio and gun hanging off her. However, as her thoughts moved back to her friend, so did her worries.

“Fuck, I really hope the little guy is okay. Noelle seemed… unharmed, but she was acting strange… I mean, Kris must be here if Noelle’s also here, right? Maybe the entire town got sent into the dark world! Dude, that would be totally awesome!” the dragon beamed, but a sudden realization robbed her smile. “Well, it’d be cool without the Darkners here actually trying to kill me.”

	Kris might be in danger as well, and the thought of him getting hurt made Susie uneasy. She couldn’t stand the thought of not being around to protect Kris when he needed her the most, because that’s what friends do for each other. He was the only person in this shitty world that genuinely cared about her, and she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.

	Susie looked up and found herself standing in the middle of a familiar street corner. Hometown had no streetlights to speak of, but even in the moonlit, fog-covered darkness she knew where she was. There on her right, at the end of the road, was Kris’ house.

	There was a quiet “fuck yeah” muttered under Susie’s breath as she ran towards the home. It was almost like things were back to the old routine, when Susie would be giddy in anticipation of spending time with her friend after a bad day as school or after getting yelled at by her father.

	In fact, as the teen approached the house, everything seemed downright ordinary to her. In the driveway, there was a red van that Toriel sometimes drove Kris to school in. The flowers on the front lawn were blooming as beautifully as they did the day before. And the entire house itself, with its vibrant cream-coloured walls and the Deltarune emblem above the doorway, looked as homey as she remembered it. There were no lights on, but Susie figured that the Dreemurrs had gone to bed.

	Susie walked up to the front door and opened it in one quick motion, pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. Stepping inside, she looked around for the light switch, but was confused when she found it already flipped up.

	“The power must be out all over town…” Susie muttered under her breath. There was some trepidation that forced her hand beside her weapon, but she held back on drawing it.

	Susie pulled out her cellphone and used its flashlight to brighten up the room. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight before her. Everything was coated in dust, from the floor to the furniture to even the food on the dining room table. Susie thought this strange, as she knew Toriel as someone who always took pride in keeping her home clean, not to mention the oddity of inches of dust appearing out of nowhere in less than a day.

	Gripping the handle on her revolver, Susie took her weapon out and held it in front of her. “Just in case.” Toriel would freak the fuck out if she saw Susie with a firearm. In her house. When all the lights were off. But that was a risk Susie was willing to take. She was genre savvy enough to not get caught with her pants down.

	She made her way deeper into the house, examining the rooms. Aside from the dust, everything was where it should be. Even the mountain of snacks they had bought earlier today was in the middle of the living room, though without wiping off the dust it looked like one big pile of soot. It all looked sad to her. All these nice things. Laid out and abandoned. Doomed to be ruined when time took its toll.

	Something small and bright on the dinner table caught her eye when her flashlight shined on it. “Maybe it’s another key,” Susie thought as she entered the room over.

	Sure enough, the shining object were some keys attached to a chain. Susie picked up the keys and looked at them closer. Each of them was colour-coded: there was a red, green, and blue key. Susie had no idea what the green and blue keys were for, though she guessed one of them was for the house. She was sure that the larger red key was for the van outside, however. She remembered seeing it stuck in the ignition switch that one day when Toriel drove Kris and her home from school.

	“It’s almost like these things want to be found,” she quipped, stuffing the keys inside her jacket.

	As she stood by the dining table, Susie could see the bathroom and the staircase clearly from this part of the house. “I’m not going back in there again,” Susie said, looking at the bathroom. She turned her flashlight towards the staircase and saw that the second-floor hallway also had its lights turned off.

	“Damn, I hope Kris is alright…”

	She made her way up the steps, holding her revolver waist-high as she lit the way using her phone. Everything was calm so far, and while that meant no dangerous monsters about, it also suggested that Kris might not be home. Or worse. Susie was terrified of walking into his room and finding his dead corpse on the floor. She’d never forgive herself for taking so much time getting here.

	The second-floor hallway greeted Susie at the top of the steps, and as it was downstairs, everything up here was covered in a fine coating of dust. Susie raised an eyebrow when she saw that Toriel’s bedroom had no door, and with her back braced up against the wall opposite of the room, she moved down the hallway.

	Susie almost bit her tongue when her radio started emitting a terrible static sound that echoed in the hallway. She reached for the radio, but with a sudden twitch she pointed her gun at the doorless room when she heard a man sobbing.

	With her other hand that held the phone, Susie directed a beam of light towards the source of the sound. She regretted doing that. A tall, thin monster with horns on its head that were so dramatically curved that they’ve impaled his own eyes, lips that were loosely stitched together with a thread, and ghostly, pale skin that looked like it was patched together from multiple other bodies stood there in the bedroom. He had no eyes to see Susie with, but he turned his head towards her, as if aware of her presence.

	“G-Get back!” Susie shouted, pointing her weapon at it. “I g-got a gun! So stay back!”

	She couldn’t believe her eyes when the monster turned around and went deeper into the bedroom. She let out a sigh of relief when it moved out of range from the flashlight. She didn’t need to fight this one. Though the revelation that there were monsters inside the house made her worry even more about Kris.

	Susie stuffed her revolver back under her belt and ran over to her friend’s room. She didn’t even bother knocking on the door when she swung it open and charged straight in.

	Inside the room, Susie saw someone’s outline under the covers in the bed where Kris normally sleeps. She shined her phone over at that spot, the light revealing rich, crimson stains that covered his sheets.

	“Kris! No… NO!”

	Susie took a step and immediately she heard a splash. She looked down and saw a puddle of blood pooling around her shoe. Drip. Drip. Drip. Susie looked up, nearly catching a drop of blood straight to her eye, but instead it left a red streak on one side of her face.

	The walls, floor, and ceiling were completely covered in blood. Susie really hoped this blood didn’t belong to Kris, because he'd have bled out by now if it were his. "Kris..." She buried those thoughts deep down inside as she ran towards the bed.

	Susie grabbed the person under the covers, begging him to wake up, but her voice faltered when there was no response. “Kris! Kris! Wake up! Come on, don’t leave me!” Susie’s voice dripped with despair and terror. She pulled the covers off the young man and shook him harder.

	She got a good look at Kris. He looked… fine? Sure, his face looked like he ran into a wall, and the purplish bruises that travelled down his neck suggested he was injured all over, but there was no blood in sight.

	Susie groped his sheets, looking for the blood stains she swore she saw earlier but they were clean. At least as clean as a teenager’s sheets could be. Looking around the room, Susie saw that all the other blood splatters and puddles were gone, too. Maybe she had just imagined it all.

	“S-Susie?”

	Susie pounced on the human, gripping his shoulders and staring at his face with a big, dumb smile. “Kris! You’re okay!”

	Kris looked at Susie and, for a moment, he thought he was dreaming. He smiled and followed up with a short chuckle when he noticed how teary-eye Susie was getting. “I missed you, too,” he said with an earnest warmth that melted Susie’s heart.

	“Fuck…” Susie looked at the human’s battered face. “What happened to you?”

	Kris held his head in the palm of his hand for a moment before answering. “I… I don’t remember, I-I… Mother…”

	“Toriel? What about her” Susie asked, holding onto Kris tight, like she was afraid to let go. “Where is she?”

	“No… Not my mom. I… I call it Mother, I…” Kris pushed Susie back and jumped out of his bed, almost falling flat on his face when his foot got caught on his own blanket. “S-Susie how did you get up here!? We need to leave. NOW.”

	“Woah, slow down, Kris. What are you going on about? I saw nobody else in the house, well maybe besides that weird thing in your mom’s bedroom.”

	“What?”

	Susie shook her head. They both had a lot of explaining to do. “We can talk about that later. You’re right, Kris. We need to get moving. It’s not safe here anymore.”

	Kris nodded. He was confused and terrified, and everything was moving so quickly that he had a hard time thinking, but Susie was here now, and that meant it was going to get better. "Right, let's-- ugghh..." Kris took one step towards the door and wobbled, falling onto one knee with a groan.

	“You don’t look too okay, buddy.” Susie walked up to Kris and gave him a shoulder to lean against as he struggled to maintain his balance.

	“J-Just hurting a bit all over, but I'm fine. Don’t worry about me.”

	“Hell with that, get on my back, Kris!”

	“…No,” he replied sheepishly.

	Without hesitation, Susie picked the injured human up and carried him on her back. Kris was shocked at her instant disobedience, but he wrapped his legs around Susie’s waist and grabbed onto her shoulders without a comment. There was no use fighting her.

	“You’re always too shy to ask for what you want,” Susie teased.

	Kris did not respond, and he buried his face behind Susie’s neck. “I’m really scared,” he said.

	“…Me, too.”

	Kris looked down at Susie’s body and noted something hanging off her hip. “Why do you have a gun, Susie?”

	While he could not see her face, Kris knew that Susie was giving him the stink eye for asking such a dumb question. “What I meant to say was,” he tried again, “where did you find that gun?”

	“Found it in some police car.”

	“Huh…” Kris shrugged. “It looks cool on you.”

	“You bet your ass it does.”

	With the human on her back, Susie made her way out of the bedroom and down the stairs again. She did not see the creature in Toriel’s bedroom on her way past the hallway, and she was happy about that, but she knew they were not out of the woods yet.

	Kris murmured something unintelligible. “What was that?” Susie asked him.

	“The place looks different,” he repeated more clearly.

	“Yeah. Your house seems completely abandoned. It’s not the only building in the town that looks like this, too. It’s really freaky.”

	“I mean… It looked different to how I saw it earlier... Never mind.”

	The teenage duo reached the front door in moments. Even with Kris on her back, Susie managed to move at a decent speed. “Where are we heading anyway, Susie?” She grabbed the doorknob and paused.

	“Gonna’ steal your mom’s van.”

	“Huh…”

	Susie opened the door and stepped outside. Kris relished the cold, frigid air hitting his face. Freedom, he thought, even through shivers. “Then what do we do next, Susie?”

	“I’m… I’m not too sure… I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Kris could hear grass being crunched under Susie’s shoes as she carried him over to the van. “We’ll have wheels at least. Maybe we can find someplace to camp and sleep. You must be as exhausted as I am.”

	Susie lowered Kris to the ground when she reached the vehicle. “Can you walk over to the passenger side on your own, Kris?” With a thumbs up from the human, he hobbled his way to the other side of the van.

	Susie whispered a prayer before sliding the red key inside the driver-side door’s lock. CLICK. “Alright!” she exclaimed, pulling the door open and sliding inside. There was a rush of excitement when she hopped into the vehicle. The leather on the chair was firm and comfortable, and when she grabbed the steering wheel with both hands it felt like she was a pro racer.

	Soft pitter-pattering on the passenger-side window caught the dragon girl’s attention. “Oh… Sorry, Kris.” She leaned over and fiddled with the console on her side of the vehicle, pushing a button that allowed Kris to open the door and come in.

	“Thanks.” Kris sat down beside Susie and buckled himself in. He smiled when he looked over at Susie, who was holding onto the steering wheel like a kid pretending to drive. “Do you know how to drive, Susie?”

	“I’m going to uh… learn on the go.”

	Kris smirked. “Just make sure to buckle up then.”

	“Gotcha.” Susie reached over and pulled her seat-belt across her chest.

	There was a moment of silence between the two when Susie pushed the key into the ignition lock, which was followed by a shared sigh of relief when the engine rumbled. “For a second there, Kris, I thought it wouldn’t work.”

	Susie grabbed the stick and took the van out of park. “Easy now…” She carefully applied pressure to the peddle, only giving the engine enough gas to push the car down the driveway a little way.

	“Man, this is way easy.” Susie gripped the wheel at 10 and 2, slowly guiding the van down the driveway and towards the main road. She imagined what it’d be like to have a car in the Light World, and all the places she could drive Kris to when their parents were getting on their backs too much. “This is really fun, Kris. You should give this a try later. If your feet can reach the peddles, I mean.”

	“What’s with that noise, Susie? Sounds like… static from a TV or something.”

	There was a crackling noise coming from her handheld radio that she could somewhat hear over the sound of the engine. “Huh, it was doing that before…” She grabbed the radio off her side and tossed it to Kris. “See if you can figure this thing out.”

	Before Kris could respond, a small radio was tossed onto his lap. “You found this in the police car, too, huh?” Susie nodded, letting the slope of the driveway take the vehicle down on its own. She couldn’t wait to really give the van some gas, but she figured she should hold off until they were on the main road.

	Kris shook the radio. He brought it up to his ear. He fiddled with the buttons and switches. Nothing seemed to work. “I think this hunk of junk is broken or something. Though it sure is getting louder th-- Susie! SUSIE! Get out of here!”

	“Wha--” Looking at the rear-view mirror, Susie could see a massive, horned, ape-like creature standing by the house. It stood on its fists and feet like a caveman. Susie tightened the grip on her steering wheel as it began to move towards the van.

	“My… child…” Its voice was distorted, like someone talking from inside a hollow, iron tube. With each step it took, Susie could hear a loud, meaty THUMP that shook the vehicle.

	“Susie, GO!”

	She didn’t need to be told twice. She slammed her foot right down on the peddle and the car surged forward, pulling both teens right up against their seats. “What the fuck is that thing, Kris!?” With his back towards Susie and his head looking out his window, he only screamed in response.

	Susie screamed with him when she saw the creature sprinting at them in the rear-view mirror. “Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!” Tires skidded against the asphalt as Susie took the car into a sharp left turn. Kris was sent flying back into his seat from all the g’s, and even Susie had to hold onto the steering wheel tight so she wouldn’t be flung up against her door.

	Both teens could smell the odour of burning rubber as the little red van struggled with all its might to lose Mother, but the monster gave them a good chase. Though Mother was so large and heavy that it seemed like it was having a hard time turning corners just as much as the van did, since she almost crashed right into a diner when Susie took another sharp right turn down the road.

	“Where do I go, Kris!?

	“Just keep driving!”

	"Fuck! Shit! This stupid fog!"

	Susie stamped down even harder on the peddle now that the van was on a longer, open road. The distance between them and Mother was increasing, and the beast was slowly disappearing in the fog, but there was only so much road in Hometown that Susie could drive on. Eventually the road would run out, or worse, the van would crash into something.

	“Hold on tight, Kris!” Susie pulled the steering wheel sharply to the right again. Tires screeched against the road as the van turned another corner, passing right by the hospital. There was a moment when the vehicle was driving only on two of its right wheels, and if it weren’t for Kris’ seat-belt he would have fallen right on top of Susie.

	With a loud SLAM the van fell back on all fours, and Susie flooded more gas into the engine. Mother was out of sight now, but she wasn’t taking any chances. “Grab onto something again, Kris!” The young human was gripping his chair in terror, both from being chased by Mother and Susie’s extreme driving.

	The van barrelled down the road towards a police barricade that was up ahead. Susie was frustrated that the highway access was closed even in the Dark World, but yellow tape and a small wooden barricade with the words “POLICE” on them stood no chance against Susie and her van.

	KRAACK! The boards exploded into splinters as Susie rammed right through the barricade, scattering pieces of wood and tape all over the street.

	“Hahaha!” Susie laughed. Every vein in her body was pumping adrenaline into her head, letting her ride a natural high. Kris was ecstatic about their apparent victory as well, but he was more reserved.

	“M-Maybe we should slow down now?” Kris tapped Susie’s knee to gain her attention. She either didn’t hear him or ignored him completely. Her eyes were glued straight ahead, and she pressed and released on the gas peddle to enjoy how the van would rock back and forth at her whim.

	“One more turn and we can lose that thing for good, Kris!” The human teen once again felt his body being pulled back into his seat as the van reached a velocity that more than broke the speed limit of this little rural road.

	Up ahead was a rounded segment of the road that compensated for the hilly landscape of the area. Susie never went out of town often, but she remembered a serpentine-like pattern to the road ahead. She could do it, she told herself. She just needed to ease on the gas and turn at the right moment, and she could pull it off like that one racing anime she watched with Kris weeks ago.

	“W-We’re going too fast, Susie!”

	“NO! I got this, just watch me!”

	Susie ripped her steering wheel one direction, and the car skidded across the road. It was almost picture-perfect, she was rounding the corner like a pro. Just when it looked like the van was going to stabilize out of its power slide, the sound of dirt being kicked up by the tires and the combined screams of Kris and Susie was followed by the car flipping over onto its side and rolling down the side of a hill.

	It was all a blur for the duo. Susie really fucked up. She reached out to grab Kris but another sudden bump when the van smashed against the ground shook her hard. Susie’s head collided straight into her window, knocking her out. Kris meanwhile had his hands over his head, screaming the entire time as the world spun around him.

	Eventually the tumbling ceased. Kris looked down at his own body, checking himself for injuries. He was seeing double, and his head hurt like hell, but he could not tell if that was from the crash or from earlier.

	Kris then brought his attention to his monster friend. “Susie! Are you okay?” he shouted, unbuckling his seat-belt so he can move closer to her. There was blood running down her forehead that got all over his hands when he reached out and examined her wounds.

	Without a second thought, Kris drilled himself on all the first-aid knowledge he remembered from that one class he had with mom. He also knew that she kept a medical kit in the car because she told him about it one time when they went camping a few summers ago and—Goddamnit, he wished he hadn’t forgotten where she kept it.

	“Just hold in there, Susie. You’re going to be--” Kris stopped speaking the moment Susie’s radio started emitting more static noise. Just like before. Kris had a bad feeling that he knew what those noises meant, and if he weren't so injured himself he would pick Susie up and drag her somewhere, anywhere but here.

	THUMP. THUMP.

	Heavy footsteps from outside caught the human’s attention. The footsteps were getting closer, approaching the vehicle, followed by the sound of heavy, labored breathing. “My… child…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~