The Moon, chapter 8: Coward

A striking lack of plans was the only reason Susie had a slight reluctance to head to town. She could head to the diner and visit with Hazel, since she hasn't seen her in a while, and felt sorta bad about leaving her yesterday. Surely she understood, right? She had thought she made it abundantly clear she had something important to attend to, but maybe she got mixed signals? Only one way to find out, she thought, speed walking down the path she'd walked innumerable times already. Her crunchy footsteps and the soft sound of tree branches waving in the wind were the only sounds that accompanied her on this journey. And after last night, there was no shortage of snow.

In fact, now that she payed more attention to her surroundings, she found a lot of the trees had a small layer of ice forming on the sides, corresponding with the direction the wind was blowing last night. About what she was expecting from a storm that rough. This also meant she'd been walking through pretty thick snow, and she didn't really notice till now. Her feet and general size was taller than average though, so it took less for her to notice. Which meant it must be pretty bad for some of the smaller monsters.

As she exited the treeline and onto the road, she caught a glimpse of a blue truck outfitted with a large snow plow driving down the road towards the school, a huge amount of snow gathered at the front of the truck. If she recalled correctly, that was truck was owned by Kris's dad. He ran a flower shop she'd never been inside before, and had no reason to start visiting either. For this reason, she knew way less about him than Toriel. At the very least, he seemed like a friendly guy.

Trudging through the snow to the barrier, and into town, she made her way past the police station and to the hospital. She had planned to visit Alphys, visit Kris, head to the diner to calm down a little, then head back. Though, seeing Kris' dad's truck made her think of something. She ran to where she last saw the truck heading, and caught up to it in record time. Though, record time isn't exactly impressive when your town has about six roads to it's name. The truck was about the loudest thing in town. Whenever it was on, you knew. Whether you wanted to or not. She ran up to the window of the truck's driver side and knocked with a bit of impatience. The window rolled open and a gruff looking, older goat monster with a bushy, blonde beard and sunglasses looked from the opening.

“Uhh, howdy? How can I help you, young lady?”
“Hey, you run the flower shop, right? Up by the northern end of town?”
“Mhmm, but I'm a little busy right now...”
“Great, I was wondering if you had any deals for free flowers. It's for a friend in the hospital, and I think she might appreciate them.”
“Erm... Gosh, I can't really turn someone away if they're getting flowers for a friend... Wait, you said they were in the hospital?
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, a friend of mine is in the hospital too. Well, not really a friend. In fact, we barely even know each other. But I heard she was in quite the accident, so I tried to bring her flowers. But then, this mean police officer wouldn't let me through! She wouldn't even pass the flowers onto her! I couldn't believe it. Passing down a perfectly good bouquet...”
Susie suspected they might be talking about the same “friend”.
“I know exactly who you're talking about. I got past her yesterday though, and I'm sure I could try again today, too. But I'm pretty much broke right now, and... I hate this, but I would really like it if you could lend me a hand.”

The large man in the truck thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Alright, I suppose I could part with a bouquet. But just this one time! I don't want you young ones to get in the habit of expecting everything in life to be free!”
“Hah, trust me, neither do I.”
He reached around to his backseat, yelling something back to her.
“Any particular color you got in mind?”
“Yellow, please.”
“The name's Asgore, by the way!”
“Thanks, Asgore. You're a good guy.”
“Aww shucks, I try.”
Returning from his daring escapade to the back seat, he extends a hand to Susie, and in it, he holds a large bouquet of yellow flowers of which she didn't know the na-
“One bouquet of daffodils, served up!”
Well that solves that. Susie took the daffodils from his large, fluffy hand, and held them tight. She smiled with genuine appreciation.
“Thanks again, I won't forget this.”
“No problem. Now, I gotta get back to work on these roads. Get a pair of sunglasses, will ya? Don't want you to get snow-blind!”

He smiles, rolling his window back up and continuing his task of clearing away snow. She wondered if snow blindness was that serious, or if it was just a dad joke that didn't land quite well. Whatever the case, the time had come to visit Alphys once again. She knew it wasn't going to be the most positive of experiences. It could, in fact, be far worse depending on how her condition has held up. But she knew she needed to see her anyway. It was only right that she would.

It was a brisk walk down to the hospital that took no time at all, the front doors swinging open once more as Susie noticed the lack of any signs of Undyne. Could she be hiding again? The receptionist was still there at least, so she walked up to her.
“Hey. Undyne still here?”
“Nah. She's detained at the station right now.”
“You're joking.”
“Nope. Surprisingly enough, as illegal as it is to defy an officer, it's also preeetty illegal to force a minor to the ground when they show no signs of wanting to fight you, let alone swearing and yellin' at them. She's in some deep shit right now. They were supposed to send a different officer to guard here, but they haven't shown up yet.”
She wasn't sure how to feel about this.
“Well...am I still not allowed in?”
“Nah, You can go in. I just won't tell anyone.”
“What if you lose your job?”
“They wouldn't fire me over something like this. Just go on through.”
“...Thanks.”
“Just go already, geez.”
She took this as her cue to leave. Through the doors to the patient rooms again, she looked walked up to Alphys' room and took a deep breath. She knew she had pretty much nothing to fear, but she also knew this was going to be rough. She closed her eyes, daffodils clutched in one hand and a fist clenched in the other, she opened the door to her room slowly. She wasn't prepared for what she saw inside.

Most of the room was exactly how it was before. It was the area around the bed and curtains that unsettled her the most. She could only see the legs of the hospital bed from under the curtains, and from the bed was leaking black, incredibly fluid liquid. The area on the floor surrounding the bed was pitch black, slick with whatever black fluid was coming from the bed itself. Any transparency the curtains may have had before is gone now, as they were now completely dark. A garbage can on the far end of the room was filled to the brim with bandages, that same dark substance covering them.
But all of that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was the smell.

The entire room reeked of rot, mould and death. The air was so stuffy with the scent that it was difficult to breathe, and so thick that if her hands stopped shaking, she could cut it with a knife. It hurt to even be in the room, let alone sit close to the bed. But... Alphys was her friend. She couldn't let this get in the way. She would go through much more than this.

She slowly walked into the room. It got even worse as she heard soft sobbing coming from the bed. Then, a gasp.
“H-Hello?”
She had trouble bringing the words from her stomach out of her mouth.
“...Hey Alphys.”
“S-Susie! You c-came back!”
“Alphys... What happened to you?”
“I-... Wh-What do you mean?”
Alphys seemed to be slurring her words sometimes, mispronouncing them at others.
“Your bed? The dark stuff everywhere?”
“I-I have no idea what you're t-talking about... I can't see anything because of the bandages...can't feel anything either, or smell, even...j-just hearing...
...Susie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you so far away?”
She hadn't noticed she was still standing in the doorway. Alphys' voice began to crack.
“A-Are you afraid of me?”
“Alphys... Of course not...” She lied.
“Th-Then come closer, p-please...”
She reluctantly got closer. She both wanted to be nowhere and anywhere but here. She wanted to help so badly but she wanted to run away and block this entire room from her mind. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to be a coward.
“D-Don't lie to me, Susie... I-It's bad, isn't it...”
“I don't know. I can't see past the curtains.” she choked out, the smell so severe she was trying her best to hold down the bile rising up to her mouth.
“Th-Then tell me...”
Susie's eyes widened. She saw a small, frail, malnourished yellow hand reach out from behind the curtains. She felt her heart drop into her stomach. The curtains were pulled back slowly. It felt like all of the oxygen left her lungs. Out of the room itself. Nothing left to breathe. She looked down upon the bed, the curtain now pulled back all the way. Everything stopped.

“H-How b-bad is it?”

Everything from her nose and above was completely gone. And it wasn't as if it was cut off, it's as if it was being rotted away by a pure black liquid that caked the entire upper half of her face. This same substance leaked out of her mouth, the one she surely couldn't feel any part of, and that was surely the reason for her impaired speech. The substance leaked an incredible amount from her head, the pillow she was resting it on being completely pitch black. The rest of her body, though covered by a patient's gown, was frail, skinny and weak. She looked like she hadn't eaten in a week, yet it had only been since yesterday morning that the incident occurred.

Alphys attempted to lift the upper half of her body up, as if it was going to help her situation at all. She looked right in Susie's direction, her arms shaking and vibrating just from having to support her own weight.

“S-Susie...p-please talk to me...”
Her eyes watered at the sight of her. Of her deplorable condition. She began shaking as well, covering her mouth in an attempt to stop the vomit surely rising into her esophagus. She couldn't do it. It was too much. She had to leave. This was too real. This was too much. She dropped the flowers on the floor, and bolted out of the room, Alphys' screaming and crying and begging for her to come back as she slammed the door behind her only making her want to puke more. Out the front doors, into the street, over the barrier, down the road. She missed the path to her house. She didn't care. She needed to leave. To go as far away from there as possible. Get away, get away, get away.

She tripped and fell into the snow, falling on one of her knees and scraping it pretty badly, falling on all fours and watching the white, cold powder that filled her vision slowly get wasted away and replaced by the vomit that was forced from her mouth. She vomited non stop for about a minute or two straight before falling to the ground in tears, laying in a puddle of melted snow and her own sick. She felt ashamed, terrified, alone and afraid. She felt like she was going to puke her organs right out of her maw. It hurt so terribly to see her like that. And she ran away when she needed her most. Fucking coward.

And yet, she did nothing. She simply continued to cry as the sun beat down on her body, covered in gray bile and water, mind racing, heart pounding, lungs stinging.

The fresh air should've been relieving. But it was nothing but a reminder of her mistakes and cowardice.