The Moon, chapter 32: Acceptance

What short time Susie was graced with to relax was unceremoniously cut off by the realization she just had. Something fell from the cube, it could've been anything, it could've been nothing, but this chance was too high of a risk to leave unanswered. As much as she would've loved to stay as long as possible in the warm blanket of heated water, her curiosity was much stronger of a driving force than comfort. Susie sat up in the bathtub and grasped the small plastic water plug at the bottom of the tub, giving way with little effort as the distorted chortling sounds of water rushing through pipes reverberated through the room. Small splashes soon followed as Susie cautiously lifted herself out of the tub and onto the porcelain floor below, snatching a towel off of the sink and drying herself off quickly. Before she knew it, she had slipped into her old clothes and was heading out the door.

“Susie?” The crackling voice of Suze rung through the radio just as Susie was about to close the door. What a coincidence. Susie reluctantly switched the dial to “1”, picked up the radio, and clicked the button on the side.
“Yeah?”
“Why didn't you contact me sooner?”
“Uhmm, guess I forgot? Sorr-”
“You really should've sooner. You did with Napstablook, but not me.”
Okay, that was a bit... obsessive.
“All I did was get in the shower first, calm down.”
Something audibly snapped from Suze's end of the transmission, as if something had been forcibly broken in half. Then, no more words were spoken for about ten seconds. An uncomfortable silence filled the air before Susie eventually spoke up.
“Uhm... Suze?”
Her cheery as ever voice came piercing through the radio once again.
“Heh, I guess you're right, Susie. Sorry, it's just weird having more than one other person to talk to.”
“Right... well, do you think we could head down to the docks again? I didn't get to check the under the cube last time.”
“Why would you? There's nothing but open water under the cube, if anything had fallen from it, it would've drowned.”
“What if it can swim? Fly, even? There's really no harm in checking-”
Another loud, emphatic snapping sound came through the radio, but with almost no silence following it.
“N-No, there's lots of harm, actually. What if you pass out again? What if that thing kills us all? You don't know what it could be, you just don't, so stay here, please. The docks aren't even ready, the boat is still broken, so don't even think of it.”
“All I want to do is check-”
Something clicked in Susie's mind.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Why is the boat broken? I thought you guys came right back after I passed out?”
A long silence followed.
“I-It broke just as we landed, guess that old thing was on it's last legs, h-heh...”
“How did it break?”
“I-I dunno it just kinda split in half or something, it's broken, okay? I-I don't want to talk about this anymore. Just stay where you are, I'm on the roof can see another storm coming on, and I doubt you wanna be stuck in the hallways in a lock down.”

And like that, the radio cut out. Like hell she was staying in here, she was getting to the bottom of this, and no amount of halfhearted lies from Suze would change her mind. Speed walking out of the Suite with the small radio clipped to her coat, she walked into the hallways and to the elevator doors. Susie thought of the deformed version of Suze she'd seen on that island. She wondered if that was her true form, if the skin she wore was merely a disguise. But why reveal itself to her now? Why had Napstablook acted as if nothing was wrong? Did he not know? If he didn't, that meant she kept up this twisted facade for, if her word was to be believed, years. Either that, or Susie really was going off the deep end. She didn't let the thought phase her though. She just needed to make sure.

Susie stepped into the elevator doors and immediately hit the bottom most button. The steel, semi-reflective doors closed tight, and the elevator began to ascend. Ascend, and not descend. Susie instantly felt her stomach drop as the elevator kept rising. To the roof. To her. She felt her body tense up, and she readied every atom in her body for the worst. Susie had a feeling no matter what floor button she pressed, there was only one way to go. Something terrible was going to happen, and she was going to be at the very forefront of it. She only hoped that she could survive whatever event occurred next. She isn't sure if she would forgive herself if she died without seeing Hazel, Kris, or Toriel again. Without letting them know of the truth.

The elevator's doors screeched opened forcibly, and Susie was greeted to the sight of Suze looking off toward the cube's direction. Her hair, unraveled from the constraints of her ponytail, now gently swayed in the wind just above shoulder level. A storm of dark violet thunderclouds brewed behind the cube itself that stretched infinitely to the left and right, and Susie cautiously walked out onto the rusted, brown roof. The elevator doors slammed shut behind her. Suze was doing this. She had to be. She felt it in the air, something electrical that didn't originate from the storm that was slowly making it's way towards them.

The air smelt like burning blood.

“You didn't believe me. I knew you wouldn't, but... it hurts, you know? Even when you see it coming, it still hurts.” Suze slurred in a deadpan drawl. Her voice was a lot deeper than usual.
Susie said nothing as the doppelganger in front of her kept facing away.
“I knew as soon as we got to that island that I made a terrible error. It ended up hurting Napstablook, and you, too. It was too dangerous out there. The mistakes crave blood unlike theirs, and only out of sheer desperation will they feast upon one another. But the temptations never stop.”
Susie heard her voice tremble a little.
“Knowing this, you should be able to infer that it's been incredibly hard for me to resist the urge to kill you. To feel alive again. To feel anything but dread and emptiness.”
And with the crack of her voice on the line “emptiness”, the facade finally broke, and Suze's voice returned to the fragile, stuttering and young teenager her body matched.

“Th-This is why it hurts, Susie. The moment you showed up, the moment my eyes met yours, I knew you weren't sent here like me. You just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and here you are. Same with Bl-... N-Napstablook. But he's just a bunch of metal with a rotting soul inside, you... you're flesh, and blood, and life. And I-I wanted that life for myself. I wanted the life whatever made me robbed from me. I stared at you, wishing nothing more but to be in your place. You were just a better version of me. And I hated that.”
A familiar snapping noise resounded through the air as Suze jerked her head suddenly, still facing away from Susie. She was audibly speaking through tears now, and her body began to contort into a shape not unlike what Alphys had turned into. Stretched limbs, tall body, taut skin, claws.

“I could've been like you! You may not have had a real life but at least you had the illusion of one! You had the chance! I didn't get that! I'm just a little girl, and I never got anything! I never had friends or a family or a school, nothing! You know what I had?! I had a sea of death and misery that I've been stuck in for years! Stuck in a never aging, weak, fragile body!”

Susie opened her mouth to speak, and for the first few moments, no words came to her. However, after multiple tries, she gave up as the air escaped her body. Suze's shaking frame produced white, tattered wings from her spine that spanned across the entire length of the roof, somehow not damaging her clothes in the process. Suze turned around and faced Susie, glaring at her with eyes of pure and radiant white. Tears of this same luminosity cascaded down her cheeks and dripped off of her sharp toothed mouth.
“This is what I am, Susie. A mistake. And maybe that's what makes the most sense about all of this. Maybe, this is where I belong after all.”
Susie stood absolutely speechless at her true form. She had nothing to say. Nothing she could say could console Suze as she fell to her twisted hands and knees, sobbing and repeating the last sentence she spoke. Throughout all the pain and the suffering she saw before her, there was only one thing Susie could mutter out.
“I'm so, so sorry Suze.”

Then, something clicked. Something went off inside Suze's brain that completely halted her sobbing, and started a whole new series of fleshy, disturbing cracks and snaps as her body began to deform even more. When she looked back up to meet Susie's gaze, both of them froze. Suze's face had morphed into a grotesque perversion of her normal face, the left half of it being an unchanged, but frightened version of her regular face with nothing more than a white, glowing eye being changed. The right half, however, was the real nightmare. Her regular, rather small maw slowly morphed into a massive, tooth filled grin that stretched all the way back to her temples, each tooth being similar in length to her fingers. This alternate face's eye was a deep, dark red, frenzied with hatred and resentment. This incredibly abhorrent disfigurement would pale in comparison to what came after, however, as the frightened, leftmost face began to speak, almost individually, in a frightened, wailing voice.

“M-Mommy? Where are you? There's a-an... another one of me, mommy! Why are there two of me?! Why is there another one?! Mommy, please, there's another one, get rid of it, please!”
Suze's haunting shrieks for her none existent caregiver rang through the air as she slowly crawled on her hands and knees towards Susie. As her claws clamored on the rusted metal, her banshee-like lamenting got less tangible in sync with her movement getting faster and faster. Susie barely had time to dodge to the side as Suze closed the gap between where she once was and the elevator doors in a little under a second's time. Susie got to her feet just in time to witness Suze lose no speed whatsoever as she tore the entire top of the elevator shaft off of the roof, leaving a gaping, sparking hole in the roof where it once was. With a single flap of her tattered, broken wings, she managed to take flight, throwing the elevator's top far into the sea.

Susie struggled to get to her feet as the radio clipped to her coat crackled to life. The incredibly nervous voice of Napstablook rang through.
“S-Susie?! Suze?! Anyone?! W-What was that?”
This only seemed to anger what used to be Suze further, letting her wings stretch to her full span and diving claws first into where Susie was. In another near-catastrophe, Susie dodged to her side just in time to send Suze careening through the rusted barrier, breaking it with ease and sending sharpened pieces of rusted pipe flying. Susie quickly took this opportunity to arm herself, grabbing onto a bent piece of the barrier and tearing it off with ease. She didn't want to do this, she wanted to calm her down into a more serene state and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But she knew she was too far gone for that. One sentence from Susie was enough to put her in this state, who knows what damage she could do with another.

Another pained, sorrowful wail echoed through the air as Suze flew up into the air, preparing to dive bomb into the portion of the roof Susie was located on. Susie predicted this move far in advance however, and ran from the spot, leaving Suze to put a dent in the roof where Susie once was. Susie slowly backed away from Suze with her makeshift weapon in front of her, but she caught up to her with incredible speed, swiping wildly with both claws in ferocious and swift attacks. One of these attacks managed to put three sizable gashes through Susie's chest. Enough to draw blood, but enough for the adrenaline to drown out. Susie knew getting to the back or sides of her would be impossible, so she decided to take an incredibly risky chance. Susie dove headfirst onto Suze's face, using the pipe as a sort of short spear and taking another three slashes to the left side of her midsection in the process. The small, rusted metal failed to hit the forehead, however, where it did end up hitting was debatably even more painful.

In all of Suze's screaming, the pipe managed to pierce itself straight through the bottom jaw of her mouth, straight through her tongue and out through the bottom of her neck. Suze screeched again, pushing Susie off of her with the back of her hands, sending her into the railing and nearly breaking it. The rusted steel squealed as it bent to match Susie's form. Had she hit her just a little harder, she would've been sent over the edge and into the sea. Suze was on her back, now, desperately flailing and attempting to dislodge the spear that was currently blocking her mouth from closing. Her wings flailed weakly, as if she thought it would help her situation. Susie took this chance of momentary vulnerability to get up and begin breaking the barrier into another spear. This one gave her slightly more resistance, but it wasn't long before it loudly snapped, and she had another, slightly longer weapon to defend herself with.

Suze continuied to cry out in pain, failing to grab at the spear in her jaw. She must have decided to simply move on despite the pain, because she got back on all fours and flew into the air once more. Predicting another dive bomb, Susie began running from her current position. However, Suze changed her flight trajectory last second, barely missing hitting the floor and instead gliding straight towards Susie. Her adrenaline could only go so far, so the reflexes to dodge this sudden change of plans simply weren't present. The best she could do was hold her pipe weapon in front of her horizontally, with both hands. Susie got tackled and pushed against the tough metal ground, and hearing the spark of disconnected wires behind her, she knew she was close to the hole Suze had ripped in the ceiling. She had little time to think, placing all the effort she could into her arms to keep Suze's face away from hers. Suze's agape jaw drooled a mixture of saliva and inky black blood onto her face. Certain death was mere inches from her face, and the tricks up her sleeve were all out. Susie was about to lose all hope until a familiar crackling noise met her ears.

“Hello?! The storm's coming soon a-and the elevator isn't working, where are you guys?!”

For a split second, she saw Suze's eyes turn... normal. A normal, soft shade of yellow both Suze and Susie shared. And though it hurt her so very much to do so, she had to make this split second of a pure mind count. Using the remaining strength in her legs, she kicked Suze's lower body upwards, sending her body up and over Susie's head. When Suze had let go of her grip on Susie, and when she heard a sudden increase in electrical sparking, she knew it was done. Susie got to her feet shakily, and looked at the shaking and charred Suze. Her scales had turned black in most places, both of her eyes now turning a dull, dim gray color that no longer had any radiance within them. Her mouth was left agape, her pierced tongue sticking out and her throat gurgling in pure suffering. Susie felt the adrenaline in her body begin to drain, and with these last moments she had with working limbs, she dropped the spear she was holding, and lightly dug a finger into one of her gashes, pulling it out and leaving it dripping with her blood.

With no words to speak, she held the dripping fingertip above the pitiful creature before her, letting a couple generous drips of blood drop into Suze's mouth. Susie saw the eyes in her skull light up, if only for a brief moment, before both the gurgling and the shaking ceased. She could've sworn she heard her laugh a little, too. Turning away from the body of her doppelganger, she looked at the storm gathering on the horizon. In all the calamity, Susie neglected to notice it's presence. The clouds had completely obscured the vision of the cube, all that was left being a giant purple-black mass of churning lightning, thunder, and darkness. Then, Susie looked skyward. She saw an old familiar face above her. It's transcendent, pale blue gaze. The moon had returned, and it was so big in the sky, she swore she could almost reach out and touch it. Instead, it reached out and touched her. Susie felt an invisible fist clench around her body, in a surprisingly non hostile, almost lovingly way. She continued to look skyward in a daze as the moon got closer and closer to her.

Her vision blackened instantly when she felt the hand tighten it's grip faster than she could register the pain.

She was left in the dark once again, with not a single dream nor nightmare to keep her company.