Catcher

Susie had been idling at her desk for almost the entirety of the last homeroom class. Alphys sat silently at her desk as the classmates who had finished the work early chatted, and the classmates who hadn't scribbled on their worksheets. The light beaming in from the windows was almost blinding from the sun's reflection off the snow, to the point where even having the lights on in the classroom seemed excessive. Ten minutes until the end of school, and she couldn't wait. With the work already finished, she had nothing better to do than daydream and think of going home. A long day of grueling tests was behind her, and only one day after this stood between her and the weekend. With only a few minutes left, Susie began to look around her and noticed something strange. She wasn't sure why it took her so long to notice, but three of her classmates had gone missing. Monster Kid, Temmie and Snowy. She knew that they hung out together a few times, but all of them were very diligent about coming to school. It wasn't unusual for kids to become sick around this time of year, but they were all there yesterday, too, making their disappearance even more strange.

Probably coincidence, she thought.

Then, the school bells rang, and waves of excited kids went funneling through the door as Alphys raised her voice to remind them that the assignment was due tomorrow. Susie quickly packed her things and joined Kris on her way out.
“Finally.”, She sighed. “Man, what a long day. That math quiz hit you as hard as it hit me?”
Kris shrugged nonchalantly. “I got it done.”
“Yeah, same, but just barely.”
Knowing she hadn't much time until the hallways would be filled with noise, Susie spoke as quickly and clearly as possible.
“Hey, uh, you wanna hang out on Saturday?”
“I'll ask my mom, but I'm sure I can.”
“Cool. See you outside.”

Susie then walked to her locker, dropped her supplies off, and left with her backpack and brown coat. The sun beating down on the snow made her have to squint her eyes to be able to adjust without burning them. Though the sun was bright, it was one of the colder days the town had experienced, and according to the weather forecasts it was only going to get worse. Soon enough, Kris stepped out of the school, and they began to walk home together. The snow crunched in a deep pitch as they walked beside each other, the sidewalk just barely having enough room for them both together.

Susie broke the silence with a question that had been stirring at the bottom of her brain ever since she left the school.
“So, y'know why those kids didn't show up today?”
“Which?”
“Snowy, Monster Kid and Temmie?”
“Dunno. Knew there were less puns today.”
“Heh, yeah. Seriously though, did Alphys say anything?”
“Nope.”
“Huh. Weird.”
With that last awkward phrase hanging in the air, they arrived at the usual spot where they'd split up, right on the corner where QC's Diner sat. From there, Susie would go Eastment complexes, and Kris would go North to his house on the hill overlooking town.
“See you, Kris. Don't forget to ask your mom!”
“Won't. See you.”

Kris still spoke in a bit of a strange manner, even after all they'd been through. Any sort of speech was better than the resounding silence she'd gotten before, though. Susie sighed and headed off to the apartment buildings with haste, trying to spend as little time in the cold as possible. The crunch of her winter boots against the snow reverberated off of the buildings surrounding her as she kicked up snow that fell silently across the covered pavement. Soon enough, she was standing at the front door to the four storey brick building, fumbling in one of her backpack's side pockets until she found the key to the building.

A quick walk up the stairs later, and she stood at the room to her apartment that she shared with her mom. Susie knocked twice and let herself in, a scent of buttered and cooking potatoes reaching her senses.

“Hey, kid. How was school?” Susie's mom called from in the living room. From the front door she could only see the back of her head, covered in frizzed, dark purple hair, which was unmoving as she watched a human weather reporter on the television from the couch.
“Fine. Baked potatoes again?”
“Yeah, sorry. I'll pick up some more stuff tomorrow after I get paid.”
“Alright.”
Susie took her muddied boots off in the entryway and began to walk to her room.
“Hey, those potatoes will be done pretty soon so don't get too involved in anything, alright?”
“Yeah, I won't.”

Susie entered her room, and sighed at the state of disarray that it was in. Dirty clothes were strewn about the brown carpeted floor that she had been too exhausted or lazy to organize, and her closet to her right, was burst open with boxes of things from many months ago that she had yet to unpack. In the far right corner was her bed, the white fitted sheets loosened on one corner, exposing an old and slightly stained mattress, the origins of said stains being only known to the countless owners of it before her. The blankets and pillows sat in a similar unmade and crinkled manner on top. Next to the bed in the corner across was a small television hooked up to a game console that sat underneath the table it sat on. In the middle of both, on the far side of the room, was a pair of thick grey curtains that were currently closed, making the room far more dark than she thought it needed to be.

Susie flung her coat from her body and onto the bed, then opened her blinds. From here she had a nice view of the town, as overly bright at this time of year as it was. Despite the cold, she opened the window to let some fresh air into her room as well. She watched the remaining kids exit the school and return to their houses, watched as a few people exited and entered QC's Diner, and was just in time to see some sort of commotion start at the police station. At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. A yellow, scaled monster that lacked arms exited the police station in a fit of both screaming and sobbing. At first Susie thought this was Monster kid, but the monster's screams sounded female, and she looked to be a bit older. The monster looked back at the door and fell to her knees, looking to the floor and sobbing even louder. A monster in a lab coat that she didn't recognize stepped out and put a hand on her shoulder. Susie heard an intense, deep tone begin in her ears, fluctuating between quiet and loud. Susie paid no attention to this as she kept watching the woman in the snow bawl her eyes out, almost in a trance like state.

“Susie!”

She quickly got shaken out of her strange trance by her mother, to whom she quickly turned around to face. She was peeking in the doorway from behind the frame with a concerned look. Her snout was a bit longer than Susie's and she had a larger amount of teeth, but besides that she looked like an older doppelganger of Susie herself.
“Yeah?”
“I've been calling you for a minute, now. Dinner's ready. Come out, I made your plate for you.”
“O-Oh, uhm, thanks.”
Susie's mother shook her head and walked back to the living room.

Susie could still hear her crying.
She shut the window, and as she did an electric crackling rang through the air, making her body shutter a little. It was incredibly loud, being able to be clearly heard even though the window was closed. Susie walked into the living room and saw her mother looking out the window that spanned half of the wall facing south.
“That sounds like the police station's PA system. I haven't heard them use it since I was a kid.”
Shortly after, the voice of Undyne reverberated across the town. The dread of the entire situation all fell onto Susie at once.

“Good afternoon, Hometown residents. It is... With a heavy, and mournful heart that I regret to inform you that three... Three young children had been found deceased early this afternoon under mysterious, and perhaps even anomalous circumstances.”
She spoke in a slow and delicate manner, and her voice sounded far more brittle than she had ever heard her. Susie's mother gasped quietly and put a hand over her mouth. Susie could only stare blankly as she listened to the message.
“It is out of both respect and safety for our people that we've declared school be cancelled until we find the ones responsible for this act. I, along with the rest of us here at the station heavily advise you all to not leave your houses after or near dusk, especially if you are under the age of eighteen. It is also advised that you do not travel alone, if possible. The names of the deceased are-”

But Susie knew already.

Dinner was an incredibly awkward and stagnant event. Both her and her mother were incredibly shaken up about this, but they both lacked the ability to close the emotional gap between them. So instead, they simply ate their meal and watched the television, both barely paying attention to what was happening in front of them and using it as an excuse to think more about what happened. The conclusion to these thoughts were the same.

Who could do such a thing? And why?

Susie was about to put a forkful of potato into her mouth before her eyes caught onto something strange on TV. Her brow furrowed and her movements ceased when she noticed the news reporter on TV. It was an older looking human with short brown hair who sat in a plain, grey desk. He was sitting motionless, staring blankly into the camera until his eyes began to water. Tears dropped from his eyes and down his cheeks as he murmured incomprehensibly through sobs and crying. His crying escelated as he collapsed upon his desk, his arms folded over his head as he wailed into them, only barely masking the guttural noises he produced. All sound faded away besides the ones made by him. A photograph slowly appeared next to the inconsolable man. A photo taken with some sort of camera with the flash enabled, said flash illuminating the trunks of a few a few trees and the snow below them. A scant trail of blood led to the darkness beyond the camera's flash, where a glistening set of razor sharp teeth greeted her. The reporter cried out one last time before Susie blinked and shook her head.

“Are you cold?” her mother asked.
“Huh?” She replied sluggishly as the rest of the world's sounds returned to her.
“You're shivering, are you cold?”
“Oh, uh... Yeah, I'll go turn the heat up.”
Of course, she wasn't cold, but how else could she explain what she just saw? Her mother was acting completely normal, so she had assumed she hadn't seen the same thing she just did. What did the picture mean? What did any of it mean?

“Susie?”
“Yeah, mom?”
“I know it's sort of a bad time, but... Do you want to walk down to the diner and have some hot chocolate later?”
“I thought we couldn't afford anything until tomorrow.”
“I have some money stored away.”
Her mom got up from the couch and walked over to her, standing by the thermostat. The fact that she was reaching out to her at all was sudden, but not too surprising considering what happened.
“Sorry if this is sudden, but after what happened I sorta... feel bad about being distant and stuff. I know it's really weird and if you don't then-”
“No, mom, I do. Thanks.”
“Six okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks mom.”
“I love you, Susie.”
“I love you too.”

Six o'clock came and went, and by the time six thirty came Susie and her mother were walking into the Diner. She had never seen it so packed with people before, especially an hour before it closed. Almost every seat was taken besides a couple, filled with people chatting away about, presumably, the announcement today. The purple rabbit who was the main bartender there was scrambling to keep up with the level of activity. There was even... Her. The yellow monster she saw outside the police station. She sat almost frozen still in her booth alone, staring into nothingness as she breathed slowly. There was no good reason a woman in that state should be in the middle of all these people talking about what happened to her son. So... Why was she there?

Luckily one of the the seats that was open was right next to Toriel and Kris, so at the very least there were some familiar faces around. Toriel waved over the two and the sat down next to them, with both groups unsure of how to speak to one another. The hectic chatter of the room coupled with the radio blanketed the atmosphere of the building in an indecipherable haze of sound. All of these sounds just blended into one another for Susie after a certain point, and even when Toriel and her mom began speaking she began to disassociate from the rest of the world. The only notable event that caught her eye was Monster Kid's mom leaving the diner. Then, she noticed something.

She noticed him.

An elderly deer monster with dark brown fur that sat at the table across from her. Wearing a red plaid button up shirt, brown work boots, and blue jeans, he would seem just as normal as any other monster if not for two strange features that were off. First, his eyes were an odd shade of yellowish white, as if he was blind in both eyes. The second, and perhaps strangest feature, was his antlers. Instead of growing out and to the side, they curled towards the front of his face like goat horns. On the table in front of him was a worn, dark brown box with a small metal crank on the side. He had been staring adamantly at it until she noticed him, at which point his gaze slowly turned towards Susie. Keeping the eye contact made her feel her stomach churn. With no warning, Kris held her hand tightly. When she shot him a confused look, it only took her a second or two to realize that he was breathing very heavily.

“I see him too.”

With that, they both looked back to the deer across the restaurant. Slowly and delicately, he raised a hand and grasped the box's crank. The second he began to turn it, two things happened at once that made Susie's blood run cold. All sound in the room had stopped, replaced only by the mechanical cracking noises made by the box. The most horrifying part of it all was that with every rotation of the crank, he began to smile, with his grin growing to unnatural levels as his teeth were exposed from his lips. She recognized these teeth, and knew the exact significance they had. The same low tone from before flooded her mind once again, only fluctuating at a much faster rate and harsher frequency, causing foam to gather in Susie's clenched and pained mouth. His smile only widened.

“Susie?”

Susie jumped in her seat as her knees hit the bottom of the table, causing a few empty plates to clatter loudly, startling everyone in the booth along with a few people in the booth next to them. Susie looked up to her mom, who had a look of incredible worry etched onto her face.
“S-Sorry mom, I'm just really-”
While trying to make up an excuse, she saw the deer exit the diner, and tracked him with her eyes as he walked south.
“-... Shaken up.”
“We all are, Susie. I'll go order some hot chocolate, and try calm down, alright?”
With that, she left to head to the front counter.

Would anyone even believe her if she tried to explain what just happened? Surely he was going to strike again if she didn't stop her, but there was no way her mom would believe her, and there was an even more slim chance that she'd be let out of her mom's sight. The only possible solution would be to sneak out during the night, but then she would be entirely alone against this murderer. She could get Kris to come with her, but the chances that Toriel would even consider letting him out of her sight for even a minute were slim to none. Even then, she'd only be putting Kris in danger too, and he can obviously handle teenagers in groups. Not to mention what strange effects could come from that box. The most she would be able to do is give a tip to the police, and even that doesn't guarantee that he would be found. Susie didn't recognize him from around town, so he probably lives either in the woods or perhaps travels from town to town.

It was too dangerous from most directions, and hopeless in every other.

Kris and Susie didn't talk again that evening, and just before dusk the diner had completely cleared out. Even the bartender had someone pick her up at the end of the night. The hysteria and paranoia were, understandably, at it's peak. By the time Susie got home both her and her mother were completely drained of energy, and both headed to bed before long. Susie closed her door shut, turned off her lights, and got under the covers. For the next hour or so, she would simply stare at the ceiling, her mind full of worry and doubt. Worry about the children who's lives were unfairly taken from them by a malevolent and terrifying force, and doubt that she saw this force at all. Doubt that everything she saw was real at all. She almost had a heart attack when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She didn't even realize that she had gone to bed fully clothed, but now she was somewhat glad she did. A message popped up on the small, but bright screen as she strained to adjust her eyes to it. It was from Kris.

“What was that?”
“no idea, im not even sure what i saw was real”
“The music box thing? The smile?”
“yeah”
“What are we going to do?”
“what can we do? everyone is going to be watching us, and i doubt they would believe us anyway”
“What if it happens again?”
“if we try to stop him, itll happen to us too”
No response for a while, until about thirty minutes after her last message.
“Susie?”
“yeah?”
“I'm scared.”
“don't be, as long as you stay with your mom and i stay around mine, we should be alright”
“Are you sure?”

Just as that message popped up on screen, Susie heard a noise she had hoped she would never have to again. From her bed, still facing upward, she could hear the faint sound of a crank being turned. Not just any crank, but none other than the crank from the wooden box that deer had. She wanted to do anything but look, to see those eyes once again. Yet, she knew she had to. It wouldn't be satisfied until she did. Slowly and shakily, Susie sat up in her bed, and only saw darkness in the corner of her room at first, but as her eyes adjusted to the black, slowly a figure began to form in the corner. A smiling, terrifying figure that shook Susie to her core. In a sudden action of self defense, she shined the light of her phone at the figure. The light reached it, and with the sound of a cracking bone, the creature vanished. Her phone then vibrated, and a new message from an unknown number appeared in the message list. Hesitantly, she opened it.

“I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET YOU AGAIN.”

With shaking hands and tear stained cheeks, she switched back to Kris' last message and finally responded.
“yeah. we'll be alright”

And on that night, she was sleepless.