The Moon, chapter 4: Incident

There was darkness for a while. Then, her body shook awake to the sight of the soft, white light of day seeping in through the shutters of the closet door. She didn't have much faith she'd make it through the night anyway. Her ax was still firmly grasped in her hands, which didn't surprise her. Even in sleep, she was still on edge.
“Well, I'm alive at least. That's a good sign.”
Why did she say that out loud?
No one's listening.
Hopefully.
She doesn't remember much of her night in the closet, unsurprisingly. Standing still and staring at nothing isn't the most exciting act someone could take part in. Though, now that she was awake, and day had finally come, she felt an intense relief wash over her body. Or maybe that's just the sleep deprivation drifting away. In any case, she wanted out of this closet. She awoke sitting down, so she must've either fallen asleep like this, or her legs gave out while she was sleeping and she didn't even notice.

School. Right.

She wasn't sure what time it was, probably too late, but she had to go at some point. An unchewed piece of chalk rolled off of her belly and onto the floor as she stood up. Wasted chalk is no good, so she picked the stray piece off of the floor and tossed it into her mouth. Maybe today will be normal. Maybe today she won't have to kill anything. Stepping out of the closet, she looked outside and watched flakes of snow fall from the overcast sky, the sun's orange glow only barely penetrating the thick layers of cloud.

It would be a calming sight if not for the fact that without heat or power she'd freeze to death in this house. She wondered how that'll work out.

But in any case, she'd best head to town. Making sure every window in the house is closed, she steps out into the hallway, and heads down the stairs. She makes a quick stop at the fridge to grab a box of chalk, only to realize she forgot it in her coat upstairs, and that she was about to walk out the door without a coat. An acquisition of a coat with a pocketful of chalk later, and Susie is on her way to the front door when a step forward plunges her foot into the floor.

Looking down at the floor where she's standing, she sees a foot has sunken into the hole left by the ax from last night. Oddly enough, her foot didn't reach any sort of ground underneath. She lets her foot go further down, expecting to find some sort of foundation, and finding no such thing. The area underneath the floor is oddly hollow. Could there be an entire area underneath the house? If so, it's not accessed by anywhere she's seen. She doesn't recall seeing a set of stairs or even a hatch that hinted at there being a basement of any kind.

Seeing as how there were more pressing matters at hand, she decided to investigate this later, and stepped outside into what little cold snow had gathered outside. It made a satisfying crunch as she stepped, shutting the door behind her and beginning her all too familiar trek to school. She was trying incredibly hard to purge the memories of last night from her brain. For all she knows, it could've been an incredibly lucid dream. Maybe she was sleepwalking? Sleepdreamwalking? Whatever it was, there's no evidence of it even happening that couldnt've been caused by herself, so she decided it's best to forget it, however lucid it may have been.

All you have to do is pretend you aren't totally going crazy. Couldn't be too hard.

The rays of light that fell through the trees were faint, but enough to give Susie a feeling of relative calm. She noticed she was taking this whole thing incredibly well, and she attributed that to having stranger things happen not even a day before. When you go into a magical infinite closet that houses an entire kingdom of light and dark, the rest of the day may seem just a little tame. By all means, she was incredibly lucky it wasn't actually Hazel inhabiting that body. If her assumption had been wrong, she may have just killed one of the only people that seems to understand her.
Maybe she should try a little more acting next time. Just in case.

A few more minutes and she's stepped onto the road leading to town. She looked up at the sun, which was already high in the sky, then looked down the road that leads out of town. A realization hit that, even though Susie had traveled this road countless times on the way to school, she had never thought to walk the other way. She was already late, so she had the time to explore it if she wanted. Then again, Kris was probably waiting at the school to go into the closet again. Maybe another time.

The barrier hopping would have to end with the fall of snow. It'd be preferable to not slip and crack her head open. She walked around. Hometown was surprisingly dead for this time of day. Sure, the first day of snow always brings troubles, but usually there would be a few snow men or something around. In fact, it seems most of the people are near the school. Some sort of chatter is coming from that direction, so towards it Susie walks. It's not hard to rile up the people in this town, so it couldn't be something too crazy, right?

Seems not. When Susie turned the corner onto the street the school was on, there was a small crowd gathered around a barrier of police tape and flashing red and blue lights. Sensing a little more urgency from this, Susie breaks into a sprint until she reaches the crowd. Among the concerned faces of mothers and fathers was Hazel. The real one. She walks up to her slowly.

“Hazel?”
She turns around and, upon recognizing Susie, a look of relief washes over her as she walks over and hugs her tightly. She's not sure how to respond for a bit, since she doesn't even remember the last time someone had shown her this much physical attention out of nowhere, but she slowly hugs her back.
“Hazel, what happened here?”
“Oh, it's awful Susie, there's been a terrible accident and no one knows what's going on! If they do know, they won't tell us...”
She seems super broken up about it, her voice cracking slightly. She was clearly filled with empathy for the situation at hand, so Susie hugs her a little tighter.
Looking past all of the miscellaneous commotion, Susie looks at the front of the school. The front doors had been blasted open somehow, and a thick looking black liquid was seeping out of the frame of the door. It looked like the insides were completely caked in the strange substance.

“Holy shit. Was anybody hurt?”
“N-None of the kids thankfully, but one of the teachers was taken to the hospital. It happened early in the morning and she was the only one in the building at the time...”
“Who was it?”
“I think it was a yellow lizard looking girl... I think her name was Alphys?”
“...”
“I hope you didn't know her too well.”
“You said she was taken to the hospital?”
“Y-Yeah, but don't get any ideas. A cop is guarding the room she's in and she's apparently not accepting any visitors right now.”
“We'll see about that. Take care of yourself, Hazel.”
Susie gives her a firm pat on the back, and quickly walks in the direction of the hospital.

She felt such a strong need to speak to her. To tell her she's sorry, or even just say anything to her. She felt responsible somehow, irrational as it may be. All those times of mistreating her and putting her through her angsty, rude bullshit all came back to her at once. She felt sick. So sick she wanted to puke. But there were more important things on her mind right now. She felt something rustling in her pocket and took out the box of chalk she'd stolen from her forever ago. It was so stupid, but this box made her feel incredibly angry. Like her own mistakes were staring her right in the face.
She looked towards the treeline at the southern edge of town and chucked the box into the trees, not giving it a single cursory glance as she turned and walked towards the hospital.