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Kris pockets the knife as they limp away from their mom’s van, leaning against the trees by the sidewalk for balance. That’s done. Good. Get that squared away. They have something to do now that’s infinitely more important.
They shamble forward, feet dragging against the ground with a coarse grind underneath their shoes. They do their best to keep their shallow breath steady as they walk; as much as they want to run to get to their destination as quickly as possible, it would only make them collapse not even a half of the way through. As painful as it is, a steady pace that feels like an eternity and makes them feel like time is slipping through their fingers is a better strategy here.
Their head is pounding. They feel like they spent too long hanging upside down from the edge of their bed, ache pulsing behind their eyes. That doesn’t matter. They need to keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
Kris passes by Catti’s house, doing their best to keep their eyes on the path ahead and to not let them stray to the gate to the right. They can’t fix everything all at once. They can’t think about anything else other than putting one foot in front of the other and not collapsing in the middle of the street as they cross it.
Angel, their legs feel like they’re made out of lead. They stop for just a moment by a tree, leaning against it, heaving. Their face is sweaty, they can feel it with the cool evening wind wisping against it. They don’t dare sit down on the curb of the sidewalk, no matter how tempting it seems; they don’t have a lot of faith in their ability to get back up again if they did.
They’re almost at the next intersection; it’s not far from there. They don’t think about the way back for their own sanity. Step by step, beat by beat. That’s the only way they can do this. It’s how they do anything these days, really. Just focusing on the next move. Future seems too distant. They don’t even know if it’s meant to be theirs.
Okay. Break over. There is no use agonizing over this right now. Kris grits their teeth and pushes themself away from the tree to have at least a bit more momentum.
It’s eerie; Hometown in the dark, after spending half a day in darkness too. Shadows surrounding them from all sides shiver and snake around similarly to ones in the Dark World. Their spinning and blurring vision doesn’t help. They barely started walking again and they’re already out of breath, lungs hurting, pressing against their ribs alongside the void next to them uncomfortably. They feel… cold. They shiver, though it’s an instinct completely divorced from that sensation.
Not much longer now; they can see QC’s to the side, with the neon sign already off but the lights still on for the duration of closing. It’s late. What… What are they even going to say? They didn’t have the time to think about that, thoughts too scrambled for strategizing about an explanation for showing up so late.
Their breath wheezes as they cross the street. They feel waves of hot and cold washing over them, as if they’re sick. They feel like they’re sick too; but they cannot succumb to it and throw up or something right now, they’d just collapse, too exhausted to keep going. They need to keep it together, no matter how sickening this whole thing is. And it is. They can’t even savor their brief moment of freedom in their haste to repair as much damage as they can. Noelle’s watch feels heavy on their wrist, like a shackle.
Kris coughs as they get to the last intersection, the sound hoarse. They can’t tell if it’s sickened shivers or exhausted tremors wracking their body. Doesn’t matter. Push through. Almost there. They’re almost there.
Kris turns left and almost slides down the door of the library when they manage to stumble to it, cheek pressed against the wood. They reach for the doorknob and turn it carefully, in case the librarian is downstairs and they need to act normal.
No. There’s no one here. They can only hear some shuffling from upstairs. Empty otherwise. Kris walks over to the door to the computer lab, hoping that maybe he won’t be here, that maybe someone already noticed or maybe he got better—
They push the door open and see Berdly still collapsed against the table. Something drops within Kris, breath picking up as they walk over to him as quickly as they can.
He looks like he’s moments away from falling down with how ashen he looks. He’s barely breathing. They reach over with a trembling hand; he’s as cold as ice.
The world seems off-kilter. They grab the edge of the table for balance and do their best to keep steady. Their throat burns, they blink repeatedly.
“Wake up,” they beg hoarsely, voice cracking. The words sound so foreign when spoken by them, and yet it feels more familiar in their mouth than anything they said in ages.
But Berdly doesn’t move an inch. Their hand feels tingly from just touching his shoulder, like they just grabbed an icicle and not a monster.
This is not fair. It’s not fair, it’s not fair. Even if it’s with difficulty, they can somehow bear it if they’re caught in the crossfire of all this. But. Berdly. Noelle. They…
This shouldn’t have happened.
This never should’ve happened. Noelle shouldn’t have been forced to kill an entire city’s worth of Darkners. She shouldn’t have been forced to cast a spell that froze Berdly solid into a thick crystal of ice. Berdly shouldn’t be lying here lifelessly.
They can do something about at least one of these things. They need to get him to the hospital.
But Kris is not exactly sure how. Berdly is pretty short but so are they. This is not even mentioning the fact they feel like they’re going to collapse if they straighten too fast. Cold sweat is sticking to the nape of their neck as their hand trembles, grasping onto Berdly’s shirt.
But compared to his state, this is nothing. They owe it to him for being so helpless in stopping it from happening in the first place. For the words of the order falling from their lips. For just standing there, and hoping he’d somehow make it out, that he’d just run away, or that it would stop when they got knocked down. Stupid.
They contemplated asking the librarian for help but they can’t – too many questions about why they’re here at this hour and why they look like they’re about to keel over are going to be asked by just the hospital staff. The hospital is just across the street. Kris takes a deep breath and moves Berdly’s freezing arm across their shoulders, grasping onto his side and pressing him against themself. They move to raise him up from the chair and almost fall over. Their lungs feel like they’re about to explode.
Kris less carries and more drags Berdly alongside them with a torturously slow pace. Their chest feels like a metal can getting slowly crushed.
You idiot, they bemoan in their head, fixing their grip on Berdly’s hand near their shoulder. You’re usually such a coward. Why didn’t you run away?!
Berdly doesn’t answer this voiceless question. He probably wouldn’t even if they said it out loud. That perhaps stings the most; Kris would always mess with him because it was fun to see him react, to find out what response he’d have, no matter how off-the-wall it was. Silence didn’t fit him. Berdly wasn’t supposed to be quiet.
Kris pushes the door of the lab with their shoulder and holds it open with their foot as they extract the boy from the room. They’re heaving from exertion, head hanging low as they move step by step towards the door. They want to cry right now – from pain, from frustration, from fear about what’s going to happen next.
The main door is as wide open as they left it when they entered. They pass by the rows of bookshelves and the counter agonizingly slowly, the sight of their shoes taking the singular steps forward swimming in front of their eyes.
They walk through the door and Kris reaches back with their leg to softly kick it closed without letting go, almost losing balance in the process and falling forward. They hack roughly, feeling like their throat is trying to cough out sandpaper. Just a bit more…
Kris looks to the side through the strands of hair hanging over their face, the hospital’s walls clearly visible. So close, and yet the distance seems so vast that their legs tremble.
“C’mon,” they mumble as they drag Berdly behind them, more to themself than to him.
Just a bit more. Just several steps to the curb. Just get across the street. Don’t fall, don’t fall. Don’t let him slip, no matter what, hold him tight. Don’t let him get hurt anymore. Step. By step.
“C’mon,” Kris groans again, vision blurry, but the blood is rushing through their ears so loudly that they barely hear their own voice.
They feel lightheaded as they move their feet, trying to not fold down and collapse under Berdly’s weight. Just a few steps more and…
Act normal. Normal.
Kris glances up from the ground as they enter the building; looks like they’re here just before the night shift starts.
“N-Nurse Molar,” they choke out and see them jolt up and then bolt out of their seat behind the desk, hurrying towards them two.
“What happened?” They inquire, putting their hand against Berdly’s forehead. “He’s as cold as ice…”
“We were… in the library earlier,” Kris breathes out, voice shaky as they mumble. They hope it comes off as just fatigue. “I, um, left something, so I… A-And he was there like that, still.”
This isn’t even a lie. That was fully true.
“Help him,” tears itself out of their mouth as the nurse moves to take Berdly’s weight off of them. Breathing is just a little hard now.
“We will, Kris. Good job getting him here, you’re very brave.”
They don’t think so. Someone brave wouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. Tear out that thing, consequences be damned, and stop it from causing harm.
“Will he be okay?” Kris can’t help but ask as they shakily follow the nurse walking over with Berdly to an unoccupied room. They’re hovering, they know. They should just go now, it’s not like they have unlimited time, but… the sight of Berdly all limp like that, head lolling from side to side makes their stomach lurch.
“Don’t worry, dear,” the nurse reassures as they open the door and settle the boy on the bed. “We’ll take care of him. He’ll get better in no time.”
Kris wishes they could explain what happened in detail to make all that easier.
“He was asleep a few hours ago already,” they wisp out, trying to underline subtly that this is serious. It just feels like the emptiness inside them is trying to claw its way out of their chest as they watch Berdly's chest barely breathe as he's strewn out on this bed. That's all.
Nurse Molar turns around their way. It’s hard to tell with them but Kris thinks they might be smiling as they put a reassuring hand on their shoulder.
“Kris, dear, don’t worry. This is a hospital. It’s our job to make him feel better. We’ll warm him up, let his parents know.” They rub Kris’s shoulder. “You go home; it’s terribly late for you to hang around like this. You can visit him tomorrow.”
Their eyes are burning and it feels like there’s something stuck in their throat. They nod mutely, unable to retort in any meaningful way. It is probably for the best to go now, before their winded breath becomes more suspect as it lingers longer than it should take them to catch their breath after carrying Berdly here.
They just hope they get to come by the hospital tomorrow to see if he’s okay. It's not like they're able to decide this all by themself.
“Off you go, then,” the nurse ushers them out and they shuffle through the hallway towards the exit from the building.
The silence they walk out into is almost uncanny now; the stillness of a normally moving and bustling town a bit too familiar to the quiet state of the frozen-over Cyber City. They shiver and hack again, feeling like their body is trying to spit out their lungs.
They’re so exhausted. They want to lie down more than anything. Maybe just keel over, right here on the street. And perhaps they would’ve but they’re not done fixing this mess.
Kris looks up the street and, supporting themself against the ever-reliable trees framing the road from both sides, sets out towards Noelle’s house.