Chapter Text
Dess.
That was certainly a name.
That was her name.
A name she was losing touch with.
It was a doomed name.
Surely cursed in every possible world.
The name of somebody who was bound to lose their way in life.
Fall off the rails, no matter how cautious.
Somebody who might have been lost long before anyone knew what was happening.
Lost before there was even a chance to save her.
It was a twisted fate
A doomed story.
Hopeless from the very beginning.
She didn’t want to think about it.
She wouldn’t.
But she could sense it drawing nearer.
As she grew, every day, her sense of it heightened.
What would one day swallow her whole.
And there would be no escape.
That looming sense of doom.
Her downfall was imminent.
She knew that, on some level.
She just had no idea when it would come.
And the slowly growing awareness of that was going to drive her insane.
The mirror.
The mirror was in front of her.
The reflection stared back.
The reflection of a girl who was breaking, brick by brick.
Who was so lost in her own mind that she was destroying herself before the world could do it for her.
Leaning against the cold counter.
The cold could shock her back to reality.
She needed to ground herself.
Dess stared at the unfamiliar reflection.
A crazed, tortured look painted on her face.
Hair a mess.
Makeup streaked down her face, tears leaving marks in their wake.
Bloodshot eyes.
And to think that this was all only the beginning.
What showed up in the mirror was a girl who wanted something different out of life.
More than mindless routine.
More than the trap of linearity.
Pointless busywork.
Useless interactions.
Someone who couldn’t bring herself to march to the same beat as everyone else.
All of them, just marching closer and closer to their grave.
It would be so easy to just fall in line with the rest of them.
It should have been easy.
Accept the fate that as a mortal, she was damned.
But when she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to stay that way.
Something inside always started screaming.
Something that wanted out
In her hand, she clutched a small, black piece of glass.
She had begun to grip it so tightly that it left an indent in her palm.
Looking into it soothed her.
She couldn’t place why.
But each time she looked away, she felt the impending doom draw nearer.
It was wrong.
She shouldn’t be doing this.
It was like an addiction.
She couldn’t stop.
She was sealing her own fate.
Dess.
A name given to her by people she didn’t want to be linked to.
People who dangled adoration and affection over her head, but never granting it.
People who had expectations she knew she could never rise to.
Not with this future, already set in stone.
Not with the future that the black shard continued to tell her about, which she might have known all along.
The love of a parent was to be earned.
Not given freely.
Not by any means.
Not to a disappointment like her, so immersed in the worlds of music and exploration of places unknown.
Not to someone who held such little regard to academics.
There was what they wanted her to be.
There was what she wanted to be, if there was ever any choice in the matter.
There was what the shard said she was inevitably going to be.
And then, the forest.
The forest.
The forest.
The forest.
She had always been in love with the forest.
As far as she could remember, it had always been entrancing.
She’d always wanted to explore as far as she could.
Find out the secrets it was hiding.
Spend as much time as possible within it.
Building forts.
Pretending sticks were swords.
Playing games.
She didn’t need anything else.
She was content with that simply being her life.
That was, until it seemed to gain an interest in return.
Every time she allowed herself to be encompassed by those orange trees, there was that voice.
The one that urged her to go further.
To stay longer.
To seek some version of freedom.
Freedom.
Escapism.
That was what she wanted, more than anything.
Escapism.
But the way the forest presented it…
It was terrifying.
It was going to change her.
Warp her beyond recognition.
Mutilate her until she was some other creature.
The version of freedom that the forest wanted Dess to seek was nothing like what she really wanted.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
Even entertaining the thought that what the forest suggested what she would want was somehow more terrifying than the prospect of mutilation, pain, and seizures.
Because that wasn’t freedom.
That could be something worse than death.
Much worse.
She stopped going back.
But yet.
It was always there, in the corner of her vision.
Begging her to return.
Like a siren’s call, it needed her to come back.
Irresistible.
Tempting her.
Before long, her feet began making their own way towards the forest before she could even think about what she was doing.
The first few times, the thought was at least partially conscious.
Just some invisible thing in her head nagging her to go back.
She hardly realized it was happening, but along the path, at least then, she could have stopped herself if she really wanted to.
She just never thought that she could.
But then it changed.
Blink.
A blink.
That’s all it took.
One minute she’d be at home, then the next, she’d be lost deep within the woods, body on autopilot, charting a path of its own.
It was like there was something encoded inside of her.
A part that was looking for something.
That knew exactly what and where that thing was.
But her?
She was left in the dark.
Blink.
And she was there.
Moving without the knowledge of doing so.
Awake, but under some kind of trance.
And always, that black shard.
She couldn’t let go of it.
Not anymore.
Blink.
And she was back.
2 days had passed without her even realizing.
She was dirty.
Covered it cuts and bruises.
Twigs tangled in her hair.
Something stuck in her antlers.
A feeling of pain and loneliness that ran deeper than the soul.
The weight of loss.
The realization of utter helplessness to a situation washing over you.
As her legs kept moving of their own accord.
Searching for something.
Something.
Deeper.
And deeper.
Yet deeper into the forest.
She tried to find her way back.
As soon as she regained consciousness, regained control, she would run back to whatever direction she thought was home.
Afraid.
Afraid of what she might become.
Of what the forest might turn her into.
She ran.
Sometimes in the wrong direction, resulting in another night lost in the woods.
Or, you could say it was always the wrong direction.
Because she could never run from herself.
Blink.
And she was back.
Lost.
Confused.
Cold.
Scared.
Alone.
And without escape.
Her parents thought she was trying to run away.
Kris thought she was having fun without them.
Noelle thought she was closing off.
Asriel thought she was trying to kill herself.
She didn’t know what the truth was.
Not anymore.
But maybe Asriel’s suspicion could be taken as advice.
It might be better off at this point.
It wasn’t like there was any way to fix this anymore.
Some of them reached out to help her.
She always declined.
They claimed they would understand.
Or at least try to.
She insisted she was fine.
Because how could they possibly understand?
They would never be able to understand the feeling of your own mind and body betraying you and every possible point.
The feeling of some kind of supernatural force seemingly puppeting you.
Or something like that.
She didn’t know what it was, but no one else would either.
So she stayed silent.
Silent, and watched as it continued, time and time again, to steer her to the forest.
If she didn’t, they would all think she was going insane.
Maybe they already thought that.
Maybe she already was.
And there was that crystal.
She wasn’t sleeping anymore.
Too risky.
It could take her so easily, then.
Far too risky.
She was hardly eating.
It was difficult to find time now.
Now, when every single minute of the day was spent trying to prevent herself from going back to the forest.
She found herself getting more destructive.
Angrier.
She’d punch the wall, attempting to fend off invisible threats.
Snap at anyone who tried to talk to her.
Throw framed pictures against the wall, because the memories were looking back at her in strange ways.
Their smiles, daunting.
Their faces, brilliant, and so lit up with an oblivious, youthful joy.
All of them reminding her that she could never go back.
That now, this was all that remained.
A hollowed out person.
Nothing about her was still…
Her.
Dess.
But that name didn’t mean anything anymore anyways.
She never left her room anymore.
The noises too loud.
The colours too bright.
The promise of the forest growing louder.
And louder.
And louder.
If she left her room at all, there would be no stopping it.
And so she left herself to rot.
With that black shard, always within arms reach.
She barricaded herself in her room.
Blocked off the window.
The door.
After blacking out, she’d found herself multiple times scratching at them, trying to break through the blocks she’d set up.
She couldn’t go back.
She couldn’t let herself go back to the forest.
She couldn’t.
Her guitar.
Her guitar.
Her guitar.
Her guitar was the only solace.
The only thing keeping her sane.
Or the only thing that allowed her to cling to whatever shred of sanity might still be left.
The familiar notes.
Familiar chords.
The song her fingers kept falling into the habit of playing.
Again.
And again.
And again.
She didn’t write this song.
Never heard it anywhere else before, either.
But it was calming.
It spoke of her present situation.
Each and every horrible aspect of it.
Everything she didn’t want to think about.
Didn’t want to remember.
But the song was a lullaby.
And lullabies can turn the darkest moments into playful tunes.
It made everything at least somewhat more bearable.
And there was that black shard, lurking in the corner of her peripheral, at all times.
Lost girl.
That’s what the song was.
That’s what she was.
That’s what she’d always been.
That’s what she was going to die as.
So she kept playing, only because she couldn’t stop.
She kept playing, hoping in vain that someone would hear the cries for help intertwined in the notes of the song.
Encoded in the song.
Lost in a tune that no one would ever hear,
Entirely useless, when no one could figure it out.
Cries for help that fell on deaf ears.
But she kept on playing.
Kept on playing.
Kept on playing.
That was all she could do now.
Weaving a tether to reality that might be able to save her.
It didn’t.
It didn’t save her.
It couldn’t have.
Because her future was set in stone from the moment she had picked up that shard.
Because no one could survive without sleep as long as she had gone.
Without food.
Without connection of any sort.
Without help.
Her fingers were numb.
All she knew now was the guitar.
Her hands were numb.
She kept playing.
Her arms were stiff.
She tried to stand up.
Her vision narrowed, the edges dancing with golden stars.
The crystal.
She needed it.
She felt her chest tighten.
She couldn’t breathe.
She felt surrounded.
The walls were too narrow.
Everything was closing in.
Something.
Something else was there.
Something hovering close behind her head.
Briefly, she wondered what it was.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
She never got to know what it was before her vision cut out.
Lost girl.
Lost girl.
Welcome to your new home.