Casey's Wannabe Goth Dungeon

Something mildly amusing that I've taken note of in the general reaction to Chapter 5, and more specifically the one Really Gay Scene between Kris and Ralsei in the onsen, is that a lot of people really did NOT know what option to pick there when it came up. I've seen it a bunch on Tumblr in responses to the scene and I myself was so flabbergasted by the thing that I had to talk to my friend Moss about it for 10 minutes instead of progressing. And there's always been a fairly unifying reasoning between people as to why they feel that way, from what I can tell, that being that they don't know if it's what Kris would "want." And that is fair, because like stated prior Kris is very much keeping the distance between them and us as wide as possible... but, it's also kind of paradoxical, isn't it?

If Chapter 5 has made one thing about Kris's character clear to me, it's that they do not want what is "best" for themselves. Kris, whether it be by unfortunate nature or the traumatic weight of their "promise," is self-isolating to a frankly suicidal degree. It's a constant thing with them and has been for a very long time. They cut off their friendship with Noelle years ago and barely talk to her now, they don't interact with anyone around Hometown normally beyond their mother, and even in the Dark Worlds where they become slightly more expressive they still don't really interact with anyone unless they're forced to (either by us or by the other person, ala Spamton or Gerson). Even with their greatest personal friendship in Susie, they clam up as soon as the subject ever turns to their emotions, even though it's become increasingly clear with time that Kris has a lot of them for Susie in specific.

But. Then.

There is Ralsei.

With whom Kris does... none of that with?

Kris can be avoidant towards Ralsei, of course. This is not to say that Kris doesn't hide certain parts of themselves away from Ralsei like they do everyone else, but what gets be is how much Kris's normal tendencies of avoidance and isolation can just be... ignored. When it comes to Ralsei. When Kris acts like that towards Ralsei, it's generally because you made them do so.

We'll use the onsen scenes as contrast here. Both the interaction with Susie and the interaction with Ralsei can very quickly turned emotionally charged should you so choose that path, but what gets me is how Kris cannot open up to Susie in a proper manner but can with Ralsei. Kris mumbles to Susie if you try and make them supportive of her and Noelle's relationship but speeds through their words if you try to make them choose the most overtly "romantic" option. But with Ralsei, if you make Kris say that Kris's happy ending is with Ralsei, they just... seem to say it. Normally. Without trying to stop themself. Obviously we don't know for certain because Ralsei gets cut off immediately by Susie jumping in the pool, but given Ralsei blushes and seems more shocked than confused, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Kris just. Spoke their mind. To Ralsei. Unabated.

And if you think back on the rest of the game, Kris's interactions with Ralsei have... always been like this. Even in Chapter 1 and 2 when it's implied that Kris was mostly indifferent to the goat. Kris can hug Ralsei multiple times without stopping themselves, Kris can encourage and praise Ralsei without trying to stifle it, Kris can dress Ralsei up in cute ribbons and encourage Ralsei when they wear a dress. These are all things you choose for Kris to do, but Kris has demonstrated many times that they have the ability to fuck with choices they really don't want to engage in.

At some point in my life, sleep stopped coming naturally to me.

I’d always had issues with nightmares, of course. Being an anxious, jumpy little girl will do that to you, especially if you’ve got friends with a penchant for terrorizing. It wasn't really an impediment at first, though. Whatever prank-induced night terrors that bothered me at the time were something I could mostly fight off, helped with a little luck, courage, and a high concentration of my sister’s protective grasp. Whenever I found myself sprung awake at Angel knows what hour, I’d run to Dess's bedroom- gently creaking open the door, finding her asleep just as often as I’d find her engaged in some sort of questionable activity. Always a secret to be kept between the two of us, of course, because there wasn’t anything else that made me feel safe like she did. Made me feel like I belonged exactly where I was, protected in her arms. I wouldn't dream of jeopardizing those times alone.

The first of many nights where she failed coming home, I didn’t sleep. I was too scared.

I stayed scared for a long time afterwards. Terror thoughts and chill-inducing nightmares stopped being something the promise of a sister could bat away with little effort, the warm and comforting embrace of someone I loved ceased it's presence in my life. My mom was too cold, my dad too passive. I loved them both with all my heart, but it was different. It wasn't Dess.

I grew used to it, after enough time. Never numb, never to forget her, but I learned to live with it. Restless nights turned to troubled sleeps, troubled sleeps turned to absent dreams, absent dreams turned to sluggish wakings. It hurt. Good days became rarer, bad nights became frequent. There were times I felt comfortable she was gone, equal to the times I wasn’t sure if I’d ever survive her absence. 

But still, I lived. I lived and kept my chin up, like I was supposed to.

…

The first time dad got sick, got really sick, I didn’t rest an hour.

It had been a difficult number of years after Dess had gone, the tension in the house grew fiery, beloved family and childhood friends turning distant and dour. It was hard, but it wasn't the end of the world. Everyone continued on in their own ways, hurt and scarred from her vanishing, simply attempting to survive the new status-quo placed upon us all. And I guess, after a certain point, I made the mistake of thinking things could look up. 

The funny thing is, I don’t even really remember how it happened anymore. Was it the fall that made something insidious hidden inside flair to the surface? Did he collapse in a sudden manner during brunch? Was it a slow, gradual decent into anemia that rendered the once proud Rudolph a tired and sickly man? At some point, the reason things got this way stopped mattering to me, I just knew that this was the way things were now. My family grew smaller, my house grew cold.

Whatever little sleep I had been getting before those events became fragmented. A couple hours here, a few minutes there, endless tossing and turning that led to nothing but a gaze fixed upon the ceiling. I stopped dreaming.

…

The first time mom yelled at me, yelled at me like she hated me, whatever was left of me fell apart.

And it’s only fitting things would, right? There wasn’t anything left to break besides that. Mom had gotten bad after Dess vanished, and she was never perfect to begin with— no one is. So why not, one final insult to Noelle Holiday, to have her own mother treat her like the scum she so obviously is?

Because... why else would all of this be happening to me? Why else but the simple conclusion that I deserved it? I don’t know what I had done to be worthy of all this pain, but it’s the only explanation, right? The world can’t just be so unjust and unfair that I’d be going through all this for no reason. Sometime, somewhere, perhaps as someone else, I had done everything to make this suffering my own.

So, I stopped sleeping.

Maybe I still got an hour or two of shut-eye before the school day started, but I never really bothered to try. I’d lay in bed, stare at my phone, stare at the walls, stare at the ceiling, stare at the empty picture frame I swear used to have my family in it. Doing nothing but passing the time.

I cursed Dess some nights, cried for her on others, gripped my arms until the nails threatened to break fur and flesh alike. Why wasn't she here anymore? Why her instead of me? Why did she get to escape? Why did she leave me here in the first place? I wanted to leave, too. I wanted to disappear in the same way she had done. Night after night after night after night of sitting in my bed, knees to my breast, desperate to feel something other than dull pain in my chest.

…I thought about it, sometimes. How to make it stop. How to really, truly, leave behind this life I'd been forced into. It started small, an acute desire that quickly spread into an encompassing monster. Abstract ideas of simply "leaving" to vanishing to running, where I hoped it would end. But of course, it could only get worse. Pills, cuts, tied knots and bloody palms. Wouldn't it be easier than just running away…?

…I thought about it a lot. I made plans more than once, plans of escape and plans of release, always leaning toward the latter. Detailed lists of the things I'd need, stuffing old backpacks with essentials and memories, looking to my sister's ghost for advice. Sitting alone in the kitchen, collapsed against the cupboard, sobbing with a void in my gut and a knife in my hands. I couldn't manage the courage to do anything more.

I thought about it every second of the night. Notes and notes and notes and notes and notes, written and crafted and discarded and shredded and burned. How much longer did dad have? How long until my mom would even notice? I contemplated those questions just as often as I didn’t, callously conceded myself to an early grave, indifferent to whatever suffering everyone still here would have to go through. Life stopped being fun. The days stopped feeling worth seeing.

I kept smiling, of course. I never talked back, I never let myself look down, I never let anybody realize just how bad it could get. I fooled myself sometimes, the perky girl in the mirror so utterly masked from the horrors that not a single thing could chip her chipper attitude. Not every day was awful, of course, not every night lead to me staring into the hungry jaws of an end I so longed to see. I kept myself occupied, I smiled in earnest on rare occasion, I could ignore the urges and aches so long as I kept my face straight. I played sports, I joined clubs, I aced tests, I tutored nerds. Perfected the expectations placed upon me in every way. Designer baby first-class, not a shivering failure, not a Thing that better knew how to tie nooses than what it wanted to do after graduation.

But...

How long do I need to keep this all inside?

…

My heart won’t stop beating. Pounding against my chest.

Why did I decide to keep living?

I wasn't able to make the first cut. Never brave enough to swallow the handful, to sprout wings and fly, to waltz into the water and vanish in the waves. I constantly asked myself why. Why I had stayed when Dess had gone, why I survived while my dad rots and dies, why I was never able to finish things on my own terms— To finally, finally, leave.

When did I last feel wanted?

That question hurt me most of all. Because I knew what the answer was. And I knew it was about to change.

…I do feel wanted.

In this moment. Away from everybody else.

I’m in… her arms. Staring at the sun. Setting across the seabed.

She's always felt so distant from me. Susie, the girl no one would give the time of day, the harsh outcast without a positive bone in her body. The one everybody made sure to clear away from, the one never given a chance to show the person she is before everyone made that conclusion for her. I've always liked her. She was dangerous, she was cool, she was everything I wasn't and everything I wish I could be, everything I wish I still had in my life.

I never thought she'd so much as see me. I never imagined, in a million years, that I could be anything to her. But I've learned... she's so, so much more than what I thought she would be, what anyone thought she could be. Susie is kind, caring, funny, such a deeply understanding girl that I don't even know if she realizes it. She's amazing, she's crass and rude and blunt but underneath that is just an endless warmth of love for everyone she cares for. She's not everything I wished for. She's more than I could have imagined. And now, she's here, with me, carrying me in her arms.

I feel weightless, breathless, all at once everything is overwhelming and everything is nothing. There's not a single person in the world besides me, my love, and somebody I wish would join us. It takes all I have not to cry. I tell her how I’ve felt. How much this is. How much everything has been. I want her to know, more than anything, even if neither of us can find the right words or speak the right language, that I love her. That I want to spend every minute with her. That for the first time since I was 9, I remember what it’s like to feel safe in another’s arms.

My heart pounds in my eardrums. I know it’d be coming on too strong.

But I can tell her this. That I’ve wanted to leave. And I know it’s enough. That she'll understand.

Because I love her. Because she loves me.

For just this moment, this one singular moment, this sunset in the lake in the arms of another…

Made with wigglypaint + video editing.