7 Days of DSMP Angst

⟨⟨ four ⟩⟩

"everything was a lie... right?"

ship: none, standalone niki
words: 630

••==••

Trailing her hand over the wall, Niki let out a breath that curled through the air, serving as a reminder to her solitude. She was achingly alone, cold and numb in her home in the Arctic.

Wilbur was back.

When he'd first passed, she'd thought that she would rejoice if he were to ever return. She expected to run into him with open arms and an open heart, grinning from ear-to-ear and maybe crying a little.

Niki sat there now, huddled in thin fabrics that barely cut the chill in the air, crying for an entirely different reason.

He had been gone. The world had been safer. He hadn't been there to fuck everything up again, to destroy everyone's hard work. He had been gone, and she had come to terms with it.

And now he was back, and Niki didn't know what to do.

If she were to see him she'd have no words. If she were to hear him she'd have no breath. She wanted to lock herself in her basement until he was gone again. He was older than her; maybe he'd be killed again, or maybe he'd pass of some disease, or, even more wishful, he'd pass of old age.

Niki sniffled. Rubbed at her eyes, fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. Outside, the wind whistled past the windows, shaking the house to its core.

Wilbur. Wilbur. Her Wilbur, or— what was left of him.

Had he changed since dying? If she saw him, would she still be able to pick out the crazed look in his eyes? Would he look exhausted and world-weary, or would he stand triumphant, boasting his survival to anyone with a spare ear?

Gripping her tattered, frayed cloak to her chest, Niki took a single, trembling breath. It clouded in front of her on the exhale, and she numbly stared at her fingernails, noting their purple tint.

"Everything was a lie... right?"

She hadn't even realised she'd spoken until freezing air rushed down her throat. Clutching her ruined coat tighter in her numb, trembling hands, Niki forced herself to her feet. Her tears froze to her eyelashes before they could roll down her face, and she had to wipe at them to make sure she could keep blinking.

With a broken sigh, Niki slid her gaze over to the fireplace. It had been lit earlier, but sometime between then and now the wind had blown just harsh enough to put it out, and she had been too enraptured in her thoughts, too ensnared by her emotions, to actually notice.

Breathing slowly, purposefully, Niki shuffled over to the fireplace. She dropped to her knees and reached for the logs, fumbling slightly when she couldn't feel them. The logs were tossed into the fireplace and then they were lit, and Niki held her hands in front of it.

When she closed her eyes, fire roared behind them, explosions ringing in her ears. Her next breath was shaky, and the one after that shook more. Niki's breath hitched once, twice, and then she squeezed her eyes shut, letting the tears roll down her face.

She didn't sob. She didn't wail, begging for forgiveness, or for another chance. Instead, Niki let herself grieve.

Niki grieved her freedom, grieved her healing, grieved the past. She mourned for who Wilbur used to be, she mourned for what they used to be.

And when Niki finally pushed herself off the floor, as the last embers died and settled into the fireplace, dried tear tracks making her face itch, she knew she'd do anything to make sure Wilbur never hurt her again.

"Never again," she promised herself, watching her breath cloud in front of her face and then glancing out the window. "Never again."