UnderAsriel

27 - Chocolate

Kel felt like she'd been struck by lightning. 

Or... maybe this was more accurate... she felt like a helium-filled balloon that had been popped quite suddenly and unexpectedly by something it had thought was soft. 

It was clear. This child, whoever they were, was not Frisk. Not in the slightest. They looked like them, looked a lot like them, but they were certainly not Kel's friend. There was no way those eyes, that voice, belonged to Frisk.

Kel couldn't feel shocked. She couldn't feel surprised.

She could only feel... defeated.

Because of course it wasn't Frisk. Of course they weren't finally being reunited, after hours and hours of pain and doubt and struggle. That was far too easy. How many times Kel had thought she was close? Close to seeing Frisk again, to knowing for certain they were okay? And how many times had her hopes been ripped away from her, suddenly and violently dashed?? Really, it was strange she'd even had hopes to dash, at this point.

But at least she'd freed someone. That had to count for something, didn't it? Even if said someone was going to be directly un-freed soon after, and Kel along with them?

The child was looking at her, expectant, and she shook herself out of her thoughts, remembering they'd asked her a question.

"No," she admitted truthfully. "I don't have a chocolate bar on me. Really wish I did, though."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a chocolate bar, though it certainly sounded tempting now. That ramen had been several hours and a boatload of stress ago.

"Me too," said the child in disappointment, playing cutely with the hem of their sleeve. For a moment they stood there quietly, both looking and acting too much like Frisk for Kel to not feel a pang of loss.

Then they looked closer at her, narrowing their eyes, and the Frisk comparison vanished. Their red gaze traveled from the top of her bright orange hair to the tips of her boots, then back again. Kel got the strangest feeling that she was being evaluated - and by a ten-year-old, no less. She resisted the urge to take a step back.

"Huh," said the child finally, their eyes lingering on Kel's red uniform. "You're... old."

"Uh... thank-"

"Who are you?" they demanded suddenly, cutting her off, but before Kel could reply, the child stuck out their hand in a grabbing motion, and the strangest sensation seized hold of her body.

It was like... a hole had opened in Kel's chest, and she was draining out of it. She gasped, feeling her legs and arms go numb; but it wasn't the lost-all-feeling kind of numb, she could still sense the gloves on her hands and the floor under her feet. No. This kind of numb was like nothing she'd ever experienced, like the life in her veins had suddenly decided to take a vacation. And it was fast spreading, enclosing her torso, her head, until all was left was a hot, almost painfully alive patch of flesh pulsing just inside Kel's heart.

And then, suddenly, Kel's heart popped out of her chest.

Not her actual heart. A rounded, shining, supernatural heart, a heart too big to be her real heart. It hovered in the air, pulsing with her actual heartbeat, and Kel couldn't help feeling like it was her, like the real her had left her body, like she was gazing at something she shouldn't logically be able to see.

It was glowing orange.

"Ah. Bravery," the child observed idly, and they let go of the air.

The heart snapped back into Kel, and she felt it dissolve and spread quickly through her veins once more, the warmth and the life returning instantly to her being.