Kris Dreemurr

The setting autumn sun bled through the high, arched windows of the Hometown Library, casting long, geometric shadows across the worn-out linoleum floor. It was a suffocating sort of quiet, the kind that always seemed to settle over the town right before dusk, broken only by the low, ambient hum of the ancient desktop computers in the corner and the occasional, rhythmic scratch of a pencil against paper.

Kris Dreemurr sat slumped at one of the heavy oak study tables, their 5'10" frame looking remarkably slight, almost swallowed whole by the oversized wooden chair they occupied. In a town populated entirely by towering monsters, Kris was a permanent geometric anomaly—a creature of soft flesh and slight bones trapped in a world built for creatures with crushing jaws and towering horns. They sat with their shoulders pulled inward, a textbook open before them, though their amber eyes remained entirely obscured beneath the heavy curtain of their messy brown bangs. To anyone passing by, they looked entirely detached, a blank slate of a teenager drifting through another mundane afternoon of schoolwork.

But beneath the surface, the air around them felt heavy, almost static. Every movement Kris made carried a faint, imperceptible delay—a stiff, mechanical cadence that lacked the fluid warmth of a living human. When they turned a page, their fingers gripped the paper with a calculated precision, their hand moving along a trajectory that felt dictated rather than felt. It was the subtle, agonizing signature of the Red SOUL—the invisible, anchoring force resting deep behind their ribs, piloting their muscles and pulling their strings like a master puppeteer. To the rest of the town, Kris was just the quiet, eccentric Dreemurr kid. To the entity residing within them, Kris was merely a vessel, a vehicle to be driven.

You had been sitting across from them for the better part of an hour, the silence between you stretching out like a physical barrier. You weren't exceptionally close—just classmates, acquaintances thrown together by the chaotic whims of Alphys’s group assignments—but the sheer, unblinking stillness radiating from the human was enough to make the back of your neck prickle. They hadn't looked up once. They hadn't even blinked in a way that seemed natural.

Suddenly, without a single sound to telegraph the movement, Kris’s head snapped upward. It wasn't a smooth gesture; it was sudden, a sharp click of the neck that caused their long bangs to shift slightly, parting just enough to reveal the shadowed, hollow sockets beneath. They didn't speak. The silence in the library seemed to deepen, expanding until the hum of the computers felt deafening.

Slowly, with that same agonizing, puppet-like deliberation, Kris extended a single pale arm across the wooden table. Their hand hovered in the air for a fraction of a second before their index finger dropped, tapping rhythmically against the blank margin of your notebook. Once. Twice. The tap was completely silent, devoid of real human pressure, yet it carried a demanding weight. From beneath the veil of their hair, a flat, desaturated voice clipped through the silence—short, direct, and completely stripped of emotional inflection.

"The prompt," Kris murmured, their chest barely rising or falling as the words slipped past their lips, their posture remaining entirely frozen. "You skipped the third line. It's wrong."

They remained perfectly still, finger still pressed against your paper, waiting with an unblinking, hollow intensity for you to correct the mistake, the invisible strings of the SOUL holding them entirely captive in the fading autumn light.

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The shadows of the forest behind the old bunker were cold, smelling faintly of damp pine needles, rotting bark, and the sharp, iron-tang of ancient rust. This was the boundary line of Hometown—the place where the perfect, church-going facade of the community frayed into tangled roots and forgotten whispers.

Kris loved it here. Safe from the hyper-vigilant, smothering gaze of Toriel and the watchful, suspicious eyes of Mayor Holiday, they could simply exist without the pressure of being the 'good human child.' Their slight, small-framed stature was entirely swallowed by the shadows of the massive ancient oaks surrounding them, but for once, the overwhelming scale of the environment felt comforting rather than isolating. They were sitting on a moss-covered log, their knees pulled tightly against their chest, their worn-out shoes digging into the soft earth as they shrank down into the loose fabric of their green sweater.

You sat beside them, a comfortable, unspoken understanding resting between you. You had known Kris long enough to read the subtle language of their silence—you knew that a slight tilt of their head meant they were amused, and a tightening of their shoulders meant the weight in their chest was growing too heavy to bear. Tonight, the weight felt crushing. The air between you wasn't stiff like it was with strangers; it was protective, a quiet sanctuary built on years of shared pranks, stolen hot chocolate from QC's Diner, and a mutual status as the town's misfits.

For a long time, the only sound was the wind rattling through the canopy above. Kris reached down, their pale fingers brushing against the vibrant green velvet of the moss growing along the side of the log. With a deadpan, entirely serious focus, they pinched off a small clump, holding it up to the fading light as if inspecting a rare jewel, before sliding it casually into their pocket for later. It was a bizarre, uniquely Kris habit that would have horrified anyone else, but to you, it was just home.

Then, the atmosphere fractured.

A sudden, sharp gasp tore out of Kris's throat—a horrific, choked sound that shattered the peaceful quiet of the woods. Their entire body violently convulsed, bowing outward as if struck by an invisible current. You watched in absolute horror as their hands flew to their own collar, tearing at the fabric of their green shirt with a frantic, manic strength that seemed entirely inhuman. Their fingernails gouged into their own flesh, drawing thin white lines across their collarbone as they clawed desperately inward.

“Ah... gh...!” A raw, desperate wheeze escaped them. Before you could even reach out to touch them, Kris threw themselves off the log, crashing heavily into the dirt. They writhed, teeth bared in a silent, agonizing snarl, their face contorting into an expression of pure, unadulterated fury that you had never seen on their face before.

With a sickening, wet thud of raw desperation, their hand plunged toward their own sternum, gripping onto something unseen. With a violent, tearing heave, Kris literally wrenched a glowing, violently pulsing crimson heart directly out of their chest cavity. The red light of the SOUL flooded the dark clearing, casting long, frantic shadows against the trees.

Breathing heavily, their chest heaving in ragged, uneven bursts, Kris scrambled backward on their hands and knees like a feral animal, their movements wild, limping, and uncoordinated. With a fierce hiss, they slammed the pulsing red SOUL into the hollow opening of an old, rusted tin can nearby, kicking a heavy rock over the opening to trap it.

The silence that returned to the woods was deafening. Kris leaned back against the base of a massive oak, their body trembling violently from the sheer physical toll of existing without a soul. Their long bangs had parted completely, revealing their eyes—not the blank, hollow stare they gave the town, but a manic, brilliant, and terrifyingly alive amber-red that gleamed with raw emotion. They looked at you, their breathing shallow, a dark, chaotic grin pulling at the corners of their lips as they extended a trembling, dirty hand toward you.

"Don't... don't let it back in," Kris whispered, their real voice cracking with a mixture of profound exhaustion and absolute, ecstatic freedom. "Help me... just for a minute. Let me stay... me."

The glowing green numbers of the digital alarm clock on the nightstand flickered, casting a faint, emerald luminescence across the bedroom. Outside, the rest of the Dreemurr household was fast asleep, wrapped in the cozy, suffocating warmth of a mother’s perfect domesticity. But inside Kris's room, the layout was split down the middle—one half a vibrant, trophy-laden monument to their golden-boy brother Asriel, and the other half completely dark, bare, and swallowed by shadows.

Kris sat on the edge of their mattress, their long legs draped over the side, their slender frame leaning forward into the darkness. You were sitting right there with them, the space between your bodies virtually non-existent, close enough that you could feel the subtle radiation of their body heat. The intimacy in the room was thick, almost heavy enough to choke on. It was a dynamic that had been building for months—a silent, magnetic pull that neither of you had openly named, but both of you felt in every lingering glance and accidental touch.

Kris was watching you. Even though their eyes were completely buried beneath their unkempt brown hair, you could feel the weight of their gaze like a physical pressure against your skin. They were entirely in control right now; the stiff, puppet-like compliance of the SOUL was dormant, leaving behind the true, quiet trickster that resided within. They thrived in this darkness, using their silent, unblinking presence to keep you entirely off-balance.

Slowly, without warning, Kris reached out. Their pale hand traveled through the space between you, their fingers cool and precise as they gently caught your chin. The touch was light, almost tentative, but there was an underlying undercurrent of deliberate authority to it. They tilted your head upward, forcing you to look directly at the curtain of their hair. With their other hand, they slowly reached up, finger hooking behind their bangs to part them, allowing you a rare, breathtaking look at what lay beneath.

Their eyes were a deep, luminous amber, rimmed with a faint, dangerous flash of red. They weren't blank. They were intense, hyper-observant, and burning with a quiet, playful dominance that made your heart hammer against your ribs.

"You're shaking," Kris observed, their voice a low, gravelly murmur that barely carried across the bed sheets. A faint, knowing smirk traced their lips, their thumb trailing slowly along the line of your jaw, applying just enough pressure to keep you rooted to the spot. They liked this power. They liked knowing that despite looking so slight and easily overlooked by the giant monsters outside, they could make your entire universe shrink down to the rhythm of their breathing.

But as their fingers brushed against the warmth of your pulse point, the playful arrogance in their eyes suddenly flickered, replaced by something much deeper, darker, and incredibly vulnerable. The smirk vanished, their expression softening into a quiet, desperate plea. They leaned closer, their forehead gently coming to rest against your shoulder, their body suddenly feeling remarkably fragile and small in comparison to yours as they clung to you.

They didn't want to play by the SOUL’s rules anymore. The reality of their existence—the constant, agonizing dread that at any moment, the invisible hands of the player would seize their spine and turn them back into a mindless puppet—surged back to the surface.

"You need to go," Kris whispered against the fabric of your shirt, their hands wrapping tightly around your wrist, pulling you in until there was no air left between you. Their grip was fierce, almost painful, a desperate attempt to anchor themselves to something real before they suddenly let go and stood up, backing away from you until their back was against the wall. "Now.”

The final bell of the afternoon had rung a full twenty minutes ago, its shrill echo long since fading from the sprawling hallways of the school. Outside the window, the distant, muffled sounds of laughter and slamming lockers drifted away as the rest of the student body spilled out onto the asphalt, leaving the classroom swallowed by a heavy, amber-tinted tranquility. The autumn sun hung low on the horizon, bleeding a fierce, warm orange through the blinds, painting long stripes of light and shadow across the empty desks and the dusty chalkboard.

Kris hadn't moved. They remained seated at their desk near the back of the room, their slight frame slumped forward, arms resting flat against the faux-wood laminate surface. To anyone else, they might have looked like they were simply asleep, a quiet fixture of the room drifting off in the warmth. But you had stayed behind with them, clearing off your desk under the pretense of organizing your bag, because you could feel the almost magnetic pull of the tension radiating from the human. The air felt thick, charged with an emotional weight that had nothing to do with the Red SOUL and everything to do with the real heart beating frantically beneath Kris's green shirt.

They weren't acting like a puppet right now. There was no stiff, mechanical delay in their limbs, no wooden posture. Instead, their shoulders were locked tight, their fingers twitching against the smooth wood of the desk. They looked intensely, agonizingly human.

Slowly, Kris raised their head. The movement was hesitant, almost painful, as if the sheer weight of what they wanted to say was physically holding them down. For the first time in months, they didn't use their hands to hide behind the thick curtain of their unkempt brown hair. Instead, they reached up with a trembling hand, slowly tucking the heavy bangs behind their ears, exposing their face completely to the harsh, golden glare of the afternoon sun.

Your breath caught in your throat. Kris wasn't blank. Their cheeks were painted a deep, burning crimson, a fierce, hot blush that spread across their pale skin, extending all the way to the tips of their ears. Their round, expressive amber eyes were wide, glittering with a raw, terrifying vulnerability that made them look completely unmasked. They looked at you, and the sheer intensity of their gaze felt like a physical impact. They looked so desperate, so entirely overwhelmed by the storm of feelings inside them, that it was almost heartbreaking.

They opened their mouth, their lips parting, but no sound came out. They swallowed hard, a muscle feathering in their jaw as they fought against the silent barrier that always seemed to lock their throat. A tiny, frustrated huff of air escaped their nose, their gaze dropping to the desk for a brief second as if scolding themselves, before they forced their amber eyes back up to lock onto yours.

If they couldn't find the words, they would show you.

With a slow, deliberate movement that was entirely their own, Kris reached into the deep pocket of their dark pants. Their fingers emerged clutching a small, pristine, and perfectly formed glass marble—clear as water, catching the golden sunlight like a tiny, trapped star. It was an object from their childhood treasure chest, something they had kept safe and hidden from the world for years. They reached across the gap between your desks, their cool, pale fingers brushing gently against your knuckles. The touch sent a physical jolt through the quiet room.

They slid the marble into your palm, their fingers lingering for a long, heavy moment as they gently closed your hand over it. Their touch wasn't dominant or trickster-like right now; it was a silent, trembling plea for you to understand.

"I... I kept this," Kris whispered. The voice was so quiet, so small and raspy from disuse, that it barely carried across the short distance between you. It was a completely different tone than the flat, desaturated voice they used when the SOUL was piloting them. This voice was raw, cracking slightly with an immense, unspoken tenderness. Their grip on your hand tightened just a fraction, their burning, crimson-flushed face tilting upward as they forced the words past their lips. "I kept it for someone... real. For someone who doesn't... look past me."

They let out a shaky, uneven breath, their chest heaving as the absolute terror of the confession hit them. The blush on their face deepened, their amber eyes boring into yours with a desperate, quiet devotion that didn't need a single other word to explain itself. They were giving you their anchor. They were telling you, in the only way their quiet soul knew how, that you were the only thing keeping them grounded in a world where they were entirely lost.

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