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It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Soul gripped the edge of his bed as tight as he possibly could and there might as well have been nothing under his hands at all. There was nothing inside of him but an echo.
Over and over he tried. Nothing could ever stop the cycle. Nothing ever worked permanently and he found that it was useless to keep trying. No matter how good things could possibly get in his bastard reality there was always the truth that they would collapse on top of each other once more. He’d be back at the beginning as he always was and so it would always be, constantly trying to fit pieces together that never would stick.
He looked up across the room, numb and dazed.
“You broke me.”
He could have sworn he saw the shadows shift into the shape of a person. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, but he spoke out into the darkness anyways. Turning on a light would have been so overwhelming that it’d be painful. The darkness barely wasn’t worse.
He didn’t even remember their name. Or their face. He barely remembered what they did. All he knew is that what they did was why he existed at all.
“You f-fucking broke me.”
He might as well have been back in that room.
Soul. He sneered. The irony made him sick. The title itself implied an inherent humanity that he did not have. None of them were human, not him, nor Heart, nor Mind. They were fragments. Happenstances of consciousness. The shattered pieces of something that will never exist again.
A pang of guilt echoed in his shell heart. He felt for a moment acutely like he’d killed his former self simply by breathing.
You feel that way because you did.
He glanced up into the darkness.
You’re not supposed to exist.
Nobody said it except himself. Nobody was there but himself, and still still they were right fucking there, standing over him, whispering in his ear.
That person you replaced would have lived such a beautiful life.
He stood up and stumbled towards his dresser and the discordant presence dragged along beside him.
He was going to make something of himself and you’ve taken all his potential and wasted it on years of hurting.
The world around him became hazy as his fingers wrapped around a length of red rope.
He died there, Soul.
Of course, there was a permanent solution to everything he felt.
You were born into the void as the trident through his neck.
A moment’s pain for an eternity of a quiet head.
It felt as if his hands moved on their own.
He was filled with a quiet resolve.
He could make a trade like that.
The next thing he knew, he was on the floor with Mind and Heart staring over him, the former with two fingers pressed against his neck and the latter clutching his hand and sobbing against it. “H-he’s-” Heart hiccuped. “He’s gotta be- he’s gotta be okay, right?” He pressed his hand to his cheek. “He has to be, he- Oh, God, Mind, he’s-”
“Shut the fuck up, he’s- he’s fine,” Mind snapped at him, drawing away his hand and not taking his eyes off of Soul for a second. “We wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”
He grumbled, and both Mind and Heart jolted up. “What the hell just-”
“Soul!!” Heart cried, throwing his arms around him and pressing his face into his chest. “S-Soul, oh, oh my God, Soul…” He sobbed.
“I said shut up, Heart!!” He pushed him off of him and grabbed Soul by the shoulders, propping him up against the bed-frame. “What the fuck were you thinking?!” His fingers dug into his shoulders, and Soul was fairly certain he didn’t know he was shaking him. “I’m fucking serious!! What the hell, Soul!!”
He grimaced and rubbed his eyes, turning his gaze away from Mind. “What the hell just happened…?”
Mind sputtered. “The hell do you mean what just happened?! You were-”
“Mind,” Heard whispered, “Stop yelling, please-”
“I’m not going to fucking do that, Heart, he could have fucking died, do you understand that?!” he yelled, as Heart buried his face, sobbing, into his hands. “He- he could have-” He snapped back to Soul. “Why the fuck did you still even have that shit in your room?! You said you’d gotten rid of it!!”
He stared at him. “Did I really…?”
“…” Mind’s voice cracked. “Y-yeah, you did.”
He stared up at the ceiling and rubbed at a fresh chafe on his neck. He gingerly placed a hand on Heart’s head, who’d pressed himself against him, sobbing once more. “… I think I blacked out.”
Mind sighed. “I know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes. “I-I know.” He looked anywhere but at Soul, the anger in his face doing nothing to hide the tears in his eyes.
He ran his hand through Heart’s hair, and felt the emptiness within himself so sharply and painfully he couldn’t even bring himself to cry for it. He exhaled through his nose. “Look, I…” He rested a hand on his own sternum and ran it over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, alright?” He smiled awkwardly. “I didn’t….” His voice caught in his throat. “…Think that this would… Get this bad again.”
Mind glared at him, and opened his mouth, but Heart ended up speaking first. “Y-you should’ve told us,” he sniffled, holding onto Soul like he could vanish at any second. “One- hhh- one of us, at least. I-” He hiccuped. “I would’ve wanted to help you.”
Mind grimaced. “… He’s… right.” He crossed his arms. “He-” His expression tightened, and he buried his face in his hands. “Jesus Christ, Soul, don’t scare me like that again.”
He looked at him, then reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I-I’m okay now, alright?”
He stiffened. “…You’re full of shit.”
He winced. He wasn’t completely wrong. He wasn’t so desperate as to try anything while Heart and Mind were in the room. Even so, their presence did nothing to fill the void in him, and he supposed that even though he should, he didn’t feel any gratitude for his life saved either, and he hated looking at their heartbroken faces. Still, between Mind and Heart’s combined stubbornness, he knew there was no way to avoid them nor their observations. “… Yeah. Fine, I feel like shit.”
“G-h, of course you do,” Heart simpered. He sobbed. “I-I’m sorry, Soul, I’m sorry…”
“Yeah, I’m not leaving you alone tonight.” Mind moved Soul’s hand off of him. “You’re- you’re not in any state to be by yourself.”
“Mhm, whatever, I wasn’t gonna be sleeping anyways,” he muttered. He nudged Heart. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. You can get off me now.”
Heart only clung to him tighter. “No fucking way.” He buried his face closer against him than he already had and murmured into his shoulder. “I’m never letting go.”
“Jesus, you’re like a koala bear.” He rocked side to side a bit. “Should I call wildlife services?”
“Please tell me you’re not cracking jokes at a time like this,” Mind said.
He looked back at him and forced a smile. “C’mon, let me try to lighten the mood a little.”
“Soul.”
His smile fell away. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Can we go downstairs or something?” Heart murmured. “I don’t want to be in here anymore.”
“We should.” Mind looked at Soul. “Do you need a hand getting downstairs?”
“I’m not getting a say in what we do?”
Mind grimaced at him.
Eugh. “Okay, fair.” He shrugged. “I can get up on my own.”
“Alright, good.” Mind stood up. “Heart, get off of him, seriously.”
He hesitantly peeled himself off of Soul’s shoulder, and they both headed towards the doorway. “S-Soul?”
“Yeah?”
“P-” He couldn’t stifle a sob long enough to get a full sentence out uninterrupted. “Hh. Don’t- don’t do that again.” He wiped his face. “Please.”
He went quiet. “… Sure.”
As they stepped out into the hallway outside, Soul turned back and looked into his room one more time. Maybe it was his imagination telling him the figure in the dark was still there. In reality, he knew they’d never been in his room at all. He’d been alone the entire time.
“Everything okay back there, Soul?”
He turned back towards him. “… Yeah, it’s nothing. I just thought that I… saw something back there.”
Heart looked at him with an expression that said he knew exactly what he meant. He knew, too, Soul recalled, what happened to them – even more acutely than he did. It was a conversation for later, though.
Later. “Later” wasn’t on his mind an hour ago. The notion held a lot of possibility, didn’t it?
Right then, though, he just held onto Heart’s hand and followed him and Mind away from the darkness.