>it had finally happened
>noelle stood by the hospital bed
>eyes fixed on her father's lifeless face
>the room was silent
>her mother had already returned to work
>she was alone
>noelle doesn't know how long she was there
>long enough for the town to already know about rudy's passing
>she left the hospital
>every step she took someone would offer their condolences
>each comforting word
>every shared tear
>felt like nothing to her
>soon the faces of people around her blurred together
>their voices amalgamated
>their words repeated
>all the way to her home
>all the way to her room
>noelle stood in her room
>alone
>physically alone
>mentally alone
>emotionally alone
>all alone
>her father's gone
>her sister is missing
>she hates her mother
>her best friend is annoying
>her classmates are idiots
>her teachers are weird
>the town folk are barely sentient animals
>and susie
>the one person she could have found happiness with
>just wants to be friends
>so noelle stood there in her room
>all alone
>the emptiness she felt began to fade away
>replaced by rage
>a rage that grew steadily inside her
>she replayed every awful thing that had happened to her in her head
>feeding the anger
>letting it take over
>she looked around her room
>deciding what she's going to break first
>then her door opened
>noelle turned
>her entire body trembling as she tries to contain her anger
>god forbid the world sees how she really feels
>but to her surprise, it was kris
>her old friend
>now the only person who knows her true self
>kris closed the door behind him
>he pulls out a knife from seemingly nowhere
>and stabs it into noelle's desk
>noelle gazes at the knife
>her eyes dart to kris after he takes a few steps towards her
>"Humans..."
>kris spoke in his strange mumbly voice
>"...are stronger than monsters."
>he opens his arm
>"Remember?"
>noelle stepped towards her old friend
>remembered how she use to cope
>and punched kris in the nose