When the Dawn Breaks [TBAU]

☆☆ Finale - p1 ☆☆

"Impulse!" Gem called out, standing at the demon's door. She frowned and gave another knock when he didn't answer. No response. Well, she still wanted to drop off the goodies she brought for him, so she let herself in.

"Stress and I made cupcakes, so I've been bringing some around to everyone!" She called out excitedly, placing her box of treats on his counter. "Impulse?"

His house was silent, eerily empty.

Maybe he was still asleep? It was still a bit early, so she supposed it was reasonable. Gem made her way down the hallway and peeked into his room– no luck, it was empty. Then, she made her way through the door to the small study off his room– also empty.

Gem sighed. She guessed he just wasn't home right now, she'd have to find him later. She could probably leave a note with the cupcakes too, for when he found them. Gem started to leave the study, before noticing a cup of pencils that had been knocked over. She fixed it, righting the cup and collecting the pencils, grabbing one off an open journal.

The leather bound book caught her eye, the page it was open to filled with Impulse's messy handwriting.

With a curious hum, she grabbed the book, studying it. What kind of friend would Gem be if she didn't take this opportunity to snoop? It might have been private, but it didn't say not to look. And Impulse had left it out in the open anyways, she justified to herself, beginning to flip through it.

The notebook was relatively empty, only a few pages having been used. The first few pages had doodles and sketches of small redstone machines. They were all somewhat shaky drawings, but Gem didn't judge, not everyone had the most steady hand- Impulse definitely didn't.

After a few pages of sketches, the notebook got weird. The drawings dropped out entirely, replaced by writing entries. There were only a couple, each addressed to someone named Pearl at the top like a letter.

The first entry talked about a moth and watching and an assignment and souls. There were more names Gem hadn't heard before, Skizz and Grian, and in the letter Impulse was apologizing to them. He was apologizing for leaving them, that he had three months to collect... souls? "What?" Gem couldn't help but mumble a little under her breath in confusion. It ended on a positive note, though it was a little bittersweet. The next page after it had the word 'fuck' written in the center and nothing else.

The other note addressed to this Pearl figure was the one the book had been opened to when Gem discovered it. Impulse's handwriting on this page was scrambled and almost incomprehensible, but she was able to make out several apologies scratched onto the page, as well as sentences that said, 'It didn't work,' and 'I lied,' and 'I'm gonna die.'

Gem shut the book and held it to her chest, trying to process what she'd just read.

A part of Gem's brain tried to convince her not to be surprised by this. Impulse was a demon, of course he had disturbing secrets hidden in this journal about soul collecting assignments. The other part of Gem didn't care about that, only about the morbid implications of the first note and the utter distress in the second. Her heart hammered with concern.

She needed to find Impulse and get him to explain this, right away.

/ / / /

"Joe, I'm gonna need you to slow down, please," Cleo sighed, interrupting the fae's rambling. She moved to clear their cups off of the coffee table while Joe reassembled their thoughts into something more comprehensible.

Joe had been going on about soul magic nonsense for the past few days, and while Cleo barely understood what the fae was talking about, they had a hunch it had to do with a certain resident demon. It was just a theory though, there was a high likelihood that Joe just wanted to acquire a soul for shits and giggles.