Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you are in deep shit.

For the past 2 years of your life, you have been putting yourself through college, because your dad is dead and fuck knows your vapid bitch of a mother could never be bothered to get off her ass and parent. It's stressful, so stressful that sometimes you think your head might just explode like a cheap balloon. But you've always liked to think that, after the failure-and-shame soaked clusterfuck your life has been, you can handle any amount of pressure.

Now, however, you are starting to slip. For the second time this semester, you've somehow managed to completely forget about an upcoming test. They haven't been exams or anything, thank God, but it doesn't bode well. And that is why, right now, you've been reduced to begging notes off your saliva-spewing assmunch of a best friend, to glean whatever you can before the professor arrives. God, his handwriting is fucking terrible, you can barely even decipher it. And why the hell does he alternate red and blue ink like that? You are certain he did it on purpose, just to spite you in your time of need. You hear footsteps approaching the classroom door, and silently you curse him and all his future generations of smug, moody spawn.

You are so absorbed in all this that, at first, you don't notice the screams.

You do, however, notice the door bang into the wall as it slams open. And you most certainly notice the young man with the huge goddamn gun who is currently standing in the doorway, shouting at the top of his lungs.

He's barely even coherent. Something about how they're coming, you all need to run, they're tearing people apart in the streets -

But his meaning becomes abundantly clear when another figure launches itself at him and sinks its teeth into his thigh.

Everything kind of blurs after that. You grab onto Sollux, try to abscond through one of the windows. You fall on your ass, but who cares, at least you're outside. You run, as fast as you can, to the nearest safe place you can think of - your friend Kanaya's dorm room. You shout for her to open the door as you sprint down the hallway, and she does, then slams it shut again. You help her shove a couch in front of it while Sollux calls everyone on his contact list, and then you and Kanaya do the same.

Terezi is on her way to meet Tavros and Aradia, who have locked themselves in a supply closet. Nepeta is shaken but alright, barricaded in her own rooms with that weird sweaty friend of hers. None of you can reach anyone else.

As the chaos outside begins to die down, you work up the courage to approach the window. Kanaya's tiny place only has one, and it is broken, so you had placed a cabinet in front of it. You shift the cabinet aside and poke your head out.

You don't know what you were expecting, but what you see is...nothing. The crowds of panicking people that were there earlier have now been replaced with bloodstains and a few scattered bodies. One of the buildings is on fire, but the flames are rapidly dying down.

While you're standing there gaping, you notice a noise from beneath you - and something launches itself at you from the bushes, like every shitty horror movie ever, which you really should have seen coming. The...person? animal?...latches onto your wrist, and you shriek and slam its head into the windowsill until it drops to the ground, taking a chunk of your wrist with it. You shove the cabinet back into place and sit there, trembling, as Kanaya bandages your wound.

It's only later, when you think to turn on the TV, that you find out what the fuck is going on. Apparently a bioweapon got out. It's a sneaky disease, lying dormant for months or years before showing any severe symptoms. So they don't know where it started, or how far it's spread, but they do know how it works.

The initial effects are barely noticeable. Increased irritability, nervousness, aggressiveness - little things. This stage can last for ten minutes or ten months, depending on the person. The second stage exacerbates the early symptoms, along with paranoia, delusions or hallucinations, self-harm, nervous tics like twitching or scratching, and severe respiratory problems. The victim becomes increasingly violent and unstable until the third stage, where they lapse into a coma. The fourth stage is death. And the fifth stage...then they come back. No-one knows how.

Apparently all the violence was caused by a shit-ton of people hitting the second stage at the same time. It isn't known how many people are in the early stages, or newly infected, so the newscaster urges you to avoid contact with anyone's body fluids. "That's how it spreads."

It isn't until he says that that you look down at the wound on your arm, and realize that you almost certainly got some saliva in there.

Oh.

Fuck.

For once in your life, you are perfectly calm as you look back around at your friends.

"When you guys get everything you need, leave. Don't tell me where you're going, and lock the door behind you. I'll keep in contact with you as long as I can by phone. That way you'll have some way of knowing before-"

"Thut the fuck up, KK."

You blink. "What?"

Kanaya smiles thinly. "While I would not put it that way, exactly, I agree with Sollux's sentiment. You must have a very low opinion of us indeed, Mr. Vantas, if you believe that we would agree to simply abandon a friend to his death."

You sigh and rub your eyes. "Look, I get that you guys are trying to be nice and all, but the nicest thing you could do for me right now is to just... leave, get yourselves out of danger. I mean, fuck, imagine what I'd feel like if I accidentally infected you, or if I...if I..."

"You think we don't know that, KK? We're big kidth, we can take care of ourthelveth. And we're not going to run off and leave you to die here. Thimple."

You look from face to face, trying to find an opening you can work on, can use to convince them. Nothing. They are resolute.

You shake your head, but a small smile plays on your lips. "Fucking fine, then. If you assholes want to risk yourselves over nothing, then that's your problem. We should tell the others, though. They might not want me around now."

You call them.

Terezi calls you a moron, and says that you are "far too amusing to abandon, my delicious cherry-eyed friend."

Nepeta says that "Of course we're not going to leave you, silly, what kind of furriends would we be?"

Tavros and Aradia point out that any of them could easily be infected without knowing it, and that forcing you to stay behind for it would be really unfair and cruel.

Even Equius, who you know for a fact does not like you, concludes that it would be "a very dishonorable thing to do, if you are not yet a danger."

You will never understand these people.

So you, Sollux, and Kanaya grab as many supplies as you can carry. You are very pleased to find some rubber gloves, disinfectant, and a mask, and pack them in your bag. Who would have thought Kanaya's fussiness would come in handy someday?

Your little group has decided to meet at Equius' apartment, since it's the largest and is in a conveniently underpopulated part of town.

Everyone manages to arrive safely, and you begin making a game plan.

When Terezi takes stock of your supplies, she concludes that you only have enough food to support you all for a couple of weeks at the most. After that, you will have to venture outside.

"Perhaps, rather than waiting for the inevitable day when our city runs out of edible food, we should go look for a safer place," Kanaya proposes. "The countryside will, at the least, be less populated, and may provide some means to support ourselves other than scavenging."

"But there'll be less access to medicine and stuff, too, and there should be enough canned food here to feed us for a while, if we look for it," you interject. "And what if someone sends help? They'll never find us if we're stumbling around in the ass-end of nowhere."

Tavros shakes his head. "I've, uh, been listening to the broadcasts. They're not, going to send help anytime soon - this whole area is, uh, quarantined. They think it's the, epicenter, of the infection, and most of the healthy people have already fled or been killed."

Sollux sighs. "Tho we're effectively on our own out here then. Well, that'th fucking wonderful."

"But they said that, um, the northwest is relatively free of infection, and that anyone who can get there will receive shelter. I don't know if that would, still be a thing, by the time we got there, but I think it's a better chance than waiting here, where it's dangerous, and most of us will probably die before they get this mess cleaned up..."

There is a brief silence as you all consider this. You don't really have any other close friends or loved ones, so there's nothing tying you here, but you know some of the others do. You also know that they realize how unlikely the chances are that those loved ones are still alive. In the end, you elect to let them make this decision. You're probably doomed either way, and you have no real reason to care.

When you take a vote, it's unanimous - heading northwest is the best chance you have. You decide to take Equius's car, and pack it with as many supplies as it can hold. The others take some time to send messages to all the people they couldn't reach, just in case there's a chance they'll check. Then you clamber into the backseat, squashed uncomfortably between Sollux and Terezi's equally sharp, bony frames, and you're off.

(A/N) So this is just a thing I'm working on while I try to figure out what to do with my other two stories. WRITER'S BLOCK. IT IS OF THE DEVIL. I feel like I'm having some issues with the pacing and such, so constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, and I'd love to hear what you think! Thanks for reading!