I had my hood up and my head down, just like always. No matter where I was I walked like that. No one would see my face and sometimes, sometimes, I would fly under the radar. It was a rainy Monday morning and I was trying to get to my first period undetected and so far it was working. It seemed like everyone had different ways of going from place to place unnoticed. Mine was to simply walk straight there. No getting side tracked, ignore all the stupid comments people made, keep your cool for as long as is humanly possible, and I would be there before I knew it. Of course this didn't always work. Sometimes I couldn't simply ignore them and I wasn't one to keep my cool, but I had taught myself how to do it well enough and most of the time I didn't flip out.

Most of the time.

As I was walking though the hallway someone bumped into me, obviously on purpose.

"Watch it, Vantas." It was an extremely stupid thing to say given the fact they bumped into me. I looked up to see who it was and low and behold, it was Dave Strider. Everyone concerned him the coolest, most popular person in school, not like I gave a crap about that stuff. Sadly for me I was the only one. I stopped walking, probably thinking of something to say, something I would later regret. Because I stopped someone ended up running into me, of course. I staggered backwards and looked to see who ran in to me. Of course it was Terezi Pyrope.

"Crap!" I said going down to the ground to help her pick up the stuff she had dropped. "I'm sorry! Here," I picked up one of her books as she stood up.

She looked at me. I couldn't she her eyes thought her glasses but I'm sure she was glaring at me. She snatched the book out of my hand "I don't want your help, Vantas," and she stormed off, not looking back.

I remember when Terezi and I were friends. She was cool and she put up with my crabbiness and I put up with her licking. But now…now she's a jerk just like the rest of them. So why, why didn't I hate her like I hated Dave? Why did I help her even though she made it quite clear she wanted nothing to do with me? Why couldn't I let go?

Even she called me Vantas, like everyone else did now. Before they would just call me Karkat or some weird nickname and leave it at that, but now everything had changed. Now I was always Vantas, or worse things. Everything had changed, suddenly, abruptly, without any warning, not too long ago. I tried my best to think about life before, back when I wasn't a social outcast. Now there were people I never talked about or talked to. People who were once my friends. I tried not to think about that. I tried to think that every day I made it through was one day closer to freedom.

I continued walking, pushing unwanted thoughts from my mind. There was a group of around six students clogging up the hallway, but no one told them to move or leave. Of course not. They were the popular ones.

I hate popular people. Even the word feels like poison in my mouth. I never really got what made them 'popular' and if I had it my way we'd all just be kids, no ranking or anything. Then again it isn't mine to decide. I hated all popular people but I'm sure my school had some of the worst. Their group consisted of Dave and Terezi, who were now going out. I guess those two were the most popular in their group, but I don't really know. It seems like the whole school treats them like gods. I wonder if any of them remember when Terezi was that weird blind girl who licked people and Dave was that arrogant new kid from Texas. I doubt they did. It seemed like everyone at this school was pretty fast at forgetting things. Anyway other then the two of them there was Egbert. There was a time when I wouldn't call him that. I would call him John and he would call me Karkat instead of Vantas and always point out how my name was like 'car' and 'cat' and I'd tell him to shut up and we were friends. We'd hang out and he'd make me laugh once in a while and make a huge deal out of it whenever he did. He'd always smile when I insulted him and laugh it off because he knew I didn't mean it. He'd sit with me at lunch and hang out with the rest of our weird group of misfits just like Sollux used to do. Not Sollux. Captor. For some reason calling them by their last names made it easier to think about them, like maybe I wasn't talking about them. Maybe there was someone else out there with the same last name. But I always knew who I was talking about and what they did. In the end it wasn't that much easier. It made it clear in my mind that we weren't on a speaking basis anymore.

Sometimes I would think about the two of them and wonder where it went wrong. Well, I knew the major reason, but sometimes I would wonder if there was something else other than that. Something I did, something I said, that made them hate me. I knew with John it was that he was friends with me and with Dave and over time he had to choose between us. Dave was the better option. Now he stood there with Dave laughing, trying not to stand out within the group of kids, and never acknowledging my existence. Of the whole group, John wasn't the worst of them, but for me it was definitely the most painful in a way. Seeing him every day made it more real that all my friends were gone. All of them. Captor was gone too. I liked to blame him for everything. Well maybe not everything, just most of it. I think in the end I blamed myself. I just needed to take the weight off my shoulders so I took it out mentally on Sollux, blaming him for everything that had come undone, but now…I don't even know. What had gone wrong with him? It seemed like he would have put himself together, moved on, not forgetting, just becoming strong, acting like it didn't bother him, just like I'd done. But maybe he had done that. He'd just done it without me.

Maybe I wasn't a part of his new life. Maybe that's why he ignored my emails or whenever I pestered him. He hadn't said a word to me since that fateful day. It had been almost a year now. A year since it all fell apart. Now I was considered a target for everyone. That's why I learned to keep my hood up and my head down, acting like I wasn't even there.

I sighed and walked past John and the rest of the popular people. This included Eridan Ampora, who like John hadn't always been up there, unlike Dave and Vriska who for the most part had always been on top. Other than Eridan there was Vriska and Kanaya. I considered Vriska the worst, at least for the girls. She was a complete and utter jerk. Her whole goal was to get to the top, stepping on whomever she wanted. Now that she was on the top, she did whatever she wanted. I guess Kanaya didn't really count. She was nice enough but her best friend was Vriska so she would always hang out with the so called popular ones. She was a complete fashionista but was also incredibly smart. She used to be nice but I think Vriska had poisoned her from the inside, killing that part of her. I'd never seen Kanaya at her worst but I didn't doubt that she could be as wicked as the rest of them. Deep down inside, we're all monsters.

I acted like they didn't bother me. Like what they did was nothing big, maybe just slightly annoying, but it was a big deal. At least today nothing had happened so far but given the fact first period hadn't started yet, I shouldn't hold my breath. I had learned to be ready for anything.

As I continued walking down the hallway someone darted past me, weaving thought the crowds of high schoolers. I knew who it was. Feferi Peixes. In a way she was like me, one of those people no one talked to. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to her. Well I guess I knew, but sometime it seemed like more than that. I guess I'd never know.

She stopped at her locker and let out a small gasp, barely audible over the other sounds of school. Fish Girl was written on her locker in black lipstick. That happened almost every week though. Before no one really cared about her odd obsession with fish, but now everyone made a big deal about it. I sighed and decided to do the right thing for once. I walked over to Feferi's locker.

"Do you want me to help you clean that off?" I asked.

"What?" she said, turning to me. Her voice was oddly high pitched for a 16 year old. It was probably because she almost never talked and when she did she usually whispered. In class if she had to answer a question she would usually just nod or shake her head or act as if she didn't know. Sometimes she would answer and it would be so quiet no one could hear her and people would whisper and mock her. Whenever that happened she would either act like she didn't notice or just stare down at her feet.

Feferi used to be one of the coolest, nicest people in school. Everyone liked her and she basically liked everyone and always saw the best in people. Now it was the opposite. No one wanted to be seen with her and when they did it was for all the wrong reasons. There was even a time she invited me over to her house along with…well with him. Gamzee Makara, my old best friend. I tried to never talk about him, think about, and do anything referring to him anymore. When people were being jerks, they used his name as their last weapon. Other than that they wouldn't even mention him or…her. Oh god why was I thinking about them. It was too early in the morning for this. Actually that didn't matter. I'd been trying my best to forget them for the longest time.

I remember back when things were being to fade a little bit, even before the 'incident'. I had been slowly becoming uncool, but at least I still had all my friends Like Captor and Egbert and them. I remember after someone called me Vantas she turned to me and said, "It's so weird how they call you Vantas now. Oh well, you'll always be Karkitty to me!" I guess I was just Vantas now.

Sometimes I wondered if they missed me, or if they were even in a place where they could miss me. No Karkat, I thought, don't think about that. Try not to think about them. You can't. It will just bring more pain then you already have to deal with. I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and decided to focus on Feferi.

"You know you don't have to help," she said "It will actually probably be best if you just…go." She didn't say it in a mean way, more in a way she actually cared. She was probably right. The two of us hanging out together would just attract more attention.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yeah. I mean, it's happened before. I got it."

Feferi and I hadn't been close friends. But lately whenever the class got to chose partners we got stuck together. We also sat at lunch together because there was one table where no one else sat. Other than that we didn't hang out.

Technically there were three of us, the three social outcasts. Feferi, me and Tavros Nitram. I felt especially bad for Feferi because she didn't have anyone to turn to. She'd lost one of her best friends, Eridan, long ago. She'd also lost… Oh god, why was I thinking of all these people I wanted to forget. She'd been Feferi's best friend, even though she was obsessed with the dead while Feferi was all about life. They still were somehow best friends. Now after everything that had happened Feferi was extremely unstable. She'd randomly freak out in class or something which I guess is one of the reasons she became uncool. Now, with everything that had happened and everyone hating her, I think she finally broke. It was like she was some little kid's toy that didn't work and it was time for her to be thrown away, but it seemed like they were having too much fun and they would keep playing even if she wouldn't respond.

I tried not to think about anything, but of course that was impossible. My thoughts kept lingering on Feferi. She was actually pretty, even thought I would never like her in that way. She had long dirty blonde hair and bright sea blue eyes, which seemed more pale lately. She was a little short but not too much below average. She never wore make up and looked pretty anyway. She was also really, really skinny. Her physical scars had faded, even if her mental ones were still bleeding.

Before it was her personality that made people like her. She had the nicest smile in the world and something about her made it seem like everything was going to be ok. She would also stand up to anyone who was being mean to her or anyone else. Yeah, she was the perfect popular kid. Everyone liked her, unlike the new popular kids most people are just scared of. That was all before everything fell apart. Now she was like this, hunched over, darting through the halls, trying her best not to be noticed, rarely talking.

Feferi strangely reminded me of this My Little Pony called FlutterShy or something like that. I had only seen My Little Pony once and Sollux used to hold it against me. I saw it one time when was at...well her house. He was there too and he said he was just there because they were best friends but I knew he secretly like My Little Pony. Oh god, why did I keep thinking about them.

Gamzee.

Aradia.

Equius.

Nepeta.

The unmentionables.

R.I.P Charlotte Bacon, 6, February 22 2006- December 14 2012 and Daniel Barden, 7, September 25 2005-December 14 2012

A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with another sadstuck fanfiction. Just wanted you to know I've actually written all of this fanfic already but I'm slightly dyslectic so I have to have my editor read thought it first and fix a bunch of dumb mistakes. He's been sort of busy so that's my only excuse for not posting. Thanks for reading and please review.