Your breathing is becoming heavier and heavier by the second. You can hear their pounding footsteps right behind yours. They're gaining on you. All you know is that you need to get away from them. They want to hurt you, and you don't wish to die. A misplaced branch throws your footwork off and you tumble messily to the cold forest floor.
"Hah! We've got you now, dipshit!" You're too terrified to face them. You hear them approach your quaking body.
One of them grabs the collar of your shirt and lifts you to your feet. You want to cry. You want to go home. It's your fault you messed with the wrong kids. The tallest one pushes you against a tree, twisting your wrist in an ever most unpleasant way. Pain shoots up your arm immediately, causing you to wince in shock.
"Listen up, grey-face." The shorter of the three strikes your back with a stick. This doesn't hurt half as much as your wrist right now. "You tell us your blood color and we'll let you go! It's that simple! We clear?"
You shake your head weakly. No matter how much pain you're in, you just can't. You never expected these kids to act so violently upon interaction. The tallest's grip tightens around your wrist, and you cry out in pain.
"Listen, I know where I stand on the hemospectrum. I can have you culled at sunrise if you'd like!" He hisses into your ear, "SPIT OUT, BUDDY!"
You remain silent, too scared to speak, until you finally manage to cry out for help, "... DAD!? DAAAAD!"
All you want is your dad. He would beat the shit out of these kids. You come to the realization that your dad isn't by far near enough to hear your pleas for help, and you feel tears rushing to your eyes.
"SOMEONE, PLEASE! HELP!" Your final attempt to summon help.
"You asked for it..." You can practically feel your wrist snap in half as his grip tightens, yanking your wrist up to your neck.
You yell out in agony once more as you collapse to the ground, unable to feel your left wrist. It feels as if the bones are on fire. Pain shoots up into your shoulder causing the most agonizing experience you've ever had. Tears of both pain and shame fall from your eyes and into the carpet of dead leaves.
"Looks like we'll have to cut him open!" You finally peer behind you, watching them close in on your fallen body.
This is it. They're going to find out you're a mutant and there's nothing you can do about it. You shut your eyes in anticipation of more pain. You can feel something of a blade cutting through your sweater, and digging through your back skin. More tears of shame flood your eyes. This is by far the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to you. You're so weak... Why couldn't you be stronger? You could have fought them off. But no. You're on the ground bawling as your fucked up blood seeps from your back.
"Aww, is the little mutant crying? Come on! Cry for-" Suddenly his speech is replaced by sounds of violent choking. You can hear someone struggling behind you.
Could be...? Crabdad...? You lift your head shakily off the ground only to find it isn't your dad at all. Right in front of you, shit is going down. Right in front of you, a young female troll has taken the tallest of the kids down. Holy fuck... She's got a noose around his neck! The girl growls loudly, shoving the older troll to the ground. She yanks at the rope tightening it around his neck. The older one sputters, choking up purple blood, and falls to the floor, lifeless. You'll never forget what you just saw for the rest of your life.
The girl hisses and bares her teeth at the remaining two trolls, who flee immediately afterwards. She kneels down before her latest kill, examining him to make sure he's surely been killed.
"AWW YEAH!" She punches the air happily, "Detective Pyrope has her first successful kill! JUSTICE!"
She turns her head to you. Fuck, fuck, fuck... She's going to kill you too! You squeeze your eyes shut tight again, trying to seem dead. Your body begins to shake again, in preparation for your eminent death.
"Hey... I'm not gonna hurt you..." You open your eyes cautiously to find a small hand extended to you, "Are you okay...? Did they hurt you...?"
You nod your head to her, slowly and shakily taking her hand with your right hand to get up.
She keeps a firm grip on your hand shaking it well, "I'm Terezi Pyrope. I live up there in that treehive."
You gaze up the tree, finding a sturdy looking hive built right into the tree. In all the chaos you hadn't noticed it up there.
"K-Karkat. ... Vantas."
Her eyes dart up to the sky. The stars are beginning to vanish, and a blinding light is appearing through the trees. You know exactly what's happening, and you don't like it.
"Shit... The sun's rising." Terezi grabs a hold of your good wrist, "I'll take you to my hive! Quick!"
"Wait-!" This girl has no time for your protests, you're being shoved rapidly up the stairs.
Just when you start to ascend the spiral stairs, you feel something being yanked from your back.
"Oww! What was that!?" You flinch and jump forward grabbing the bloodied patch on your back. Then you realize what she's probably just pulled out of you.
"Jeez! Calm down!" Terezi nudges you forward, "You had a blade in your back!"
"Yeah! A fucking blade!" You rant as you march up the stairs with your captain behind you.
She cackles rather unnervingly, "Wow, you're pretty neurotic aren't you?"
You growl to yourself, "Am not..."
Terezi pushes open the door to her hive, and you're almost knocked over by how much color there is inside. Every corner of the walls are covered with various chalk scribbles. It's difficult to make out what they're of, but you can make out what looks like some scales and dragons. You nearly trip over the small dragon plushies that cover the floor.
"Go sit on the scalemate pile, I'll get some repairs!" She points to a large pile of the colorful dragons.
"Sure..." You exhale heavily and rest onto the surprisingly soft pile of dragons.
You don't trust this girl... She may have rescued you, but then she also brutally killed a troll in cold blood right before your eyes. But... Wasn't that what trolls were meant to do sometimes? You don't really know. You'd never killed anyone before.
"That was actually my first real kill," Terezi approaches you again holding jars of various liquids and what appears to be some kind of bandage, "I've managed to wound some trolls who've passed by, but I hadn't actually killed anyone!"
She grins toothily at you. Yep. You definitely don't trust that girl. She's now taking some of the liquid out of the jars, soaking a small rag with it.
"This is just an anti-bacterial liquid I made from some forest resources. Now take that sweater off, I need to clean your wounds!" She growls and fumbles with the rag.
"What!? No way!"
"Oh, come on! It's nearly destroyed anyway! Those suckers did a pretty good job to you..." Terezi peels the sweater off your body, slowly pressing the rag into your wounded back.
You hiss through bared teeth in pain, your ears flattening. Tears sting at your eyes again, falling down your face. What a wimp you are... This girl may be resourceful, but... where was her lusus? Did she actually live alone...?
"... Where's your lusus...?" You finally ask after drying your eyes.
"I thought you'd ask that!" Terezi grins widely again, "Her name is Pyralspite. She hasn't hatched yet and... I don't have much in the way of communicating with her. So... Yeah. I basically live alone out here. I guess you could say I'm kind of feral."
No kidding. You'd never actually heard of anybody living alone without a proper lusus. You guess it's kinda impressive for such a girl to have survived on her own. It was... well, a miracle.
"So how old are you, Karkat?" Terezi takes a light hold of your swollen left wrist.
"Ow, ow, ow... I'm three sweeps old..." You grumble, biting back the pain from your wrist, which you still cannot feel.
"Heh. I should have guessed. I'm three too." She giggles that awful laugh again, examining your hand, "... Can you feel it?"
"What, my wrist? Um... No. Not really." It hurts like hell in fact, but you're not about to admit that to her.
"Errr... I hate to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure it's broken. Once I messed up my ankle real bad, and it looked a lot like this. I couldn't feel it." Terezi begins wrapping a homemade bandage around your wrist trying not to hurt you.
"... Fuck..." You grunt. Right when your dad was about to teach you how to write. You went and broke your dominant hand.
"Hehe! You're such a pansy..." She finishes off the bandage, chuckling to her self.
You REALLY wish she would stop ripping on you... Then again, she wasn't exactly what you'd call 'civil'. She didn't have any manners.
"So! You're a mutant, huh?" She jumps onto the pile with you.
"WHAT-!? O-oh yeah that... I... Yes. I'm a fucking mutant! And listen up here, toothy!" You growl right into her face, "YOU CAN'T FUCKING TELL ANYONE!"
"Okay, okay! I get it! I'm not gonna tell anyone," Terezi rolls her eyes, lying back on the pile, "I'm a teal blood."
You nod grumpily. You hate this girl so much. You hate her, you hate her! You... don't hate her. You watch her eyes flutter shut, the way her stomach moves up and down as she breaths. She's pretty beautiful for a feral troll...
"Are you gonna go to bed or what? It's not like you can get home or anything." She had a point. Crabdad would have to wait for you.
You rest on the other side of the pile, realizing how tired you've been. Being beaten up was tough work, you guess.
You're just dosing off when you hear her voice again. "I like you, Karkat! You're a funny guy."
"O-oh. Uhm... Thank you. You're... Really cool." Your ears are probably burning red right now. No one's ever told you something like that before.
"Nighty night, Karkles."
Karkles...? You can play this game too. "Night, 'Rezi."