You stare quite surprised at Aradia as she begins pulling herself up. She just stares at you both like she hadn't said something to stun you. It's not that you don't remember, it's just you prefer not thinking about it. It's not a perfect memory and bits and pieces of it seem so unimportant to you.
"Well?" she asks tilting her head to one side.
"No, I remember that," you mumble and avoid her piercing dark eyes.
"Are you sure?" she presses.
"Yes! I remember you taking the little food I had simply for your sick amusement!"
"You made my ears ring," Aradia giggles and Sollux sort of frowns, "but that's not what I mean. Do you remember the entire day?"
You still refuse to look at anyone in the eye. Snips and bits of that day play before your eyes as Aradia and Sollux stare at you expectantly. Something about running, feeling hungry, looking like a wreck and…Ugh, your head hurts thinking about it. You know you could remember it if you really tried but the thing is, you don't think you want to remember anything prior to your current life.
"No," you lie.
"Are you sure?" Aradia insists. You just nod and she gets that you're not going to tell her, just like you didn't tell her all those years ago. Sollux looks at both of you back and forth.
"There's death in it isn't there," she states bluntly. Your head zips to stare at here with horrorstricken eyes.
"AA, that's crossing the line," Sollux gasps.
"There is," Aradia states again ignoring Sollux and glaring at your dark brown eyes with her own darker ones. You swear it's like looking into an eternal abyss. You gulp and nod slowly. She stops glaring as you look down.
There is stunned silence.
"How bad was it?" She asks. You shake your head and shrug.
"I'm not sure. I don't remember who died how or what if that's what you want to hear," you answer in monotone. "I don't really remember much before meeting you guys which Slick sometimes says is better."
Aradia frowns slightly and then jumps of your bed in a hurry. She heads to her own bed, you suspect to sleep but instead she gets down on her knees and then crawled halfway underneath to drag something out.
You and Sollux exchange confused looks as Aradia muttered about where she put the thing she's looking for. Whatever it is. You realize the room is a lot lighter now. The three of you stayed up all night again. You just hope this isn't one of those days in which Droogs comes to check up on you. Only Deuce is tolerant enough and that's simply because you doubt he actually minds or knows your bedtime. Hearts and Slick scold you but don't give you ridiculous punishments. Droogs will definitely flip and make you do the most perilous task he can think of.
"Found it," she whispered pulling out some type of tattered cloth.
"How is one of your skirts relevant to anything?" Sollux sneered.
"Very funny," she scowled, dusting off the cloth. "This is Karkat's."
"KK wears skirts?" Sollux asks making a face, you glare at him and Aradia rolls her eyes at the stupid joke. You sigh and turn to her as she steps towards you, handing you the cloth.
"If it's mine, why do you have it?" you inquire, taking the gray material from her. You spread it to find it is some type of cape with some dark red embroidery as well as patches of the same color.
"You said you didn't want to see it again," Aradia explains, "You threw a huge tantrum about it and Slick said to get rid of it. But…I didn't. I don't know why, I thought you'd want it again sometime or maybe it had some meaning to you."
You freeze up, your arms rigid at the simple sight of this old, useless piece of cloth. It does remind you of something but you're not sure of what it is exactly. You shake your head and put down the cape. By now Tavros is finally up, though looking pretty groggy and pretty tired. He just sort of looks over to you guys and you ignore him.
"I…Don't think so," you sigh. Aradia gives you a skeptical look.
"Are you sure you don't know?" she interrogates, "Or do you just don't want to tell us?" You frown and feel your face hot with anger.
"Either way it's clear I'm not going to tell you!" you yell, no longer caring to keep your voice down. You stand abruptly from your bed and stand looking up at the slightly taller girl. "Why the fuck do you want to know?! Why the fuck should I tell you even if I could remember without seeing fucking slashed corpses and blood each time I think about it?! Do I look dangerous to you Aradia?! Am I a threat to you and your perfectly normal little world?! Or are you just looking for something to amuse yourself with? Because I'm not a fucking toy you little shit!"
The long haired girl just stares at you, shocked by your outburst.
"W-what's going on?" Tavros stutters cringing at the sudden feud between you and Aradia. Sollux just shakes his head and they both stay quiet witnessing the argument.
Aradia's face hardens and she clenches her fist. You flinch and look startled as she leans to speak to you, with a volume you never thought she'd have.
"Karkat there is no way for me to know if you're a threat! Nobody knows where the hell you came from! Nobody knows anything about what happened to you except you and Slick and none of you have ever said a word! My father may be okay with that but I'm not okay with any of that! I've tried ignoring it but you're not the only one with nightmares! I just…."
She lifts her fists and grabs her hair in clumps.
"I can't! I can't accept it," she starts sobbing and you are definitely terrified. "Why can't you just tell me what your nightmares are about?! Why?!"
You clutch the cape tightly and look at your very disturbed roommates. Two are too shocked to speak and the other one is on her knees crying and frantically searching the room with her eyes for something that isn't there. You're terrified about what is about to come from your mouth but you thought about it long enough.
"Sollux," You start and get everyone's attention almost immediately, "Tavros. Aradia."
You take a deep breath.
"I'm leaving," you state, stepping around the weeping girl and your shocked friends. You know there's no turning back. You're not prepared, yet you know this is what's right. No, it's more of an urge, like you have to do this.
The shocked state of the room is probably your only chance to leave without them trying to stop you, at least without a good distance between you. You run out of the room and as fast through the corridor to get outside. You open the door and start running as fast as you can.
"Kid stop!" You hear a deep throaty voice call. You just keep running blood drumming in your ears. You hear steps behind you, coming closer and closer. You try running faster but you're breathing is already heavy and your lungs feel like they're on fire. You couldn't have been running for that long, but your body feels heavy.
The next thing you know you hit the ground with a thud and a hand pulling your arm back.
"Alright kid, where the fuck do you think you're going?!" the same voice hisses.
"Let go," you grit your teeth as you struggle against his grip. You're still pretty winded but you don't want to go back.
"Where would you go?!" he yells at you and you feel tears welling up in your eyes. You stop struggling and start crying instead. He eases his grip, helping you stand up. He puts his hands on your shoulder and glares at you with his one good eye. "Karkat why the fuck where you running?! Do you hate life hear or something? I know it's a hellhole but for fucks sake, where can you even go to?"
"Slick," you sob and look up at him. "I don't want to go back. I need to do this."
"Need to do what?" he growls gritting his teeth. "Head into this god awful kingdom completely unequipped? You wanna throw yourself to the dogs? This world's going to eat you whole, kid."
"And what if it did?!" You yell. "Who would care if the world ate me or not?!"
"Your family would!" he shakes your shoulders, lowering his head to be on equal height with you. "Like it or not kid, we're your family! We are one fucked up family but this is the best we got! And we like it that way! You don't consider us family Karkat, is that it?"
You stop crying and bite your lip. "It's not that, Slick. You are all my very weird twisted and only family I've known. Thanks for everything you asshole, but…I don't really know what happened to me before you found me."
"You ain't missing much," he sighed, "You were some runt with real guts to try and steal from us. You looked starved and you kept blabbering about one of your parents dying and the other abandoning you. Kid, you're like many other kids out there. You have a home here but you're no one out there."
"Maybe I be someone," you insist, "And maybe I can find out more about these fucking nightmares. I don't want to stay here my whole life."
Slick looks at you silently and you.
Stare back at him, a glow of determination in your eyes. He sighs and crosses his arms.
"Go on out there then," he says, "Don't come crying to me when you realize how cruel the world is."
"I lived with you didn't I?" you smirk and he gives you a devious grin.
"You runt," he shakes his head and takes out a small bag from his pocket. "Here. That's all I'm giving you. Don't come back." You take the small bag and look at him. He turns his back to you and starts walking back home.
"Not planning to," you state turning around as well and heading out in this warm summer morning. As you leave your mind begins making a plan. To revive a plan you had long abandoned since you were old enough to accept your reality. You're going to join the Empress' army against the rebels.
A/N: Hey guys! So I'm barely getting the hang of how to upload things here. This is my first published fanfiction, and I'm learning a lot of what to do and what not.
So I'll have you know that I will update this story as often as possible, considerably you're likely to get a chapter every other day or every 3 days. I'll try my best to upload them as quickly as possible. Thanks if you reviewed! I quite honestly didn't expect this story to get any. I just sort of wrote this on a whim.
Also! I feel I should tell you that the story does switch characters from time to time , and is not concentrated around only Karkat, he's just one of the main characters. This chapter was sort of..eh, I need to get out of the way. But now we get to meet more characters.
You are welcomed to ask where a character is and I'll keep it in mind to either write a chapter about them or add them in a chapter.
This story will bounce back and forth from present to memories. Another thing I feel you should know.
Okay I'll just shut up now.
