You are a troll who has just woken up from a restless sleep. Your skin feels tight and papery, scratchy and papery under your fingertips. You look down at your hands. The grey skin is ripped and stained red all over. Your nails are cracked and have a rainbow wash of blood caked under them. You begin to wonder at that, but it brings back all the memories.
You are Karkat Vantas, and it's all beginning to sink in. All of your loved (and hated) ones are gone. You just woke up and are still alone. You didn't even get to dream of them. You don't know if you'll ever dream again. You thought the dream bubbles were supposed to last, after all the work Feferi put into-
You cringe at her name as it rolls through your mind. It's all coming back in a brand new wave of pain. Maybe it's because it finally hit you and you realized that they aren't coming back. You will never see them again.
Thinking of the empress-to-be -or would've-been-empress?- brought back the very vivid image of her removal from existence. She was already dead, but at least she was still nearby for whatever you needed. She was always kind and gentle, even though by all rights she should've been the most violent person you knew. You close your eyes for a second, a mistake you regret as her face comes back to the surface. She was hurting so bad when English finally wiped her out in the same roar that finished off most of the other dead. You remember seeing her smile when you were both wrigglers, one of your earliest memories. You always loved her smile. That might've been why you never really talked to her, but you can't really remember. Could you have been intimidated by her openness? By how accepting she was of someone like you? Maybe you just wanted to be as optimistic as she always seemed to be. You wanted that happiness. You sigh. Her happiness and hope for the future had kept so many of them going.
Hope... Where did you hear that before? Oh, that's right. Finface was the 'King of Hope' or something. Ampora was a pain to nearly everyone near him. That said -thought?,- you never really hated him. He had this kind of pathetic air to him that made it hard to hate or love him. He was just annoying, but he had his good moments. You remember auspisticing between him and many of the others, not quite defending him but saying that he wasn't really worth being hated. He was just there. Much like him trying, and failing, to save Feferi in the same blast that erased them both. Just there, without making a difference... You blink and delve back into memories from your childhood. You first met him as a wriggler. You were playing in a puddle and he told you to leave because all the water belonged to him. You nearly laugh now to think of the black crush you had on him for a week after that. That faded once you came to realize how superficial he was. He wasn't much of anything, but he was still a friend for the most part. You'd just never tell him. Why wouldn't you tell him again? Annoyance? Anger? Pride? You have far too much pride. Even now you refuse to cry, even though there's no one here to see.
You follow this thought for a time before flashing to a memory of your ex-moirail. The closest you'd ever been to crying was while you were in his arms. Gamzee had held you close and let you force down the emotions, half-burying you in horns because he knew you wouldn't want the others to see. The stress had just been too much for you and you had to let it out. You still can't believe that idiot clown was surprised when the skull monster attacked him. You sigh again. You've been sighing so much in the past day -days? Hours? Years? How long has it been? It is starting to scare you. It sounds almost like Gamzee's wheezing after being crushed under English's blow. He was so small as you held him after that. Had Gamzee ever seemed small before? He was the tallest of the trolls but there was more than that that made him seem so, so... powerful, you guess. He had a strength in him, stoned or sober. He was always fighting to take care of you all, to keep from letting the madness and rage take over. You are the only one who ever knew how hard he fought the violence bred into his blood. Now you're the only one who will ever know.
Who was it that was always going off on rants about the hemospectrum? Oh yeah, that sweaty moron Equius. You don't feel bad about calling him that. The relationship between you two mostly consisted of insults and him demanding to know your blood color. You would insult him, he would not-so-subtly get angry -angrier?- and threaten you without realizing it. You would take a secret step back and leave him alone for a few days after that. He intimidated you, but you had a spot of regard for him. The way he protected Nepeta, even as she was grabbed by their foe. Throwing himself at the cherub just to distract him while she momentarily escaped. Even with the final death he suffered... He didn't deserve to be reminded of his first death, not with the beheading or seeing his moirail's face as he died. But no one else would've thrown themselves in to save her. But you suppose Nepeta was the only one he really had.
Ah, Nepeta... She was always sweet, even though she got annoying sometimes. You remember seeing her shipping wall for the first time, with all the little hearts and spades and diamonds. You remember seeing the little heart by the picture of you and her. You never told her you saw it, for her sake. You didn't want to hurt sweet little Nepeta. She had such an innocence to her, such a wide-eyed wonder for the world. Even as she grew up in the wilderness and had to kill creatures to survive, it was like she didn't understand hate. Even as English killed her friends, and she attacked in protection of them, she never had the same hate you all did. Maybe that was why you always wanted to protect her. That protective feeling scared you. You were afraid of being so soft. Even as you think that, you realize that you didn't have red feelings for her. She was like a distant friend, not quite a meowrail as she called it -your throat clenches at the thought. How could you have let her die? Why did English have to force her to see those horrible eyes in the last few seconds before he erased her? You remember her last expression when her eyes met yours. You don't think you'll ever be able to get her face out of your mind. You wish you could go back to seeing her with Equius, listening to her prattle on about roleplays, purrbeasts, and his new machines.
Thinking of all his inventions, a certain manipulator comes to your mind. Vriska was cruel and annoying, but she was cool. You admit that you may have been just a little jealous. Even though not many people liked her, she was still a better friend than you ever were. She had her own sick way of doing it, but she was usually trying to help. You were just useless compared to her. She strengthened Tavros, reached god tier with an intense power of will, was willing to go face English alone. None of you could've taken him on, and yet she was willing to. She knew she would die, but planned to go down fighting. She helped lead the entire group to victory, even though you'd never tell her that. You were leader in name only -self-named at that- while she took charge and forced everyone to get stronger. Strong enough to beat the game, strong enough to beat English. She grew up with such a monster as a lusus... It's hard to imagine what that would be like. Yon always had crabdad's caring and protection. Maybe that's why you were -are- the weak one. And you... You didn't even throw in enough of an effort to be worthy of death. Now you're stuck drifting through space without an enemy, without a friend, without a single person you care about.
You're still thinking these things as you drift back into unconsciousness.