"Dave, you know that this is a bad idea. You know what happens when they get bit. Just take him out of his misery."
"You don't understand Ampora. He's still Karkat."
"No he's not. He's a monster! Look at him." The voices fade and Karkat's ears begin to ring. The ringing grows louder and a sharp pain shoots up his spine. He lets out a low hiss and opens his eyes.
Karkat begins to panic, he doesn't remember what happened and he can only see out of one eye, the other is cloudy and dim. His panicked and ragged breathing fills the room. Where is everyone? Not even Jack is in sight. Was there an attack and he's the only one alive? Where are the bodies of his fallen friends then?
He stumbles to his feet and sees dried blood on his shirt.
"Dave?" His voice is gravely and weak. His muddles vision sees the shadow of feet from beneath the door. The knob doesn't turn. Karkat begins to walk towards the door but is stopped short. Something yanks at his neck and he sees that here is a chain around his neck. Karkat looks back towards the door where Dave is standing and lets out a scared whimper.
"What's going on?" Dave tenses at the sound of Karkat's voice.
"You don't remember?" A red haze sets in Karkat's vision and his head starts to pound as he tries to remember what happened.
"No I don't." Dave lets out a sigh and takes a step backwards.
"You're one of them. You fucking shot yourself and you died in my arms, now here we are having a nice little chat." Karkat feels a sense of dread envelope him and he collapses to the cold cement floor.
"I, what?"
"You heard me."
"Stop with this joke. It's not fucking funny! Get this damned chain off of me right now!" Karkat feels anger surge through his veins and he strains against the chain, "Why won't you fucking listen to me?" He howls at the top of his lungs and he sees Dave flinch very slightly, there's something else hiding underneath Strider's icy exterior. It's a fear so potent that Karkat can smell is spreading to every corner of the desolate room.
"I can't do that." With those words, Dave reaches for the door and starts to close it.
"Don't you leave me in here! Please."
"I'm sorry Karkat." The door slowly shuts with a silent click and Karkat is left in the room with nothing but his deranged thoughts.
He sits quietly. There's no way that he's one of those monsters. Dave is just playing some sick joke on him. Karkat tries to think back to clarify if what Dave said was true but he only felt an immense empty space in his mind. No matter how much he tried to focus on that part of his mine, he can't unearth what is locked up.
He looks around the room and sees blood everywhere, besides that there really isn't anything else in the room with him save for a broken table at the corner opposite of him. So trying to figure a way out isn't exactly an option unless he wishes to try to beat the chain senseless with one of the table's legs.
There is a window a few feet from him, the glass is not present and a hot summer breezes wafts through the window. A smell of something decaying fills Karkat's nose and he tries to find the source of the decay. Not finding where it's coming from, he shrugs it off and continues to think about this particular situation he's in.
Sometime during his thoughts of self-loathing and misery, his alert ears pick up on a small scampering on the roof above him. Karkat sits very still and tilts one side of his head up towards the sound. A wiry smile sets on Karkat's thin lips as the scampering grows louder. In his mind, he maps out where the squirrel is at; hopping along the rooftop, slowly towards the window. It pauses, perhaps it found something interesting to look at or maybe forgot where it was going. Karkat doesn't know, nor does he care. All they are to him are snacks with legs and a tiny brain. They're inferior, meant only to serve as fuel for the predators.
At this point, Karkat stops breathing. If he's going to eat, he must not scare off his little snack. The thought of not breathing doesn't even register in his mind, he has no real purpose to breathe anymore. What use will oxygen do for him now? The squirrel is nearly at the edge of the house, right above the window. Karkat has since then begun to move ever so slowly underneath the window. He now positions himself directly under the window and peers outside with his good eye, waiting for his prey to make a move.
He can hear it prepare to jump onto the branch right outside of his window. Karkat's mouth begins to water and he plays with his fingers as he waits. Karkat sees the squirrel fling itself to the branch and at that moment, he hurls his arm out the window and grabs the squirrel around it's midsection. His hand squeezes close and he can feel the ribs cracking beneath his cold fingers. Karkat brings in his arm and gazes at his prize with pride.
Just as he's about to bring it to his mouth, he realises what he has done and throws the body of the squirrel across the room in disgust. He starts to vomit that he has nearly eaten a raw squirrel. He has no idea what has possessed him to even think about eating a squirrel, much less, raw meat. He stares at his hands that are dyed with fresh blood and he vomits once more.
Dave sits on the other side of the wall, listening to Karkat's silent sobbing and heaving. He rests his head between his hands and closes his eyes. He knows that he should just kill Karkat and get it over with. It would be better if he would be out of his misery, he knows that if he was in Karkat's shoes he would want to be killed.
He gets up and brushes off the dirt from his pants and walks to the room where Eridan and Jack are at.
"Kar kept a journal, did you know that?" Dave looks down at Eridan who is sitting on a thin mattress.
"No I didn't, let me see it." Eridan shrugs and tosses it to Dave, he catches it and starts to read the first page. After reading all of Karkat's entries, Dave realises that he's unable to bring himself to kill Karkat. Reading his journal made Dave see another side of Karkat, something that's more human than Dave. He doesn't know what it is, perhaps it's just his mind making up excuses not to kill his best friend.
"I'm not going to do it."
"Do what?"
"Kill Vantas."
"Why-" Dave throws the book back at Eridan and gives him a frown.
"Because he's still Karkat, he's not one of those things."
"Maybe you need to take off your shades, have you seen him? He's a zombie."
"I know he is, but he's fighting it. I'm not killing an innocent person. If you don't want to deal with them then you can leave. I'm not killing him and I'm not going to let you kill him. It's your choice." Eridan stands up and faces Dave.
"Are you fuckin' serious."
"Yeah I am. Either you deal with Karkat who's still a person inside or you can be alone out there with monsters with no human thought. Like I said, it's up to you." A long silence stretches between the two boys and Eridan narrows his eyes at the other.
"This is going to come back and bite you in the ass when he fully becomes one of 'em."
"I'll save that problem for when it happens."
Author's Note
So it's been awhile. I've just lost all motivation to do anything these days, there's been too much shit going on in my life and everything really just sucks right now. I'm sorry that it took this long to post one damn chapter. I'll try better to post more often. I just need something good to happen in my life; I'm at my wits end.