Inside what's probably Karkat's room is a large bed with a fabric blanket, instead of a usual hospital bed. The floor was a light tan wood, much more rustic than previous rooms you've passed. The common room was similar, but looked more like a library than this bedroom. The walls were a shade darker than the floor, with a wood pattern. A bedside table and lamp identical to yours was across the room, next to a beanbag chair.
"Why is your room so nice?" Your neck twists in unnatural ways to take in the overwhelming sight.
"Nice? It's pretty ugly to me. The only reason I got this room was because my hallucinations don't act up when I'm with someone else. This isn't even my room. It's John's. "
"So, John sleeps with you? Dude, that sounds pretty gay to me." You raise your eyebrows.
"Nah, he's straight. Besides, he has a girlfriend."
"Rose?" You ask.
"Vriska." Karkat rolls his eyes.
"Dude, how'd she even get into this hospital? Other than being a total bitch, she seems completely normal." You plop down onto the soft bed. An actual quilt is draped across it.
"I heard she killed someone and afterwards wasn't acting right."
"Ok I'm pretty sure a murderer's not the most normal-acting Joe on the block." You roll your eyes.
"No, like, she started getting really bad headaches and swore she saw figures in her prison cell at night. They tried every medicine, even hypnotizing her, but nothing worked. She just sat in her prison cell and eventually it got so bad she ripped out her own eye."
"Jesus." You whisper. For as long as you could remember, ghosts could never drive you to rip out a fully functional eye.
"I overheard one of the nurses talking to Kankri, the owner of this place. She blamed the eye injury on the warden, but only her cell mate believed her. Porrim even thinks the cell mate told the warden to do it."
"Who was the cell mate?"
"Terezi."
"Oh yea, like I'm going to believe that." You sit up, crossing your arms. Terezi was the best. Not even Karkat could convince you otherwise.
"Dave, Vriska held Terezi up to her cell's window and made her stare into the sun. Vriska blinded Terezi." Karkat sighs. "Vengeance makes people do unpredictable things." He ducks under the bed, pulling out a black scrapbook. It's splattered with multi-colored paint and is big enough that it could kill a cat if it was dropped on one. There are several pictures falling out of it. Karkat grazes the cover with his hand, looking somewhat sullen.
"Who's this?" You bend down, picking up a picture that slipped underneath the bed. There's tape hanging from the edges, and the corner has a sizable rip. The picture itself is covered in more paint. It's a wonder at how thick and crusted this paint is.
In your hands is a picture of two aliens. No, two…friends. Other than the tinted skin and protrusions coming out of their hair, the corpses in the picture look like scene versions of Karkat and Terezi. Down to the slightly jagged teeth. Karkat's face down in a pool of blood, spread around him like a Van Gogh painting. Terezi's next to him, eyes closed and covered in a teal liquid streaming from her eyes and mouth. Her eyes are delicately closed, hair slightly overlapping the contours of her face. If you cover the blood with your finger, it almost looks as if she's sleeping. You almost want to brush the hair off her face and hold her in your arms. Who would hurt her like this? Who would kill your best friend and ex-girlfriend and leave them like this? You would revenge her. Whoever this version of her was, you would make sure her killer received what she deserved. You swore on it.
"Dave? Are you alright?" Karkat leans over, arms suspended in the air. You could tell he was deciding whether or not to comfort you. You honestly didn't even know if you wanted to be comforted yourself.
"Who did this? What fucker killed my girlfriend?" You seethe, bending the paper in your hands. Karkat's frown deepens, eyes sinking. Taking a large breath, Karkat wraps his arms around you, his head resting on your shoulder. You throw the picture, curling yourself up. The paper drops, drifting back and forth. You watch it hit the floor, softly gliding across the wood. You sigh.
"That…that wasn't the real you, was it?"
"No, that was an alternate version of me. Terezi spared us from traveling down that road."
"How?" You take a lungful of air, changing nothing. You can't even properly breathe without thinking about how helpless Terezi looked. Like she didn't even have a chance. You knew her better. She would fight till the end, not stopping for anyone.
Unless.
Unless she loved them.
Terezi might be able to overcome creepy clowns and sopor induced sleep, but the heart was stronger than the mind. If it was you, you doubted if she would even confront you. She was strong, yes, but Terezi was…regretful. It didn't matter what she did, the problems it caused always came to haunt her in the end.
And, if you were correct, dodging those regrets was what lead to her demise.
"Vriska. Vriska led Jack Noir back to our meteor by following her fairy dust." Karkat sighs.
"Vriska?" You back away. "Vriska did this?"
"Look." Karkat opens the scrapbook, pointing to a series of pictures dotted with cerulean paint. "She didn't mean for it to happen that way. Vriska was only trying to help us all. And save herself." Karkat faces the pictures towards himself, flipping through multi-colored memories. Catching his nail on another blue page, he holds it up again. Instead of cerulean, the paint is a mixture of blue and red. The pictures are of John and a dead Vriska. You recall nothing of this event, or even knowing John went God-Tier.
"She still did it." You shake your head, pushing away the pictures.
"And what are you going to do about it? You're getting mad over nothing. That was a different time, something that never even occurred. That Vriska is dead, stuck in the game's grasp."
"I'll kill her. I'll get that girl and show her who she's messing with." You jump up off the bed, grabbing a wooden stick out of a clay pot next to the door. Karkat catches your arm.
"Stop. You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
"I know what I'm doing. I might have forgotten my entire childhood but I won't forget what that girl did. She killed her. She killed YOU." You rip your arm away, throwing open the door. Karkat lunges himself at you, dropping the book. His eyes widen.
"That's not the Vriska you're mad at. This Vriska is human. She doesn't know what she did as a troll, and you can't blame her for it. That's like killing you for killing Jade."
"I did wh—"
"Just come back inside and we can talk." Karkat digs his nails into your arm. You flinch.
"We did talk. I don't care if it's the same girl. If she did it once she can do it again. I don't want to risk it." You turn away, hanging your head. "You don't have to look."
"Dave—"
"Karkat."
"I can't let you do this."
"You're on her side?" You gasp.
"No! I'm just trying to ensure everything goes well!"
"What goes well? Terezi's death?"
"I never-"
"You want Terezi to die. That's why you showed me the book."
"Not at a-"
"If you don't want Vriska dead, why am I supposed to listen to you?"
"I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO FINISH THE GAME!" Karkat screams, eyes flaming. You let the stick fall onto the floor, mouth flying open.
"The game?" You whisper. Karkat stutters backwards, hands over his mouth.
"I-I said too much. I have to go." Karkat runs down the hallway, kicking the stick out of the way. You press your arms to your forehead, wondering just how you managed to fuck up so badly. You reach for the doorknob, pulling Karkat's door closed. As you turn to leave, something catches under your foot. Under your shoe is another picture.
It's from on the meteor, a selfie of you, Terezi and Karkat, smiling and acting as goofy as possible. You run after Karkat, leaving the picture to fall to the floor.