"Hello." The girl has short, blonde hair and olive-colored eyes that seem strangely familiar. She smiles kindly, extending a hand to help him up. Her skin is warm to the touch and soft against his callused palms, rough from the years he spent in Jack's company, learning to fight with a knife like no other child his age.
He doesn't know how he knows this. He knows nothing.
"Where am I?"
"Silly! This is Memory. It's where we all reside in our dreams and in our sleep. I don't think I've seen you here before." He follows her as she guides him forward into the strange white mist that surrounds them. He doesn't know why he didn't notice it before.
There are no more words spoken until they enter the center of the place. He knows it is the center, though their surroundings haven't changed. It's just a feeling of sorts.
"I have…I have something I need to tell you," she says, looking him in the eyes. "It's going to come out really strange, though."
"What?"
"I think…" she pauses, as though to collect herself. She clasps her hands in front of her heart and closes her eyes. "I think I'm in love with you, but none of us remember." For some strange reason, this does not come as a shock.
"Maybe we can make new memories," he says, something inspiring him. For a moment, there's a vision of a painting on the wall: the suites of a card deck, and the scarlet heart bold in one corner.
"You need to find me in the real world. Find all of us in the real world. I think you can make us remember. Memory isn't supposed to be empty." There is a brief quiet. They meet gazes wordlessly as he strives to remember something unnamable.
She screams, and he jumps back. Blood seeps out of her mouth and her eyes, which are now blown wide and rolling, but the blood isn't red, it's olive. She drops to the ground, and it stains the pristine whiteness. He tries to save her but he cannot move. Her blood and tears mingle on her face as cuts open from nothingness all over her skin and the olive just keeps coming without end.
"We're here! You have to help uth!" The face is familiar, the lisp slighter than it should be, but he doesn't know why he knows the voice. "AAAAAAUUUUGH!" The newcomer's face and chest are split open, and yellow joins the green in a sickening mixing of colors.
He screams that he'll save them but he still cannot move, he is rooted to the spot by something that holds him back no matter how much he fights it.
There are more and they keep coming, and colors add to the rainbow one by one. Teal falls from the sky, neck snapped. Blue weeps blood until he is gone. Orange falls with a hole in his stomach, bones and body smashed. They're everywhere and
OH GOD THE BLOOD IS EVERYWHERE
in every color of the rainbow it's covering the ground
PURPLE HAS A CLUB AND HE BLUDGEONS AND THEN HE IS GONE his dark bruise-colored blood is staining the white, blurring with the blue on the edges
OH GOD IT WON'T DISAPPEAR PLEASE MAKE IT GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY
"KARKAT!" someone screams. "KARKAT, YOU HAVE TO THAVE UTH!" the first comer isn't gone yet, his yellow blood leaking across the ground as he stares up in agony.
"Karkat!"
"Karkat!"
"Karkat, save us!"
"KAAARKAAAAAAAT!"
"Karkat!" Karkat jolted awake, his eyes wide and his breathing rough and jagged. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, the visions of blood and death still hovering in front of his vision. Morning light was streaming through his bedroom windows onto his desk, illuminating dust motes floating in the air, as well as the unfinished homework assignment that Karkat hadn't even begun yet.
"Shit, fuck, shit, fuck…" Karkat grabbed the paper and shoved it roughly into his backpack. The clock on his nightstand read 7:33—school had started three minutes ago.
"Karkat, didn't you set your alarm clock?" Jack was standing in the door looking completely crashed. It was a miracle he was even awake, what with the hangover he almost certainly had from the absurd amounts of alcohol he'd imbibed the night before.
"No, because Sollux kept me up until a ridiculous time at night and oh fuck." Karkat clutched his head as a massive headache struck home. It felt like someone had stabbed him right through his left eyeball. "Migraine…"
"Go back to sleep. I'll write a note you were sick or somethin' that you can bring in tomorrow." Jack left the room, and Karkat slumped back down on the desk. He tried to fall back asleep, but all he could think about was his strange, terrifying nightmare.
His mind reeled with images that flashed one by one in front of each other, blindingly fast and sickeningly vivid. There was blood everywhere, blood on his hands as he tried to hold their wounds closed—those people, who were they? He swore he'd seen them before, and yet at the same time he knew nothing about them.
Spoken words echoed through his head. I think I'm in love with you, but none of us remember. Karkat knew the girl who had told him that; he knew he knew her. It was engrained deep within him that he knew who she was, but at the same time—he didn't even know her name. It was right there, on the tip of his tongue, like a taste that he couldn't quite name, a scent he couldn't quite detect, but he didn't know why.
He needed to find the reasons, and he had a vague idea of how and where to start, but Jack was in bed with a nasty hangover and would likely refuse to answer any questions Karkat asked. So he made up his mind to go with the second-best solution.
St. Skaia Cemetery consisted of a sweeping hundred-acre estate, spotted with trees and statues in between the grave sites. A single winding road meandered between knolls and the occasional small pond, connecting a number of smaller footpaths between graves.
Karkat's specific destination was a family plot deep within the cemetery, surrounded by a small copse of trees and adjacent to a small, water lily-adorned pond. He had never been there before, but he knew where the grave was all the same—and now, he had a hunch as to whose laid next to it.
He left the house without telling his father, who wouldn't notice his absence anyways, and began walking, hood up and hands tucked deeply in his pockets. The graveyard was depressingly close to his house, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
The large, cast-iron gates were unlocked as always, and Karkat entered the sanctity and quiet of the cemetery without a single living soul to note his presence.
His feet moved him along robotically down a path he'd looked up on the online map of the place, but his mind was far from Earth.
He could still feel the rainbow blood staining his hands, warm and sticky against his flesh and shining in unnatural, inhuman colors that were somehow still more natural than the hue of Karkat's own blood. Why did the scarlet seem so strange and alien to him now? It was natural—the iron and oxygen in blood react to form a candy-bright hue. It wasn't a crime, the way Karkat's nightmare had made it feel.
I think I'm in love with you. And Karkat had told her they could make new memories, to replace whatever they lost, and in that moment he'd meant it with every piece of his soul.
You have to help us. And Karkat had tried his hardest to save the boy who was bleeding out yellow on the pristine whiteness, but there was nothing he could do. He was rooted to the spot by a force he didn't control.
We didn't ask for this. A new voice rang through Karkat's mind, one that he didn't remember from the dream. It was clear and vivid. We didn't ask to forget.
"I'll help you remember. I'll help you all remember," he whispered aloud to himself and whoever was in his mind listening. "I don't know why, but I know I have to."
Karkat's feet stopped moving. He had reached his destination. He moved towards the white marble gravestone almost on instinct, barely pausing to read the words written there.
Marion Penelope Vantas
"I will love you beyond the end of the universe."
The rest of the inscriptions on the stone were covered by a rosebush that bloomed with elaborate scarlet blossoms. Jack had bought that rosebush when Karkat was born—he'd told his son about it once. Marion had always loved roses, and to this day, a gnarled red rosebush grew outside of the Vantas home.
Karkat stood there and simply stared at the gravestone, not daring to look left at the newest grave and the name that he knew had to be written there, but his eyes were drawn towards it.
The stone was simple granite, grey flecked with specks of scarlet. Kankri James Vantas.
"He was a good boy," said a strange voice. Karkat jumped and whirled, startled.
The newcomer was a tall, slender woman with skin the color of coffee with cream. Elegantly styled black hair cascaded to just above her waist, framing her smooth, oval face, and she was dressed in an elegant black-and-green gown. She must have been at least in her forties, judging by the few streaks of silver that began to form in her hair, but otherwise her appearance was ageless. She was beautiful, in the sort of way that a statue is beautiful: solemn and unmoving. Slanted eyes glinted in Karkat's direction, eyes that were the pale blue color of ice.
"Who are you?"
"No one of consequence," replied the woman, gliding towards Kankri's grave. She rested a gloved hand upon the granite stone, the other reaching into a pocket to retrieve a cigarette in a black-as-night holder. She lit the cigarette, and a plume of lazy grey smoke spiraled into the air. She inhaled deeply.
"I had been hoping for a name."
"You may call me Snowman."
"That is one weird as fuck name," Karkat replied, backing away from the stranger. She smiled at him, exhaling a ring of smoke. "I'm serious, who the fuck are you?"
"As I said, I am no one of consequence. I merely came here to honor the memory of someone I once knew." Snowman pulled from nowhere a pure-white rose, twirling it in her fingers before laying it gently in front of Kankri's grave. "White, the color of innocence. He would've been very set off by that." She smiled. "I secretly think he enjoyed being offended."
"Who are you? And how did you know my brother?" Snowman merely took a draw of her cigarette, blowing a smoke ring into the morning air.
"He was…an acquaintance of mine. So you are his brother. I should have figured, the Vantas genes ran strong in both of you." Snowman only smiled once again when Karkat exclaimed verbally from frustration.
"Who are you? Quit being such a cryptic smart-ass and give me a fucking answer!"
"My identity is irrelevant to this discussion. I simply knew Kankri when he was a child. Your father used to be a…well, I wouldn't call him a friend of mine," Snowman stated smoothly between draws of her cigarette, "but we certainly knew each other. You come from a very unique family." Snowman moved gracefully from Kankri's graveside to stand with perfect poise behind the gravestone, deeper into the Vantas family plot. "I bear a particular interest in a certain genetic…oddity that appears rather frequently in your family line."
"What genetic oddity?" Snowman laughed coldly.
"Oh, there are a lot. Those eyes, for one—red eyes aren't natural in any humans who aren't suffering from albinism. Your hair alone is proof enough that you're anything but. The men and women of the Vantas family also seem to be mostly immune to heart disease. There is no record of any such affliction occurring within your known family tree." Snowman paused for a moment, blowing a smoke ring as though to increase the dramatic tension. "Oh—and then there are the superpowers." Karkat was so stunned that for a minute he lost the ability to reply.
"Superpo—what superpowers? I've never heard of any superpowers…"
"Says the child most likely to inherit the Vantas family title," replied Snowman smoothly. "Whether you are aware of it or not—and you most likely are not—you are to become the next Blood Knight. Are you prepared to accept that mantle?" Snowman smiled cryptically.
"Fuck you and everything you stand for. I'm leaving." The gate to the Vantas plot swung suddenly shut despite the absence of a breeze.
"Please, do me the favor of hearing me out. Leaving a discussion for no good reason is hardly a stellar example of etiquette." Snowman's words were like silk: they wove together and found their way into Karkat's mind, and he found himself rooted to the spot.
Remember. But he couldn't! Remember. Remember what?
"Please, follow me." Snowman beckoned with a single finger and Karkat found himself forced to comply.
Knight of Blood, remember. Please. Karkat shook his head thoroughly, trying to chase out the words springing unbidden to the top of his mind. It was insomnia, was all; lack of sleep and a still-lingering headache mingling with Snowman's horseshit.
"Look." Snowman and Karkat had reached the opposite end of the small, glassy-smooth pond in the Vantas burial plot.
This was one of the oldest parts of the graveyard, where Vantases had been buried since before the colonists ever reached America (yeah, Karkat had some Native American in him. Don't look so surprised). The graves here, where there were gravestones, were old and crumbling, the lettering barely legible. Snowman traced the lines of one with a gloved fingertip. The only part legible was a surname: Vantas.
"These are your ancestors, Karkat Vantas. You are destined to follow in their footsteps as Kankri never was. Your powers have awakened, but the things you've done—self-healing, the transformation—those are only the beginning." Suddenly, Karkat felt Snowman's grip on him fade, and he was able to move again.
"What the actual FUCK?" he practically screamed, frothing with rage. "WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM? YOU'RE A GODDAMNED LUNATIC!" Snowman smiled, the same smile she'd been wearing the entire time—her lips just barely turned up at the edges in what almost now seemed like a condescending smirk.
"I'm not the one who's hallucinating right now, though."
With those words, Snowman simply…ceased being where she was. There was no trace of her presence.
Shaking slightly, Karkat returned to the site of his mother's grave. The only sign that anything had happened was the white rose on Kankri's gravestone, and the faint scent of cigarette smoke on the air.
"Holy shit. Holy fucking shit." Karkat was fucking sick of bizarre hero bullshit. Was this a typical start to one's high school career? He didn't think so. The superhero part was definitely out of the ordinary.
He looked at the back of his hand. Though it was smeared, Sollux's number was still legible, written in black pen. On an impulse, he dialed, despite knowing perfectly well that his fellow hero would still be in school.
To his surprise, Sollux answered on the second ring.
"Who ith thith?"
"Karkat."
"Where are you? You didn't thend in a note or anything, it wath weird."
"You kept me up until 11:30 at night. I fell asleep and woke up after school had already started with a raging migraine, so Jack let me stay home. Why the fuck did you even pick up the phone, you idiot? Aren't you supposed to be at school?"
"KK, it'th thecond period. I have Graphic Communicationth, otherwithe known ath the clath my dad teacheth that I already know by heart but thtill have to take or elthe the thchool thythtem won't let me into the more advanthed clatheth. It'th Foundationth of Tech thanth the clathwork, and did I mention my dad teacheth it? He letth me get away with whatever I want ath long ath I'm not too obviouth about it."
"Wait, so that Captor dude who teaches Foundations actually is your dad?" Karkat was somewhat startled by this revelation.
"Duh. Now, I'm athuming you have a good reathon for calling me in the middle of thecond period?" Sollux's voice is dripping sarcasm.
"I just visited my brother's grave and I met this really creepy woman who knew my family and she knew who I was and I don't know how."
"Wait, what?"
"She said her name was Snowman—it was weird as fuck, what kind of name is that supposed to be? And she started talking about my brother, some bullshit or other—and she knew about my powers." Karkat looked surreptitiously around to make sure he was alone. "She said she was interested in the family mutation, and she said outright that she knew I had superpowers. And she said something else—that I was the next 'Blood Knight,' whatever the fuck that means." Karkat left the graveyard in a hurry, keeping his shoulders hunched and face hidden. "You're the you-know-what, do you know what a blood knight is?"
"We can't talk about thith over the phone. Jutht be careful, okay? I'll have to do thome rethearch, I know I've heard that title before but I don't know where. Don't worry about it for now—but if you thee that woman again, run like fuck and don't look back. She can't be good newth…Oh, thit. Lithen, I have to go. Dethpite my free rein over thith clathroom, there'th an adminithtrator coming and he won't take kindly to my openly ecthpothed thell phone. I'll talk to you later." With that, Sollux hung up.
"Fuck you very much." Karkat began making his way back to the house, trying to pretend like nothing had happened, but it kept resurfacing. His eyelids felt like lead. Yeah, he should've just gone back to sleep.
Why did his life have to be so confusing? On his very first day of school, he'd been attacked by a full horde of supervillains and heroes before getting out early. On his second day of school, he'd flipped his shit in the middle of Physics and had to leave class. Today should've been his third day, but he'd skipped already and had instead spent the morning being cornered by a woman who refused to give her real name.
He just wanted to have one normal day of school. Was that too much to ask?
A/N: Short chapter is short. I'm sorry this is so weird and confusing. Watch as I goof around with my descriptive writing style which is finally finding its way into this fic. Finally. Everything is being badly explained because I have too much homework and I'm staying up way too late at night; I didn't have time to proofread or edit this so hopefully it's coherent enough to do its job. I need an Advil. The dream sequence is supposed to be baffling; I wrote it that way on purpose. I'll elaborate on that more in the next chapter. Which might also be delayed. I have a massive homework assignment to do this weekend because AP classes are AP classes, and I only have one page of this written in advance. I PROMISE I WILL GO BACK AND EDIT THIS. Eventually.