What now! update in under a week! Now to go update everything else...
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Inspired by assuylumstucks on tumblr! A lot of my own ideas, but I got the general idea from there!
Love you all!
~Josie
Your name is Carlson Vantas and you have been interning at Maple Wood psychiatric hospital for three months. A fourth of the ways through it and you have learned to expect some thing new everyday. Honestly you never wanted to work in a mental hospital and you probably never will, but for some reason your school inter program stuck you here. You would quit if you could, but getting accepted into medical school isn't some thing everyone has a chance at. You got that chance and you promised yourself you would seize it. Even if it does mean putting up with Teresa Pyrope every day.
You take a deep breath as you walk into the hospital for yet another day for work. Your day starts every morning at four o'clock. You not really a morning person and it tends to take you over an hour to get up each morning. This particular morning you have stumbled into work at six o'clock, just on time. You as the intern got the wonderful duty of doing morning and night rounds. Meaning you work from six to nine, go to school, come back at eight and work till eleven, only to go home a pond do homework. You have been counting down the days till this is all over since day one.
You pick up your clipboard and papers and head off to do your rounds. The first few patients are much like you, not morning people. You don't talk, just wake them up and give them their morning pills and head off. Then there's the room you always hesitate to enter, Teresa Pyrope. The moment you twist the handle and open the creeping door, her head snaps from silently staring out the window to greeting you with a bright smile.
She greets you with that weird name and starts talking away as if she's been up for hours. No one should be this joyful this early in the morning. You hand her the pills and there is a much needed moment of silence as she swallows them. She hands the cup back to you and starts talking again. You don't listen most the time and she knows it, but you're probably the only one who doesn't tell her to shut up right away.
You sit down on her bed and can't resist the urge to lay back. You had an essay to write the previous night leaving with absolutely no time to sleep. You gave yourself the luxury of a half hour shower this morning before going to get coffee, then strait to work. You don't know how you're going to stay awake in your classes though. You feel you head hit the soft mattress and you let your eyes flutter close for just a minute.
You're so out of it; it takes you a moment to realize the obnoxious stream of words that constantly flows out of her mouth has come to an abrupt stop. You then feel a finger poking at your cheek. You groan, but don't have the energy to swat her finger away.
"Are you okay?" she giggles after you make no effort to stop her poking.
"Fucking tired," is all you can mumble.
"Rock a bye Karkat, in the tree top, when the wind blows-"
"Fuck you," you mumble as you finally get the energy to swat her away and her singing is interrupted by her giggling. "God you're annoying."
"If I'm annoying, then get off my bed," she challenges.
"Nope."
"Fine," she giggles, "Then I'll tell you all about my dreams!"
You groan knowing she'll go through with that threat.
"Hmm? What was that? I think that sounded like a 'yes Terezi tell me all about your dreams!' Sure Karkat! I would love to tell you about my dreams last night!"
You groan again, but she just giggles and continues on, "Well lucky for you, you were there with whole bunch friends! We were playing the game as usual and you were commanding every body to do ridiculous thing like stay awake, no matter how tired we were! It was unfair because you had just woken up from a nice long nap and I was actually starting to get a little sleepy, but nope! No sleeping! I bet you had a bad dream or something." she pauses accusingly and you grunt.
"I would rather have a bad dream than go days without sleep."
"Didn't seem like it to me," she mumbles, "Anyway, while you were off telling everybody not to sleep for some unexplained reason, I went back to trolling the humans."
"Wait. There are humans in your little world?" you stop her to ask.
"Yep!"
"Huh. So wait, am I a human or a...?"
"Oh, you, me, and all our friends are Trolls!" she explains excitedly. "We look a lot like humans, but we have grey skin, sharp claws, fangs, and of course, horns!"
You nod, "So I've heard." This isn't the first time she has rambled about her dreams, but it is probably the first time you've actually listened. It's not as creepy as you thought. It's just like an elaborate fan fiction of some sort. If she's been in here for years it would be natural to make up some fake reality to live in, right?
"Do you ever dream?"
"Huh?" The question knocks you off guard. Why does she want to know if you dream? Your dreams are so run of the mill boring that you don't even bother to remember them after waking.
"Do you ever have dreams?" She repeats.
"Well ya, but I don't remember a damn thing about them after waking up."
"Hmm, you should try harder to remember." She pokes your head again for good measure.
"I'd rather not." You finally open your eyes and swat her away again.
"But dreams are so much fun!"
"What ever you say," you mumble as you sit up.
"You can learn so much about yourself by your dreams! It's really cool!" she starts to ramble again as you get off the bed. It's not until you have all your supplies gathered and are ready to walk out of her room when she stops talking. "Wait! You're leaving all ready?!"
"Yes. I have this thing called work."
"Just a little bit longer?" She pleads.
"No."
"Please! It's so boring being alone!"
"Just do what you normally do when I'm not here. Some how you have managed to survive this long, I'm sure you can go another fourteen hours without my presence."
"Smart ass."
"What ever." You walk out as she keeps pouting on her bed.
After a long day of no sleep you make it back to the hospital only to snap the head off of every person who crosses your path. Much like the mornings everyone is tired and let's you pass without trying to strike up a conversation, everybody but Teresa.
"How was your day?"
"Great."
"That didn't sound sincere."
"Leave me the fuck alone."
"Somebody's in a grumpy mood."
You stop what you're doing and glare at her, "Just shut the fuck up, and let me do my job. All you do all day is just spout nonsense that nobody cares about. You don't even want to get me started on why I am not in the mood for your constant bullshit right now. Okay? Be a good patient and just sit there like you're supposed to, god damn it!"
She flinches at your loud growl and stops talking. You're too tired to feel bad, but it just seems odd for the room to be quiet. Looking back over you see she has turn head away from you and is staring out the window. She can't even see out it. Why does she always do that? You take a deep breath telling yourself not to open your mouth again and walk out the door, only to find Kanaya leaning against the wall of the dimly lit hall waiting for you.
"She seemed unusually quite tonight." your fellow intern starts.
"I know you heard me." you state walking past her.
"To be honest, I think the whole hallway heard you," she smirks and starts to follow you down the hallway to the staff room.
"And yet you talk to me. Want your head bitten off too?"
"It's not the smartest idea to yell at the patients."
"You don't think I fucking know that?" you snap.
"I am just simply reminding you." she keeps her tone mellow in an attempt to calm you down.
"Ya, whatever, just let me go home and sleep."
"I have a feeling your lack of sleep isn't the only thing bothering you."
You let out a frustrated sigh as you pull your coat on to your shoulders. You've known Kanaya for years. She's the one who encouraged you to go into the medical field with her. She was always ambitious to go into the medical department. Her real goal is working in the maturity ward, but she got stuck here with you instead. She doesn't seem to mind it as much as you do though. She really is ambitious to reach her goal and won't let anything get in her way.
Your dad always liked her because of that. He never got why you didn't ask her out in high school. He kept pestering you about it until eventually you had to crush his hopes of her ever being his daughter-in-law by telling him she already had a girlfriend. Even so you don't think you could ever date Kanaya. She's too much like a sister. She doesn't need to ask to know something is wrong.
Grabbing your bag you turn to her. She already has her coat on and bag slung over her shoulder. She waits for you to walk out the door, and then she follows in suit. Once you have reached the quiet street, you take a breath of the brisk night air and tell Kanaya what she's been waiting for.
"My check bounced today."
She quiet for a moment before she asks, "How much?"
"Five hundred. For text books and shit."
"How much of your inheritance have you used?"
"Not a cent." you keep looking strait ahead as you hear her palm connect with her forehead. "I don't fucking care what you say, I'm not going to use it."
"Please, do me the favor of reminding me exactly how much money you are refusing to use."
"Seven hundred, eighty two thousand, five hundred ninety six dollars, and seventy two cents."
"You checked it today?"
"Fucking stared at it my whole brake." you let your head lull back as you keep walking and think of that number. One big number.
"Why are you torturing yourself like this? Do you understand how much seven hundred grand is? You wouldn't have had to take out any student loans if you would just use the money!" she hits up upside the head and you turn to look at her serious expression. "Carlson, you are now in debt with loans to pay. Do yourself a favor and use the money. He gave it to you for a reason, he believed in you. He would be so proud that you have made it so far."
You're back to looking strait forward again as you can't stand to look at her watering eyes. "I can make it through my own god damn life without the fucking financial support of others. Everyone else has done it, so can I. I'm going to do it right. I'm not going to be a fucking failure this time."
"You're not a failure if you become successful."
"And what if I don't become successful?"
"Carlson!" she grabs your arm and pulls you a stop. "Stop making your life difficult. Do what is best for you and try to be a little optimistic?"
"I'm not making things difficult, that's just the way they are," you shoot back and yank your arm away. "Oh," you say over your shoulder as you turn the corner where your paths split, "And I'm so fucking optimistic, you wouldn't believe it. You're the one telling me I can't make it on my own!"
She doesn't respond as you walk away. She knows she's right. She knows you know she right, but that doesn't mean you're going to listen.
You drag your self into your apartment, five flights of stairs up, and barely make it to the bed before you collapse, let alone take off your coat or shoes. You have homework to do and things to worry about, but for once you let yourself forget and close your eyes. You don't even turn on your alarm; you'll take a sick day to make a plan. One day of breath before you dive right back into the cold world. One day.
Where are you? There's noise, lots of noise. Your eye flutter open and you find yourself blinded by the bright lights. Slowly your eyes adjust and you observe your surroundings. More like you observe the chaos around you. Screams. Lots of screams. The golden buildings are burning and the air smells of blood.
Sitting up you realize you're dressed in golden pajamas. The next thing you realize is that you have no clue who you are. But you know who they are. Your friends. And her, she's someone important. She's dressed in similar golden pajamas. For some reason her pointed candy corn horns don't surprise you. They sit atop her curled black hair that whips back and forth as she turns her head looking for somebody. Or smelling for somebody, you correct yourself because suddenly you remember that she's blind. Her worried expression changes as her black lips part to form a wide smile as she notices you. She takes a starts to run towards you.
"Kar-!"
The second part of the word is stopped by the sword the plunges through her chest.
As her blood splatters, a foreign young voice cries out inside you and passes through your lips, "Terezi!"
Her body falls limp as her murder withdraws his sword. You feel your heart pounding in your chest as you tear you eyes away from her corpse to meet the eyes of the murder who is slowly walking towards you. He looks familiar, yet he's a stranger. He seems to have a body of a man, walking on two feet, but a head of a dog, and wings of a large bird. He wields a sword that is dripping in multiple colors. Some how you know it's all blood. The fresh teal is the most revolting as you sneak a quick glance at the girls' corpse.
Your vision is blurred with a red liquid that soon escapes your eyes and streams down your cheeks as you look back at the murder who is now just mere feet in front of you. Your eyes drift from him to his sword again. This time you see more than just blood. You see yourself. Your reflection. Again the question arises in your mind. Who am I? Why don't I remember?
Closing your eyes you listen to your pounding heart and heaving lungs work faster than they should in one second. Opening your eyes again in that same second you see your reflection again. This time though, you are staring into the red eyes of a mutant. He has grey skin and small, nubby, candy corn horns. Tears have streaked his face and he swears he will never let them sleep again. He just wanted to be a leader and a friend who they could trust. And now he's going to die.
Your name is Karkat Vantas and you remember every thing as the sword slices through your flesh.
