Well, this chapter turned out shorter than the rest, but I always plan around a story rather than the word count. It's slow going so far, but I think it's all coming together smoothly. Maybe.
Either way, I hope you all enjoy the chapter and that you have a nice day!
The morning felt quite a bit calmer. Admittedly, there wasn't any explosions like yesterday, so maybe Karkat had lower standards when it comes to deeming something calm.
As Vantas moved downstairs slowly, rubbing the sleep away from his eyes, he couldn't but feel a little relief as he heard his father in the kitchen, singing off kilter to some old song. Least if he isn't in the lab, nothing explodes.
Except maybe the oven. But he hadn't done that in months.
"The lab…" Karkat couldn't help but think over the dream. How much of that did he actually dream up? Everything up until he got home checked out. Hell, maybe up to the initial test was true, but then his dad wouldn't be in a good enough mood to sing while making breakfast.
Fuck it, he was too tired to think it through right now. He smelled pancakes.
"Hey Dad?" He asked his father, mumbling as he moved into the dining room. "What's the occasion? You usually don't make pancakes."
"We're celebrating the breakthrough of the century, kid! My life's work finally coming to fruition!" Spades was laughing maniacally as he plopped a plate full of pancakes down in front his son. Karkat couldn't help but be alarmed as he barely laughed like that.
"Is that so?" The teen picked up the syrup and put a generous portion onto the plate, keeping an eye on his father. "Anything you'd like to share about it? I'd like to know what to expect later."
"What are you talking about, kid? You and your friends were the ones that fixed the damn thing."
Karkat was in the middle of a bringing a bite to his lips before hearing Spades say that. "What?" He asked carefully, his eyes shrinking to pinpricks.
"Y'know, the portal? The thing I've been working on since I brought you home?" Spades laughed as he went into the kitchen again, adding pancakes to a plate for himself. "Still don't know what exactly you three did down there to fix it, but you'll be in all the science papers for it. Next to me of course."
Karkat slowly let the fork down back onto his plate shakily, a blank look on his face as he ran through the events of yesterday again in his head. "Is that so?"
A part of him was screaming to him that his father must've been making it up. He finally snapped and thought it worked, right? I mean, a ghost portal? If that was true, how much else of that evening was real. No way in hell he walked into that portal. That would be stupid, right? He was smarter than that, even when it came to trying to make his dad happy. His friends would've gotten him out if he happened to get stuck too.
It was probably nothing. Maybe it really did turn on and his mind came up with something more insane to make this reality easier to accept. That had to be it.
Of course it was.
"Hey, you alright kid?"
Karkat snapped out of his thoughts as his dad, literally, snapped his fingers in front of his face. Spades continued, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Ya' sick or something? You've been acting a little off. I'll call the school if you ain't feeling well."
"No." The sudden denial came as a surprise to both of them, but Karkat continued despite himself. "I just- I think the reality of the situation is finally setting in."
Spades raised an eyebrow. "The hell are you talkin' about?"
"I mean," Karkat put his hands out in front of him, grasping them. "The portal is open, Dad. Open. I'm really happy about it- fucking ecstatic, really- I just thought..." He gulped as he desperately grasped for another thing to say. "I thought it was a dream."
Despite expecting some confusion, Karkat was relieved to see his dad laugh and nod, cutting into his pancakes. "God, I know how that feels. Didn't believe it myself when I got up either until I heard it purring downstairs. Wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't looking for it!"
Red eyes moved to the basement door instinctively, ears straining to catch any unusual noises. It didn't take him long to catch the sound of constant, pervasive hum coming from the basement. It certainly wasn't earth shattering or even annoying, but it probably would've been if he went down there. It was easy to get lost into, causing him to ignore the sound of his father talking about dampening it.
It was… gentle. But somehow ominous.
"So that's what that sound was." Karkat listened to it a little longer, before taking a deep sigh and giving a shaky smile to his dad. "You did a great job, Dad. I'm proud of you."
Spades snorted. "Keep the speeches for later for when I get my Peace Prize, kid." Despite the dismissal, the teen could've sworn he saw some tears in his eyes. Probably a trick of the light. "Eat your pancakes before they get cold."
Didn't have to tell him twice. Maybe some food will make some sense of things. Picking up the fork and plunging it into the fluffy prize, he put a good-sized bite into his mouth, chewing slowly. The syrup certainly tasted delicious and the butter was actually melting instead of just frozen. Best batch of pancakes he's had in a very long time.
It certainly tasted real, he thought to himself. Unlike that stupid dream. When he was floating and ethereal, had glowing eyes with no pupils, feeling like if he floated upwards into the ceiling, he'd simply go through it, like he wasn't even-
CLANG
Karkat jumped as the fork hit the plate, confused blinking as he watched it sit there. Weird, wasn't he holding that a second ago? He must've dropped it while his mind was gone. God, was he going to feel weird like this all day?
The hum of the portal was the only answer.
The ride to school was fairly uneventful if he said so himself. He made sure to keep eye contact to a minimum and making a conscious effort not to say a word, which he kept going with as he moved into the school.
He wondered if he should tell someone about the ghost portal being open before shutting that line of thought down completely. Like anyone would believe him. Besides, if anything, he should save the gloating for his dad whenever he decides to get moving on the reveal and let them all find out the hard way. Then he'd rub it in.
Of course, this meant talking to two particular people so they wouldn't blab about it.
Aradia and Sollux were, predictably, not far from their lockers. Karkat mentally noted as they seemed to chat relentlessly that Captor had bags under his eyes that were weighing them down. He looked like he was ready to fall asleep standing up. He could only see Aradia's back, but her usual aura of energy seemed diminished as she was slouching as much as the boy in front of her.
"I don't know what the fuck happened to you guys, but you look like shit." The red-eyed boy moved towards his friends, raising an eyebrow as they jumped. "You weren't playing video games all night again, right? I told you that shit was unhealthy."
"What?" Sollux said oh so intelligently. He blinked a few times before getting indignant. "I look like shit? Dude, why the fuck don't you?"
Karkat rolled his eyes, putting in the combination to his locker. "Because I didn't play video games all night, like a normal person." He spared a glance to Aradia. "And I'm guessing you were scrolling through cryptid websites again, Megido?"
"Fair guess, but not today." She rubbed at her eyes, frowning at the dismissal. "And I think we both know what he was talking about, Karkat."
He narrowed his eyes, feeling his face twist into a scowl. Shit, he messed up on the combination. Try again.
"Not sure what you're gettin' at, Aradia. Might want to be a little more specific." His voice was tense, moving the lock slower as he attempted to get the thing right.
"The portal, KK. You know, the thing that turned on last night?"
Karkat's hand slipped yet again, moving to too high of a number. He growled lightly. "Yeah, about that. Mind keeping that a secret until my dad pulls it out at some scientific conference. I mean, not like anyone is going to believe us and all, but just to play it safe."
"That's what you're worried about?" Aradia looked incredulous, setting him on edge. "I mean- wait, do you still think last night was a dream?"
The red-eyed teen fucked up the combination for the third time, punched the locker in frustration. He turned to them, irritation visible on his face. "Look, maybe the sight of the portal threw us off, but at least I'm being realistic here. Nothing. Else. Happened. That night."
"Bullshit." Sollux said. Ah great, the lisp was slipping in, Karkat thought. He was getting serious. Poking his finger into the chest too. Very serious. "Look, I don't know what the hell it is you're on, but you need to get over it right now. I don't know if you've gotten this in your head about what happened back there but let me summarize it. You went into the portal-"
"SHUT IT!"
Sollux blinked and took a step back into Aradia, who tensed up immediately. Karkat barely noticed, eyes glowing red as he snarled at the two in frustration.
"We are done talking about this." He commanded, voice warbling, changing as he glared at them. The light flickered above them, like it was ready to blow a fuse. "Is that clear?"
"Yeah." To Aradia's shame, it came out shaky and scared. "Loud and clear."
"…Good." Karkat turned back to his locker and quickly entered the combination, moving the books around. Finally gathering up everything for the next class, he took a quick look up at the flickering light. "Fucking faulty wiring."
Stomping away and feeling if a little exhausted, he left his two friends behind them ignoring their stares on back. The lights eventually stopped flickering as he stalked off.
He sighed. It was shaping up to be a lousy day.
So far, several periods in, Karkat's prediction had unsurprisingly come true.
He fought down the urge to glare at his friends as he felt their weird looks on him all day whenever they shared a class, along with feeling a bit guilty for his little outburst. He knew he shouldn't have yelled at them, even if they were talking crazy.
You went into the portal-
He shook his head, keeping it down as he moved into the library. He wasn't going to bother thinking about this right now. It was free period and he didn't have any homework, why bother thinking about some stupid crap his friends were trying to pull.
Karkat moved behind some bookshelves, heading into a little alcove where few other kids ventured. A solitary couch, old but fairly unused, sat in a little corner of the Casper's High meager library. It was probably filled with mothballs, with the blanket hanging off one of the armrests having been there since the school's inception. He was sure the librarians forgot about this place, if the outdated books on the shelves were an indicator.
The teen sighed, laying on the couch with soft thump. It was sanctuary.
He numbly thought about how he and his friends had found this place and usually hung out there if they all had a free period. This year had been an unlucky one, with all of them having their free periods spread out. It made the place just a little emptier, especially as he thought over their last conversation.
"Jesus Christ." Karkat mumbled, grabbing the blanket and pulling it over himself. "Great fucking job, past Karkat. Look at what you got me into."
Still, he thought. They were talking crazy. Nothing happened when the portal turned on. Maybe it caught them by surprise, but...
You aren't dead.
Exactly. The teen huffed, pulling the blanket over him even tighter as he thought over last night. There was no way he was dead. He felt his heart beat faster when gym started. He felt himself breath harder after the teacher had made them run laps around the track. Hell, he felt pain after that idiot hit him with a basketball during break. The place where the ball made impact ached still.
"Screw it." He opened his backpack, grabbing a comic book he kept for emergency bouts of boredom. It was a rough day and some mindless, comic book violence would distract him. He'll think of a way to apologize later.
Reading over the pages and letting his mind take in the various colors, the panels kept him occupied. The story could be boring sometimes, but the romance parts were good. At least, when they actually got to those. The action scenes were cool too.
Karkat couldn't help but feel his eyes land on a particular panel. The hero (he didn't bother remembering his name) was jumping off a building headfirst, eventually moving forward and flying in the air. The wind was going through his hair, the smile on his face wide and inviting. He looked overjoyed.
It was a weirdly serene moment. The guy was just floating in thin air, going out on patrol without a care in the world. Not a single problem at all, like this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
It was... enviable.
Karkat wondered how that felt. It was probably easy to replicate through sky diving or hang gliding, but probably you wouldn't be able to just float though. To be weightless. To feel like nothing, literally and figuratively, could hold you down. I would be nice to feel like that sometimes.
When he blinked his eyes and looked up finally, with face almost meeting the ceiling, he realized that maybe it wasn't as fun he thought it was.
"The fuck-?!" Karkat dropped the comic book as he kicked at the ceiling, sending him downwards. However, instead of falling to the floor and possibly injuring himself, he only stopped in mid-air, too far from the ceiling or floor. He flailed, twisting and turning relentlessly uselessly.
"Let me down, let me down, let me down, let me down." He continued the mantra as he moved about, trying to find something to hold on to. He looked at the bookshelf closest to him and reached out with a hand, stretching it out as far as he could go. Reach it, reach it, just reach...
And like he shot out of a cannon, Karkat moved towards it with unprecedented speed, hitting the books face first. The teen fell to the ground instantly, clutching his face and groaning loudly. He rolled on the ground for a couple seconds before taking his hands slowly off, breathing heavily. He looked at the space he previously occupied with wide eyes, slowly moving to get up by using the shelves behind him.
Trying to steady his breathing and his frantic heartbeat, he grabbed the comic book and stuffed it into his bag. He got up, keeping his eyes on the couch all the while, and inched away from the alcove little by little.
When he was able to get away far enough, Karkat turned and ran from the sanctuary, clutching his bag to him like a lifeline. His thoughts jumbled through his head, one after another, attempting to string them along into a coherent. He could hear the bell ring, but only dimly, barely registering it.
He had to find Sollux and Aradia.
"Look, he's been pretty stressed out about this, of course he doesn't want to talk about it."
"Doesn't mean he has to yell at us, AA!"
"We just need to give him a little time. He's probably feeling a guilty for yelling at us anyway."
"Still!"
Aradia and Sollux went back forth at the lunch table, the teens still reeling from earlier. Sollux wasn't exactly looking to forgive at the moment, made apparent as he clacked furiously away at his laptop. He wasn't really working on a specific code right now, but it was starting to look like one of his signature viruses. Maybe he'd try to make Karkat's computer explode today? He'd certainly gotten it to start smoking before due to overheating.
Aradia was attempting to calm him down before said computer would suffer for the actions of its master. "Just put away the computer before you do something you'll regret." She said, reaching for the laptop slowly before it was snatched away by the grumpy technophile. She groaned and put her head in her hands. "God, you boys are so emotional." She'd been trying to hold it together, but it was hard to do that when you were friends with the orneriest people in the universe.
"It's not my fault he doesn't want to accept what happened last night." Captor said dismissively, sighing as he slowed the clicking of the keyboard.
"Do you even know what happened last night?" Aradia snapped, wincing at the frustrated tone in her voice. She saw her friends frown deepen, a scowl settling in.
"Maybe," His voice came out weak, causing him to clear his throat to save face. "Maybe I can know what happened if he man's up and talks about it."
It wasn't a bad justification, Megido thought to herself. She certainly wanted clarification of whatever the hell was going on, but they weren't going to get anything through petty revenge. "He will. We just have to give him time, okay? He's deep in denial and won't talk about it until he's ready." She tried to give a comforting smile as she grabbed one of his hands. "Let's just go slow and I'm sure he'll come to."
Sollux tensed up at the physical contact but eased up not long after. He let out a sigh, trying to ignore the feeling of Aradia stroking his hand with her fingers. She had a point. But Karkat refused to talk about his problems until he couldn't push them off anymore. How long would it take for him to talk about whatever this was?
With a loud thump and sound of heavy breathing interrupting the calm moment seconds later, the answer was apparently not long.
Startled, the two separated at the sight of their sweating, out of breath friend standing in front of them. When Aradia opened up her mouth to ask just what the hell was happening, Karkat raised a finger up to stop her as he attempted to fill his lungs.
"Okay!" He said suddenly, moving into the seat in front of them clumsily. A manic smile on his face and a crazed look in his eyes, he looked at his friends and blinked slowly. "Am I interrupting something here?"
"No!" Aradia said suddenly, smiling nervously as the red-eyed teen turned his head lazily to her. "We weren't talking about you! Well, we were, but-"
"AA," Sollux interrupted, hand moving in front of her to stop her rambling. "I was planning on sending a few viruses to your computer. You want the one that sets all your fonts wrong, the one that moves every file around to the wrong place, or the one that'll publish your search history on your social media accounts."
"Surprise me." The other boy didn't seem to register the threat and looked out between the two. The frantic look remained as he quirked his lips into a strained smile. "Can we talk about last night? I just want to confirm some shit with you guys."
Aradia blinked at the sudden change in subjects and nodded before she could think through her response. "Uh, sure." He was usually more stubborn when he didn't want to do something, which made this very, very serious if he was willing to do it so quickly.
"I'm not dead, right?"
The question hit them like wave, dragging the table into silence. The two looked at him for a long moment, took a quick glance at each other. Sollux licked his lips, gulping. "What?"
"Am I dead or not?" Karkat said plainly, though his smile was turning into a more neutral expression. "Simple question. I'm pretty sure you guys are able to clarify."
"Wouldn't you know that?" Aradia felt the question tumble out of her mouth, feeling regret surge as the neutral expression quickly turned to outright frustration.
"Because the dead don't have heartbeats, and the living can't fucking fly." The anger was apparent and the change to the echo was obvious, causing his friends to shiver.
"Look," Sollux he said, attempting to placate him. "Let's be calm about this, okay. Quit it with the scary voice and please, for the love of god, explain what the hell you're talking about."
"What scary voice?" Karkat said, leaning back. He shook his head and moved forward. "It's- I was just at our spot in the library and-"
"Vantas!"
The teen in question looked around before noticing Trizza Tethis, in all her bitchy pink glory, stalking towards them with a purpose. "Come on, not now." He stressed, putting his head in his hands while groaning.
Aradia instantly stood up and got in her line of sight, joined quickly by Sollux. Neither of them really wanted to deal with this either and Karkat looked way too stressed to be dealing with this right now.
"The hell do you want, Tethis? We're having a conversation, here." Aradia cocked her hip and glared at the girl in question. "We don't really have time for bullshit, so move along."
"What she said." Sollux let up a smirk, though he was wishing just as much that she would fuck off right now. "Besides, your phone is fried, so any video you had from yesterday is gone. Sorry about that, by the way."
"Not what I wanted to talk about, Lisp." Trizza stated, earning narrowed eyes from the two. "I want to know why his father is sticking flyers everywhere about some unveiling shit. He put ten of them on my new car!" She waved a set of flyers in her hand, which the two could tell from a distance was something Spades had printed out last minute. "I don't know what he's got planned for this, but he better not knock out power for the city again."
Aradia and Sollux could hear Karkat mutter quietly behind them, seeing him try to hide into himself out of the corner of their eyes. "It's another invention. That isn't really new." Aradia attempted to look bored and checked her nails. "If anything, you should be happy that he isn't messing with it and knocking the power grid out right now. You'll be prepared if it happens later."
"You can get a manicure or swim in your money pit later anyway." Sollux let out a derisive laugh.
"First of all, I was getting a pedicure last time he knocked out the power." Tethis rolled her eyes, settling to stand in front of them. She turned her glare full on to. "Secondly, I care about my appearance more than I care for whatever stupid bullshit your creepy crew are doing."
As the argument took a turn for the worse, Karkat tried to calm the growing headache, muttering random things under his breath. Mantras he learned in anger management, random math formula's he learned in Calculus, scientific crap his dad ranted about when he was working on a new invention, anything that would cause the noise in his head to cease.
God, what was her problem? He had enough to deal with right now without hearing her voice complaining about whatever his dad was doing. He really wished he was anywhere but here. Just leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone-
"Fuck this!" Trizza moved forward, getting tired of the conversation quickly. She shoved to the two aside, already getting started on a tirade. "Vantas, you tell your dad not- where the fuck did he go?!"
Captor and Megido looked back, noticing their friend was missing. They looked at each other, alarmed, before looking around them to find out which way he went. They couldn't find him anywhere. Not even a little hint of where he could have gone.
"How- How the fuck?!" Trizza stomped and growled. She turned to the others, pointing at her eyes and back to them. "I'll be watching you assholes. When I see Vantas, I swear..." She didn't even bother to finish, moving to the doors of the lunchroom. Vague threats and mutterings of better things she could do with her time followed her departure as he slipped through the doors and moved out of view.
The teens looked at each other in confusion. "You think Karkat's learned some magic tricks before last night?" Sollux joked desperately, receiving a punch in the arm in response. His eyes were moving all across the cafeteria, failing to see their friend.
"He couldn't have gotten far. Maybe he just-" Aradia started but failed to continue as a sniffle cut her off. Sounding close, she swiveled and looked behind her only to see nobody there. Before she could dismiss it as a stress hallucination, she heard it come again.
From Karkat's seat.
"...Karkat?" She said tentatively, moving to the table and reaching out to the not-actually-empty space. Fingers reaching out tentatively, she grabbed at something and found purchase. She saw only air, but she could feel the cloth of a familiar jacket.
It turned out to be enough to bring Karkat back into reality, with him suddenly becoming visible. He looked panicked, his hands in front of him as he looked over them closely. His eyes were wide and small tears were trailing down.
He blinked and looked up at the two, trying to stifle the panicked shaking of his body. "What the hell am I?"
Aradia felt lost as she looked at the usually ornery guy in front of her who looked on the verge of a panic attack. It turned out, after stretch of silence, Sollux would be the one to say something.
"I don't know." The heterochromatic teen shrugged, taking a deep breath. Letting it out, he looked over the two in front of him.
"But we're going to figure it out."
Yeah... Karkat is Not Okay right now. But hey, if you want to make an omelette, you have to give an undead teenager a few mental breakdowns.
See you next chapter!