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"They were kids that I once knew," you answer carefully, and the truth in the words hits you like a ton of bricks.
You feel guilty sometimes. Of course you do, you're human after all. None of them deserved to be cut like dead limbs the way you did. But you were weak.
You were all just kids.
You recall that that was only a year ago. Of course it was. You are just 14. You are still just a kid.
The look that Dr. Rosenberg is giving you snaps you back into reality. "I mean that, I believe my subconscious molded them after kids that I once knew."
"You once knew," he emphasis, and you shift a little and nod.
"Friends online," you answer, "once."
"Did you lose contact with them, or did you stop talking to them after The Dream?"
That's what the good Doctor referred to the game as. The Dream.
That's all it was after all.
You remember waking up that morning, your phone buzzing on your table. Everyone wanted to talk to you. Everyone wanted to know you were okay. Know you were alive.
You told them you were, but that was all you told them. Then you got rid of your phone and your computer and you distanced yourself. From everything. You're mother, in her never-ending spite, wanted you to see a Doctor, to talk about what you were feeling. You imagined this was ridiculous. No one knows you like you know yourself, you didn't need to hire someone. You weren't repressed.
But in your sessions you slowly revealed things. Things you didn't know you knew. You never told him too much, and only in the guise of a dream.
The reality of a dream, that is.
But you didn't explain how sometimes you felt he was ungrateful, and like you saved his life. You wonder if the others know some of the things you know. If sometimes John falls to his knees with the crippling remembrance that he is no longer The Hero, he's just a kid.
Maybe sometimes Dave still tries to change the flow of time before it occurs to him that such a thing is ridiculous.
Maybe Jade still tries to hold the whole world in the palms of her hands.
But you don't really want to know. Moreso, you hope this is not the case. You don't want to think about what it would mean if it were.
"After The Dream, I stopped talking to them. It felt different. I didn't want to worry them. I think it was better if I just left without a trace than if I caused them any trouble. They were all good kids.... Are, I assume. I hope."
He taps his finger on his paper and nods a little.
"Have you remembered anything else? About the dream?" He asks, flipping back through his notes. He has pages and pages of your words written. You've gone over it so many times. He's made you relive it twice or three times a week, every week, and sometimes you remembered a little something extra, like Jaspers.
"There was a time," you muse, and he flips around in his notes like he already knows what time frame to go to, "where I was mad."
"Mad?" He looks at you over his glasses.
"Furious."
"When your mother died?"
You feel your fists clench, and you see him train his eyes to them, but suddenly you let out a weak little laugh. "Yes, but John found me. I was so furious. I don't think... I was even myself. I think I was someone else entirely. But John acts like he can't even tell - I feel s though he should have been able to tell - and he goes on and on about something stupid Karkat had told him. Something about how the two of us might marry. I was so mad... I couldn't even laugh at the thought."
He nods, scribbling something down. "Did you like this boy?"
"John? Purely platonically, I assure. Believe me, romance was the last thing on my mind during the entire affair. John somehow remained so light-hearted through it all. And Karkat, well, his priorities never were quite straight. All the trolls were..." you stop, looking up at him, shocked, and he raises his eyebrows.
"Karkat?" He asks. "The trolls?"
You blink, shocked. "The others, yes. There were 12 others."
"Why haven't you mentioned them before?"
They were the scary part. One of those parts that were simply too real. Things you didn't think you could make up in a dream. Grey skin, candy corn horns, yellow eyes. Rough skin on thin arms wrapping around you, lipstick lips murmuring in your ear, so happy you made it. So happy you were alive.
He turns to a new page, and the harsh sound of crinkling paper wakes you up. "Can you tell me their names? What they looked like? What they did? How you knew them?"
Your fingers curled back into fists. All of their names?
Not all of them made it.
"Not all of them made it," you murmur, and he lifts his eyebrows again.
You wonder if they ever woke up.
Sometimes you wonder if you ever woke up.
"Who were they?" He asks again.
"They were kids that I once knew," you answer carefully.