Chapter Text
Karl has heard the saying 'time flies' his entire life. Hell, he's probably said it himself once or twice. But he has learned that this is not true. Time does not fly. It jumps and skips and stutters, it pulls you back and throws you forward, it sputters out and dies and restarts again without warning. But it does not fly. There is no beginning nor end, because the beginning is the end, and vice versa.
Karl is a senior in high school, then a sophomore in college, and now he is closing in on the destination of a five hour road trip.
The scene outside his backseat window looks like it’s been ripped straight from a Bob Ross painting: crystalline lakes reflecting a sky that’s been set on fire by the setting sun, pine forests that stretch to the horizon line, all framed by jagged mountains capped with snow even though it’s only September (or maybe August? He hasn’t checked his calendar). He can see the giant sign announcing the entrance to the park peeking out from its mountain perch far ahead of them. There’s maybe a mile left before they reach it, another five before they get to the campsite.
Has the campsite changed at all, he wonders? Have the paths shifted since they last walked them? Did they cut down the tree with their names carved into the bark? Probably not, since whatever government board is pretty strict about what happens in national parks. Even so, he hopes it’s not exactly as they left it. This night will go a lot easier if it isn’t.
“Daydreaming, Karl?” George asks beside him, his voice low and eyes bleary from the nap he’d just woken from.
“Just thinking.” Karl stretches his arms above his head, pushing against the roof of the car. “I forgot how long this trip was,” he yawns. “Can’t blame you for falling asleep.”
George rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s only been two years. How could you possibly have forgotten?” The question drips with his staple George-style sarcasm. “We’ll be there soon.”
Underneath his teasing tones, Karl can hear a quiet strain in George’s voice. It’s been there since they met up in town and piled into Dream’s car (Sapnap in the passenger seat and Karl in the back, of course; anything that keeps them from having to acknowledge the other’s presence). In fact, everyone has been strained for the past five hours— the worst five hours of their lives. At least, the worst of Karl’s. But he thinks George’s stress is a bit different than his. After all, if this all goes south and they end up hating each other, it’ll be his fault for bringing them together in the first place.
“Thanks for setting this up, by the way,” Karl says. “It’s good to be back. I know it’s probably a lot to deal with on top of moving back to school next week.”
George scoffs. “Are you kidding me? This is way more important than school. Besides, I’m not too stressed about moving. Last year I skipped the entire first week of classes and they didn't care.”
“Why did you skip?”
“They wanted me to wake up at like, ass o’clock in the morning. No way was I doing that all semester.”
“I get that,” Karl laughs. “College ruined my sleep schedule, too.”
George shakes his head. “Mine’s always been bad. Remember senior year when I slept through Mr. G’s class, and there was a sub, so you pretended to be me for the whole morning?”
“Uh, no, I don’t.”
“Yeah, and you got in trouble because Mr. G came back at the end of class?”
Karl searches his memory for anything close to what George is describing, but nothing turns up. “Huh. Guess I forgot.”
“Anyway,” George continues. “The point is, I care more about us all having a good time than worrying about school. Which reminds me— thank you for coming. I wasn’t really sure you guys would agree to do this.”
“Yeah, of course,” Karl says. He doesn’t mention the fact that he had almost turned down George’s invitation. He only decided to go at the very last minute, egged on by overwhelming nostalgia and the foolish hope that somehow this won’t turn into a colossal dumpster fire. Whether it was a good decision or not is still up in the air.
“I admit it’s really… weird for all of us to be together. But it felt important, you know? I didn’t want to skip the annual camping trip again.”
Any response Karl might have is drowned out as pop music blasts from the radio. It’s one of those songs of the summer that radio stations play over and over again. Sapnap raises his voice to be heard over the music. “Turn it down, Dream, this song sucks ass!”
Dream has one hand on the steering wheel and one covering the dial. “I like it, I wanna hear it!”
“Dude, this song has been playing literally all summer. We heard it when we left! Change the station or something.”
“That was hours ago! You’ve been controlling the music the whole way, it’s my turn.”
George kicks the back of Dream’s seat. “Both of you, shut up! Turn it off if you’re just going to argue.”
“Yeah Dream,” Sapnap says. “I would rather sit in total silence than listen to this shit.”
“He’s not taking your side, dumbass,” Dream shouts back.
George leans as far as his seatbelt will let him, rips Dream’s hand away, and lowers the volume. “No one touch it.” He sits back, running a hand down his face. “Can we please not argue? Tonight is supposed to be about having fun.”
“Tonight is supposed to be about getting drunk and passing out in the woods,” Sapnap corrects him.
“Okay, if that’s how you have fun, then sure.”
Sapnap mumbles something under his breath and stares out the window. Karl watches him through the side mirror. His eyes watch the world pass by, not fully taking it in. Does he even want to be here? How much did George have to bribe him for him to agree to this?
“Everyone’s going to make an effort to get along, we’re going to have a great time, and we’re all going to be sad that we have to leave in the morning because of all the fun we had.” George looks pointedly at everyone in the car. “Right?”
“Right,” Dream says. Sapnap grunts, which could be interpreted as anything. George seems to take it as an agreement.
“Right, Karl?”
Karl tears his gaze away from Sapnap’s reflection. “What? Uh, yeah. Right.” George gives a single satisfied nod and everyone falls into what must be the millionth awkward silence of the day.
Karl hopes, for the sake of all their sanity, that he’s right. If something goes wrong and nothing changes, he’s certain this night will never end.
Asphalt turns to dirt and the sun reaches the end of its descent by the time they make it to the park entrance. An orange and white barrier with a sign stuck on the wood blocks the road. Dream leans forward and squints to read it. “Area closed to public use due to shutdown. No trespassing beyond this point.”
Sapnap groans. “Are you serious? George, you didn’t check to see if it was still open?”
George’s face flushes. “Oh yeah, did I not mention that?”
“Uh no, you didn’t say the park was fucking closed.”
“The park is closed.”
“Fuck you, George.”
Karl frowns. “Why did it shut down?”
George shrugs. “Something about people going missing in restricted areas and acting funny when they came out.”
Dream turns around in his seat. “Are you telling me I drove us all the way out here for nothing?”
“No!” George pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, I forgot to tell you guys about it, but this is part of the plan.”
“To break into off-limits government land?”
“Yes!” He searches everyone’s expressions for some kind of validation. Everyone stares at him. “Well, I thought it would be cool.”
Dream grips the wheel. “George, I’m not getting arrested just because we wanted to fuck around in the woods.”
“Who’s going to arrest us? What, are the park police hiding in the bushes, waiting for someone to trespass?”
Sapnap throws the car door open. “We’re going in. We spent all day driving here, I’m not leaving now.” He marches to the barrier and begins to drag it out of the road with little effort.
"Yeah," Karl says. "Besides, breaking and entering is cool. It's a good bonding experience." It feels a bit strange to be seeing eye-to-eye with Sapnap on something, but he has to agree that the idea of driving back home so soon (and being trapped in the car with everyone in a bad mood for another five hours) isn’t very appealing. Plus, it would be fun to have the whole place to themselves.
"Exactly, thank you Karl." George crosses his arms and makes a face at Dream. Dream rolls his eyes and turns back around without saying anything.
The car shakes as Sapnap slams the door. Not in a way that suggests he’s mad or upset, just that he doesn’t know his own strength. “Road’s clear. Let’s go already, it’s getting dark.”
Dream huffs and starts down the trail. “If we get caught, you guys better be in the car or I’m leaving you behind.”
He takes them slowly down the dirt road, high beams cutting through the darkness. Usually, the sun is up to guide them through the woods, but usually they leave earlier in the day. That part is kind of Karl’s fault. They would have gotten there sooner if it weren’t for his hasty last-minute decision to join in.
The lack of sunlight wouldn’t be an issue if the light posts lining the public roads weren’t also turned off. Of course, it makes sense, seeing that the park is shut down and all. It’s not until they arrive at the campsite— also drenched in shadow —that Karl thinks maybe he should have sided with Dream, though.
Without the sun or light posts to illuminate the area, Dream leaves the high beams on while they unpack. It’s a process they’re all familiar with, one that normally runs like clockwork. However, this trip is anything but normal, and the clock falls out of rhythm immediately.
George and Sapnap grab the same tent and try to walk in opposite directions with it. When they realize what they’ve done, both let go so the other can take it and it falls to the ground. “Sorry,” George says. As he backs up to let Sapnap take the tent, Dream swings around with a couple of folded camping chairs hefted over his shoulder and nearly takes out George’s head.
“Shit, sorry about that,” Dream says.
“Here, I’ll go set these up.” George takes the chairs from him, leaving lines in the dirt as he drags them against the ground.
Sapnap picks up the tent off the ground and slams into Karl when he stands upright. The sleeping bags Karl had been holding tumble out of his hands. “Oops.” Karl offers an apologetic smile. “Didn’t see you.” Sapnap opens his mouth to respond, then snaps it shut and hauls the tent away without saying a word.
Karl frowns after him. Okay, Sapnap wants to give him the cold shoulder all night, that’s fine. Whatever. Fine. It doesn’t look like he needs all that much help anyway. He feels a nudge on his arm and looks to see Dream holding out the sleeping bags he’d dropped.
“Everything going okay so far?” he asks.
“I guess so.” Karl tucks the sleeping bags under his arm. “It’s kind of weird, you know?”
Even as Dream nods, Karl knows that he doesn't really understand. It is weird for him too, everyone being back together, but not in the same way. He and George stayed friends. They kept talking after the group split. They'd reach out to Karl every once in a while, maybe Sapnap too, nothing more than the standard well wishes on holidays and birthdays. But for the most part, they were fine. Just casualties of Karl and Sapnap’s war— a war that has now gone cold, fought in the trenches of stolen glances and bitter silence.
“Listen,” Dream says. “I’m not much of a relationship guy, but maybe instead of avoiding each other all night, you should try… I don’t know, clearing the air? Smooth things over a little?”
Karl bites back a harsh reply— don’t you think I’ve tried that already? It’s not his fault that Sapnap wants to ignore him.
Maybe Dream sees how Karl tenses, because he holds up his hands defensively. “I mean, I know you guys have talked about it a thousand times, but you can’t spend the whole trip like this.” He lowers his voice. “George really wants all of us to be close again. It’s important to him; to me, too.”
“I know,” Karl says. “Of course I want to be friends again. But it’s…” He trails off, not exactly sure how to explain years worth of hurt and fighting to someone who’d only ever looked from the outside in.
Dream puts his hand on Karl’s shoulder. “Please, talk to him. It probably isn’t going to be very easy, but… just try, okay? He cares. A lot. I’m sure you know that.”
“Well…” Honestly, Karl had been prepared to do anything to avoid confronting Sapnap again, anything to avoid putting himself back on the front lines. But he looks to where he and George are clumsily setting up the tent, he sees George’s too-wide smile and Sapnap’s distant responses, and he feels a tugging in his chest. A longing for things to be like they used to, without this hesitancy that lingers over them. Don’t they deserve that, after all this time apart?
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Dream smiles. “Thanks.”
And the camp goes dark. The high beams flicker out and die, leaving them all in shadow.
“Uh, Dream?” George calls.
“One second.” Dream shuffles his way over to the car, careful not to trip over any of their gear. He turns the key a few times, and when that does nothing, he pops open the hood. “Anyone got a light?”
“I got it.” Karl stands over his shoulder, holding his phone’s flashlight above them. It’s really the only help he can offer while Dream checks over the engine.
After a few minutes of fiddling, Dream shakes his head. “Shit,” he mutters. “It’s dead.”
“What?” Sapnap asks.
“The battery. It’s dead.”
George scoffs. “Are you serious?”
Dream slams the hood shut. “Guys, guys, relax. It’s fine. I’ll call someone in the morning.”
“There’s no reception out here,” Karl points out. “You can’t call anyone.”
“Yeah, and we’re not even supposed to be here,” George says.
Sapnap glares at him. “And who’s fault is that, genius?” George rolls his eyes.
“Okay, well…” Dream rubs his temple. “I’m sure there’s some way to jump start it.”
“Yeah,” George mutters. “Maybe lightning will strike the cables and it’ll magically start.”
“We passed some kind of control station near the entrance,” Karl remembers. “There’s probably something in there we can use.”
Dream nods. “Great, we’ll check it out in the morning.”
“No dude,” Sapnap says. “If it’s a power station, we need to go now and turn on the lights. I can’t see shit.”
Karl nods to George. “We’ve got lights, right?”
George digs around in one of the bags and produces two flashlights. He clicks them on experimentally. The first turns on with no problems. The second does nothing. “Well, we have one at least.”
“Oh come on,” Sapnap groans.
Even in the dark, Karl can see the way George screws his eyes shut and purses his lips like he does when he’s thinking really hard. He can tell the stress of everything going wrong is getting to him. “It’s okay,” Karl says. “I’ll go out to the station and try turning on the lights.”
George winces a bit. “Karl, you can’t go out there by yourself. It’s pitch black, you’ll get lost.” Or forget how to get back, he doesn’t add. Or forget where you are. They’re all thinking it, Karl knows. No one says it, but they don’t need to. It’s said in the way they all exchange glances with each other at his offer.
He grits his teeth. “I’ll be fine, George, I don’t need a babysitter.”
“No, you should take someone with you,” Dream says. “It’ll be safer that way. We are in bear country.” He shifts his eyes to Sapnap specifically, then back to Karl. A direct message. Just try, okay? He cares.
Karl starts to ask the question, but the words evaporate the instant he opens his mouth and he’s left floundering for something to say. Luckily, Dream jumps to his rescue. “Sapnap! Why don’t you and Karl turn on the power while me and George finish setting up? We can get a fire going while we’re at it.”
Sapnap’s eyes flit towards Karl for the briefest of moments. “Um, I can help with the fire.”
“Yeah,” George says. “Maybe I should go—”
Dream raises an eyebrow at Sapnap, a teasing smile growing on his face. “What, are you scared of the dark?”
“No,” Sapnap snaps. “I…” He looks between Dream and Karl. “Oh my god, fine. Come on Karl, let’s get this over with.” He pushes past George and hurries up the path back towards the main entrance.
“Wait up!” Karl calls. “It’s dark!” He takes the working flashlight from George as he walks past him.
“Hey, Karl.” He turns to see Dream giving him two thumbs-up and a big smile. “Good luck!”
Fuck you, Karl wants to say. You’re the worst, I hate you, please help me, I don’t want to do this. Instead, he mutters a thank-you and follows Sapnap’s footsteps up the path.
It’s a good thing they’ve been here so many times in the past, because the flashlight’s beam is so weak that it hardly shines more than three feet ahead of them. Karl hits in against his hip a few times in the hopes that it will brighten. He only manages to make the light flicker. Sapnap confidently marches a few paces ahead of him, his gaze set on the path. He doesn't seem to pay attention to the flashlight's guiding beam.
They walk in silence for the first few minutes, the only sound to break it being the crunching of rock and twigs beneath their feet. The air feels so thick that there might as well be a brick wall separating them, threatening to collapse at the slightest breeze. Karl hardly dares to breathe too deeply.
This sucks. Wandering around in the woods at night sucks. Not being able to talk to someone who had once made conversations so easy sucks. It’ll take maybe twenty minutes or longer to get to the station and back. Karl thinks the tension will suffocate him if they go that long without speaking to each other. He clears his throat and pushes experimentally at the wall. “So, uh… how have you been?”
Sapnap glances sideways at him. “Fine.”
“School going well?”
“Yeah. I’m going into my first apprenticeship soon.”
“That’s cool.” Karl winces at the formality of it all. It feels like being forced to make small-talk with a friend of a friend, someone he doesn’t know at all but who he wants to be on good terms with (even though he does know Sapnap, he knows Sapnap better than most people and yet each word is a struggle).
Sapnap keeps walking. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but Karl thinks he can see him chewing on his lip, something he recalls Sapnap did to keep himself from screaming. He also notices the rough beginnings of a beard clinging to his jawline. He’d been trying to grow one all throughout senior year, Karl remembers. It’s funny how one break-up was all it took for everything to go Sapnap’s way.
“You, uh, you look different,” he says. “In a good way. I like your stubble.”
Sapnap lets out a single, snorting laugh. “Thanks, I guess.” His eyes flicker toward the features of Karl’s face for one fleeting moment. “You look… the same.” He says it almost apologetically, like it’s the only positive thing he can think to say.
They fall back into a loud silence. The wall between them is still standing, albeit a little shakier than it had been before. But Karl feels the tiniest bit more relaxed, and he thinks Sapnap does too. It’s not by much, but it might be the best they can manage tonight. He tries pushing on the wall a little harder. “Hey, are we… are we okay?”
There is an instant shift in Sapnap’s posture. It’s incredibly subtle, but Karl notices the way his shoulders stiffen and how he walks slightly faster, like he’s trying to outrun the conversation. “I don’t know,” he says. “Are we?”
“I just don’t—” Karl searches for the right words, but of course the entire lexicon of the English language chooses that moment to vanish from his mind. “I don’t want the whole night to be like this.”
Sapnap’s face twists. “I’m confused. Do you want us to be okay for us, or so you don’t have to feel awkward for a few hours?”
And the wall comes tumbling down. Karl finds himself standing in the rubble, but what he’s greeted with on the other side is not the warm welcome he’d hoped for. Instead he is faced with the harsh reminder of why it had been built in the first place. “Sap, you know what I mean,” he says, almost pleading. “I don’t want us to feel like we have to tiptoe around each other. I mean, why are things so weird between us anyway?”
Sapnap’s voice lowers and gains a bitter note. “You know why, Karl. Let’s go turn the lights on and go back, I’m tired.”
His words wrap around Karl like thorny vines, rooting him to the ground and digging into his chest. “Do you still blame me? You know it wasn’t my fault, I—”
“Karl,” Sapnap snaps. He stops and turns to face him, and for the first time that night, their eyes meet. In them, Karl can see a fire burning as bright as it had when they were younger, the same fire he had once tended to with all the love and compassion the world had to offer. Now, Sapnap has taken up his post next to the inferno, anger and hurt stoking the flames. “Just don’t, okay? I came here tonight so I could hang out with my friends and get drunk and do dumb shit, not to have the same fucking argument we’ve been having for the past two years. We’re going to do what we need to do, go back, and we’re not going to talk about this anymore, got it?”
“Sapnap,” Karl says, the name catching in his throat. “I don’t want it to be like that.”
“Yeah, well…” Sapnap’s eyes drop to the forest floor. “Neither do I.” He turns away and continues down the path.
Just like that, the wall has been rebuilt, this time with a stronger mortar cementing the bricks together. Karl stands and watches as Sapnap walks further along into the dark. He wants nothing more in that moment than to sink to his knees and let the roots of Sapnap’s words drag him beneath the dirt and suffocate him. But Sapnap needs the light. So Karl pries his feet up from the ground and catches up.
The control station appears on the edge of the dirt road after another few minutes, tucked behind a light post and a cluster of trees. It’s nothing special, just a little wooden shack with a large satellite dish on the roof. There’s a sign on the padlocked door that reads ‘restricted: do not enter’.
Karl inspects the shack’s exterior. “We could probably pry open one of the windows.”
“I got it.” Sapnap grabs a fist-sized rock from the ground and bashes it against the padlock, missing his own hand by a few centimeters. The lock falls away like it’s made of paper. He turns the knob and saunters inside.
“That works,” Karl mutters, following him.
The interior is a little busier than the outside. One wall is lined with shelves of all sorts of equipment, none of which Karl can identify except for a few first aid kits. A large map of the park is displayed next to it, marked with locations of different towers and stations throughout the park. The main attraction is what can only be described as a huge control panel built into the back wall. A multitude of switches dot the gray metal, each labeled with what they link up to. At least, Karl guesses they’re all labeled.
“Which one’s for the campgrounds?” he wonders aloud.
Sapnap shrugs. “I don’t know. Turn them all on until one works.” He starts flipping switches before Karl can say that maybe that’s not the best idea. There’s no point in potentially starting another argument over something so menial, so he joins in.
They get through about half the board before Karl starts to think this is useless. Little green dots keep flickering on as they flip, but nothing around them lights up. Karl makes it to the last panel on his side of the board. There’s only one switch where the others have upwards of ten. It must not have been flipped in a very long time, because when Karl pushes down on it, it remains firmly in place. He grips it with both hands, braces himself against the panel, and pushes. Finally it clicks on.
A new sound fills the air, so soft that it’s hardly noticeable: a low, pulsing hum. It reverberates in the back of Karl’s skull, snaking between their feet like a dense fog. Not exactly the noise of electrical equipment powering on, but not unlike it either. “Do you hear that?” Karl asks.
“Hear what?”
“That sound, like an amp turned on or something.”
“I don’t hear it,” Sapnap says. He throws a switch on his last panel and there’s a flash outside as the light posts buzz to life. “Finally.” One more switch and the lights in the station turn on, too.
Karl glances over the panels. Instead of a catch-all power button like he had expected when they first came in, there are specific panels for the different areas of the park— fire watchtowers, animal observation decks, other ranger stations. There are buttons with the word ‘radio’ stamped over them, microphones and little speakers built into each section. He reads the label over the panel with the hard-to-flip switch. “Inbetween?” He looks at Sapnap. “In between what?”
“Probably some park ranger code or something. It doesn’t matter.” Sapnap heads for the door. “You can stand around and try to figure it out all you want, I’m going back to camp.” Karl hesitates and looks back to the strange label before following.
There’s something nagging at the back of Karl’s mind, right beneath the humming sound that still echoes through his skull, as they walk out into the open clearing where the station is situated. He could’ve sworn the shack had been tucked behind a pine grove when they entered. He’s no expert on trees, but he’s pretty sure the white trunks that surround the clearing are birch, not pine. And the path, where had that gone? The dirt trail has been replaced by tall grass and overgrown weeds.
Karl tries ignoring these changes. It’s entirely possible that he’s misremembering the layout of the area. Maybe it had always been a birch forest, and the path is hidden under the weeds.
Then Sapnap stops only a few feet away from the door. “This isn’t… we didn’t come this way.”
Karl breathes a silent sigh of relief. “I was hoping you’d say something. I don’t recognize any of this.”
Sapnap scans the area, his brow furrowed. He points further up the mountain. “Has that watchtower always been there?” Karl follows his gaze and sure enough, a brand new tower has appeared ahead of them, all lit up like a lighthouse in the desert. A big number five is painted on its roof in red.
“I don’t think so.”
“What the fuck,” Sapnap mutters. He marches back into the station and looks over the park map. He jabs a finger at a little red icon in the upper right corner. “There. That’s watchtower five. That’s where we are.”
“But that’s on the other side of the park,” Karl points out. He taps the icon indicating the campsite near the entrance. “We’re supposed to be over here somewhere. No way we walked across the entire place in ten minutes.”
“What do you want me to say? The map says we’re over here, so we’re over here. Are you gonna argue with the map, Karl? Maps don’t lie.”
Karl sighs. “We need to talk to Dream and George, tell them what’s going on. Or maybe see if the same thing is happening to them.”
“If what’s happening to them?”
Karl gestures wildly around them. “All this weird, I don’t know, teleportation stuff.”
Sapnap raises an eyebrow at him. “Teleportation? Come on.”
“What else do you want to call it?”
“Whatever. How are you gonna talk to Dream and George? There’s no cell service.”
Karl looks back at the control panels behind them. “There’s some kind of radio system. Maybe it has an emergency broadcast.” He goes down the list of switches and settings until he finds one labeled ‘all-park intercom’. “Here, try this one.”
“If it’s an intercom, it’s only going to be one-way. They won’t be able to talk back.”
“Then…” Karl’s eyes wander over the panels. “Tell them to go to one of the watchtowers. We can use the radios there to talk.”
Sapnap holds down the button for the intercom. A green light blinks next to it and the microphone buzzes to life. “Uh, hello? Dream, George, if you can hear this, me and Karl got, uh… teleported to the other side of the park or something. Find one of the watchtowers near you; they’ve got two-way radios, we can talk that way. The power is on everywhere now, so you don’t have to worry about that. Just hurry up so we can figure out what the fuck is going on. I don’t think I want to—”
As he speaks, the green light fizzles out and the crackle of the microphone dies. “Hello? Guys?” Sapnap mashes the button. “Dammit.”
Karl shrugs. “Guess we have to get to that watchtower.”
“I guess so,” Sapnap mutters. He shakes his head and starts toward the door. “Of course all this weird shit has to happen tonight. Of course it has to happen to us. Of course.”
Karl follows him out with one last look at the map. It’s such a weird stretch to say teleportation, he knows, but how else can he explain suddenly ending up on the opposite side of the park, miles away from where they came in? How else can he explain the humming in the back of his skull, or the sudden sickness in his stomach like all the molecules in his body had been frozen and reheated in a microwave?
Whatever the answer is, it’s out there somewhere in the woods, and he isn’t keen on finding it. He picks up his feet and follows Sapnap out. He’s falling behind.