Chapter Text
The girl giggles brightly, clapping her hands, absolutely thrilled. “Come on! Come on!” she cries dragging you across the street by the hand. You laugh and follow, grinning widely. The girl stops when she notices she dropped her cat. “Oh no! Jasper!” She turns back to grab at the matted and tattered cat toy she always drags along. You think nothing of this and instead continue on your way across the street, laughing without a care in the world. Until you hear the horn honking in a panic. Screeching, and then a thud sound from behind. That’s when the screaming starts. Eyes wide you turn, smile frozen in place. There in the middle of the street lies the person.
She is about six or seven years old with short curly hair covered by a knit blue cat hat. She’s wearing a jean pinafore, a petticoat type skirt underneath. Tiny feet are tucked into a set of mary-janes , white knee socks climbing out of them. A black stuffed cat with a devilish smile lays two feet in front of her, covered in a sticky red coat. She’s lying on her stomach and she’s not moving.
You walk over, legs weighing a ton, each step seemingly taking an hour. Your thoughts are foggy, disbelieving. You reach her side in seconds and try to move her. A person tries to shoo you away but you ignore them and lift the little raven-haired girl into your arms with shaking hands.
“....” You whisper her name over and over as eyes begin to water. She’s still smiling up at you, green eyes in a half cresent. Rosy cheeks are beginning to turn red with the fluid slipping from the top of her head. You resist as people try to pull you away from the girl and begin sobbing over her.
The ambulance has arrived now and they’re taking her away. You can hardly see through your tears as you struggle against the policeman who had arrived at some point. A strange garbled, screeching noise is echoing around you. It takes a minute for you to realize that it is coming from you, all the pain and panic you’re feeling morphing into one inhuman noise.
Strangers around you are holding hushed conversations, rumors and lies flying about you and the girl in the blue hat. But you can’t hear it. Your entire focus is on the closing doors of the ambulance and how that should be you in there. You finally break from the officer’s grip and go racing after the vehicle, her name ripping it’s way from your throat yet again, but it’s too late and as you fall to your knees you slip through the asphalt.
Suddenly you’re alone in darkness, floating. You hover a few moments then suddenly, familiar faces and friends are surrounding you. Their black eyes pierce into you as you float past, but their gaze is not nearly as biting as their words.
“Should have died instead”
“It’s his fault,”
“I hear he pushed her,”
Their words become more and more cruel as you drift through their tight ring. Suddenly the blackness beneath you changes into a suffocating ooze. No matter how hard you struggle you can’t seem to pull yourself out of the translucent sludge. You’re immersed in it now, clawing and fighting to reach out to someone for help, but they just watch you with wide smiles. It’s almost as if they’re happy to watch you sink further and further in.
You awake with a start, drenched in sweat. It’s still dark in your sparsely decorated room, moonlight drifting in through an open window. You pant, clutching the white sheets underneath you, eyes darting about in a panic. “Just a dream. It was only a dream,” You mutter, but you know that’s a lie. It’s a memory that haunts your every night. That perfect little face smiling up at you every time you close your eyes. You lay back on your cool pillows after a moment, sighing deeply.
Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are hold yourself personally responsible for the coma your young cousin has been in for almost eight years.