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“The Prince of Hope is a fucking joke,” clever rhyme scheme, coupled with crass language. Not that you can judge, you're not exactly known for your pristine vocabulary. The saying was written all over the walls of whatever room you just walked into, it was hard to tell, everything on the meteor looked the same. It all blended into one big mass of slate and flickering lights. It was, frankly, exhausting. It certainly felt like a fucking joke.
They all thought you didn't know. You did flaunt the title, after all. “Prince”. You knew as well as the rest of them that it was simply code for “one who destroys”. At first you'd been unable to believe so, but with all your own hope gone maybe the whole fucked up system was more accurate than you gave it credit for. You had figured out sometime after you'd finally escaped that wretched land- your land, apparently- that the figures you'd killed weren't actually mean to be killed. Those who didn't ignore you called you an idiot for wasting your time on them. Somewhere back in your mind you can still hear the screaming, the anguished pained screeches of the terrifying creatures as their bodies burned in the wake of your attack and then plummeted. If they weren't already dead, they were when they hit the ground. And the rage, the fury that you felt when one fell and five dove at you in revenge. It stills stings, bitter and acrid on your tongue. You can feel your hands start to shake and realize with a start that you don't know where you are. The words are gone and there is more grey walls more flickering lights more endless boring hallways of-
Crying. Someone is crying. Is it you? It could be. Your hands unclench and lower from your hair, your scalp aching in a way that tells you your nails have bitten in hard enough to bleed. Your face is wet, cold, colder than normal. It is you. You are the one crying.
Your head bends forward and your chin digs into your chest. The glasses perched on your face slide down and land with a sharp crack on the floor. You don't care. You don't actually need them to see. It's just another reason for you to act pretentious. Another way to hide. You can't decide if these are daymares or you just reliving your stupid decisions. Your mistakes. It all still feels like some bad attempt at a prank.
Your head bounces unevenly and you use this as a guide to steady your breathing. You're used to getting through these things alone now, the last meltdown you had in company had been with Feferi. She hated you now, strictly platonically. You still care about her deeply, but from where you stand the chances of you two ever becoming friends again are slim to none.
The process of calming down takes so much longer on your own, and in this instance it seems to take hours. No one is looking for you, though you expected as much. The only one who cares anymore is Karkat, of all people, and he only ever speaks to you via chat. As you wind down, you slowly start to wonder if the writing you saw was even real. If you'd just lost enough sleep and gave up enough food and endured enough stress to start having hallucinations. You're fucked, you know that much, in a way that's almost comical. You don't have the will to go see, nor do you even know where you are. It may well be time to start heading back. Wherever back is.
It takes you a while to actually get moving after you decide. First you calm down completely, then you fix your face, and then reorient yourself to your surroundings and work to get yourself back to your air of pompous entitlement. It's exhausting, but it's normal. Something that's been very hard to come by these days. It's almost two hours later before you actually begin to find your way back.
Nobody comes for you.
But that, you suppose, is all a part of the joke.