You shoot a hole through the person you thought would always have your back, the black hair ripples slightly and then she falls, distorting back into a reptilian form, and then one attacks you from behind, looking just like Kar and damn this is so refreshing, getting to kill people again, you don’t know why you ever stopped. You laugh gleefully as you charge your rifle up and shoot at the ground, the recoil rockets you up into the air and you swing the gun around and over your shoulder to turn just the slightest bit so you can see Kar angel out of the corner of your eye, it’s enough to aim at, you absorb the recoil with your shoulder this time, and it feels somewhat like you dislocated it, but you’re too high on adrenaline and fermented rage to care. You land heavily even though you were only about ten feet in the air, and almost fall. There’s a hissing noise from right above you and you roll to the side without thinking, landing sprawled out flat on your back and bracing Ahab’s against the ground.

The angel lands on top of you and morphs into Sol; he’s smirking at you in a way that somehow isn’t a challenge, more like he has a secret and he’ll tell you what it is if you do something in return. His hand moves down to cup your cheek, and he leans closer, slowly letting his eyes slip shut, he’s shifting on top of you and you let your gun tilt down so you’d only have to swing it to the side to shoot him, he’ll probably attribute it to shock as his lips brush softly over yours and he traces the outline of your grubscars through your shirt, and you get the barrel up under his chest so it’s supporting his weight and don’t even bother to charge up the blast; you’ve never needed to at this close a range.

He morphs back and you leave him on the ground, barely breathing, you think you’ll just let him bleed out.

“Listen, Eridan.” It’s Kar, and you give him a slight smirk in response, already planning how you’ll take him down. “You aren’t helping your case. You were already worthless, why make yourself dangerous too?” It’s such a horrible imitation you almost laugh out loud; scratch that, you do laugh out loud, you cackle and leap forwards, grabbing him by the neck and digging in your claws, severing some important looking things and then sending him flying to land about two yards away from you with a strong kick to his chest when he morphs back.

He starts pestering you and you’ve lost count of how many angels you’ve killed, your response is automatic:

‘no point evven tryin anymore you fuck i knoww wwhat you are and i wwill kill you’ and then going back to killing angels, and you only notice once you’ve secured a building how frantic he is, you decide you must have been on autopilot and just answered him like he was an angel.

He’s flipping out.

You roll your eyes.

CA: wwhat seems to be the problem kar CG: WHAT THE SHITSLICING FUCKNUGGETS WAS THAT ABOUT, ERIDAN!? CA: oh that wwas an accident im fightin angels and i wwas caught up in the fight and just answered you like you wwere one of em CG: YOU CG: UGH. CG: SO WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO SPECIFY THAT YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE? CG: THEY’RE JUST ANGELS WHAT CAN THEY EVEN DO? CA: oh thats nothin too important i gotta keep this buildin cleared so ill havve to go noww bye kar

You power down the shades and toss Ahab’s into the air, swiftly turning to punch a Vris in the face and then shoot her to pieces when you catch it. You put a bit too much force into the throw, it was charging up for longer than it needed to. You long ago figured out a way to let it charge without keeping your finger on the trigger, which let you focus on other things for those precious seconds. Like your hair, it feels like it’s falling down.

Trivial.

Just like these angels. Worthless. Useless.

Just like you.

No. You said you were going to stop thinking like that. You promised yourself.

You promised yourself a lot of things.

‘I won’t do it this time. I’ll stand up for myself, doesn’t matter if they cull me.’ Lasted four hours.

‘I’ll tell Fef I need a break. She can find someone else for about a perigee. Any of these peasants would be honored.’ She mentioned how she thought you were getting along better now that you were less whiny. You couldn’t make yourself ask for help after that.

‘I won’t kill anyone else.’ You killed another person.

‘I won’t kill any of my friends.’ Apparently you’re going to do that too, according to future Karkat.

‘I won’t kill any more members of the ruling class.’ You had to cling to your hope you’d be able to keep that one.

Probably not. You couldn’t keep any of the others, why should this one be any different?

You remember a lot of things.

Like the smell of the ocean you could never experience well enough.

Like the way the dirty water inflamed your oversensitive gills.

Like the way you had to cover them and get really good at making the most of a lungful of air.

Like the way you had to fear being culled if someone just had the smart idea to peek under your scarf.

Like the way Fef had brushed it off when you told her. ‘I’m sure your gills are fine, Eridan, don’t you think you should calm down?’

Like the way you almost lost a fin once to a---

You’re distracted. The angel version of you takes advantage of that and pounces, biting down on your left fin and pulling. You tense up and whine, eyelids fluttering as waves of pain roll over you and threaten to knock you unconscious.

You grab a blade from your belt (you got this strife specibus from a cute little three-sweep-old shitblood you’d had to kill or let starve to death without a lusus and you hate yourself for thinking about it now) and press it through the angel’s cheek. He pulls back and pulls out the blade, and somehow it heals immediately. He glares viciously at you, and you glare viciously back. He has wings.

“This is what you could be. Insanely powerful. Nothing would stand in your way. You could obliterate that pissblood, take control of your life, be in charge of your own destiny instead of letting the heiress decide for you. This is what you could be.” You stiffen, carefully straightening your fin out as you force your face to conform to a neutral expression.

“So wwhat’s the catch?”

“Killing.” You open your mouth to tell him you’ve had enough of that, but then you raise an eyebrow as a single question occurs to you.

“Wwhy.”

“You left us behind.”

“Wwhat?”

“You left us for dead.”

“I don’t knoww you fuckin creeps get the hell awway from me or ill incinerate your head and use the ashes to make soap and scrub awway your presence.” The angel sounds distressed, angry, corrupted.

“Why didn’t you save us?” You sneer, and turn away.

“I told you I don’t havve a clue wwhat you’re talkin about.”

Hands wrap around your throat, under the scarf, claws dig into your gills and you let out a strangled scream.

“You left us on Alternia. You didn’t do your job, you let that monster start screaming and we all died.” You can barely comprehend what he’s saying.

“C-can I get a name?” He shoves you onto the ground, and you can’t help the sigh of relief that escapes your throat when he stops screwing with your already defective gills.

“You know me. Reissa Prenti.” Your heart nearly stops as you flashback hard.

It was autumn. It was autumn, both of you were four sweeps, and she was a cerulean a little lower than Vris and you were flushed for her, hard. You were also the killer of her lusus. For some reason, she forgave you.

She understood you were having a rough time. She understood you had to make hard choices every day.

She understood you felt shitty about them.

“It wwas a hard choice but there wwas no wway wwe could’vve gotten evveryone outta there. You got it before, wwhy not noww?”

“You’ve changed. You aren’t afraid of killing, you enjoy it. You should’ve gone with the version where you wouldn’t have to kill anyone to be respected. The one where you insisted on saving everyone.”

You point the crosshairs at her and let it charge a bit too long as you hesitate. You finally release the trigger and the recoil knocks you clean across the room and out a window.

You’re falling and then you stop to the feeling of feathers beneath you. The angel isn’t taking any appearances and that’s about the most surreal shit that’s happened so far.

“You owe us, Prince.”

Your phone buzzes.

You’re done with your test and the teacher likes you so you get it out and look at the text.

“i just finished my bio test i probably failed that shit” You furrow your brow. You are in Biology right now. You text back,

Did you study?

no

Wwell there’s your problem.*Well

You hear a snrk from somewhere behind you, and glance around. That one kid who wore 3D glasses to school the first day is looking at his phone. He types something out, and a few seconds later a message pops up on your phone.

fuck that noise i dont got time for that shit

What were you doing instead?

programming a video gameits called sburb its gonna end the world

You roll your eyes.

Do you happen to be in room 222 right now?

…yeah i love that numberhowd you know

I think I know who you are.Also I didn’t study either but I payed attention in class.And science is kind of my thing too. So I think I did pretty well.

whatno thats not fairneither thing is fairwho are you anyway

You turn around and smirk at him, and his jaw fucking drops like it’s hot.

you

Me.

why do you type with good grammar anyway are you just 2 lazy 2 turn off autocorrrect

Pretty much.

wow what a nerd

Pretty much.

…so uhyou wanna maybe do something after school

I have Science Olympiad today.Not that I don’t appreciate the offer.

You do.

But the competition is this weekend and half the team still hasn’t got their shit together.

maybe later then

Even if I’ve felt crappy since second grade when life sucked and my parents yelled at me every night because I wouldn’t do my homework.

Even if I couldn’t have fun with my friends because I was too worried about bothering them or saying something stupid and driving them away.

Social anxiety? What the hell is that?! It’s not something I have, for sure.

I mean, everyone feels this way, right?

Right?

Yeah, so, I don’t have social anxiety. I have some friends with social anxiety and I don’t do that stuff.

I don’t think I do that stuff.

Everyone worries about offending the people around them, right?

Right?

Yeah, so, it’s nothing strange that I used to feel bad for writing poems about how depressed I was because I wasn’t depressed.

It’s nothing strange that I used to hold myself back from laughing obnoxiously, getting too excited, jumping up and down and showing my happiness in every single fibre of my being.

It’s nothing strange that I used to obsessively check my reflection, as if a select section of the population would push me away if I got too close with a hair out of place.

It’s nothing strange that I used to cry and write and dream at night and hide my words from others’ sight, and then in the morning:

In the morning I would smile.

As if a bright grin could beguile my parents and everyone so they would never begin to realise that behind this disguise I’m falling to pieces slowly and telling myself I’m alright.

And really, when you think about it, it’s nothing strange that even I couldn’t see through myself.

I used to lie. All the time.

It’s nothing strange that the most convincing lie I ever told was to myself.

I’m fine.

Really, I’m fine.

There’s nothing wrong with me, I don’t have any problems, and I don’t care how many times someone tells me,

‘Well I’m sort of an oppositional person, and I don’t like you.’

If they want to be proud of being oppositional, that’s their problem, not mine.

And it’s nothing strange that even now I feel bad for pretending that still affects me, it was three months ago, I’m over it.

I’m over it.

But really,

It’s nothing strange that I’m not over it.

When someone dislikes you simply because of who you are isn’t that your fault?

Of course it is, you’re the one who’s being who you are, right?

Right?

So it’s my fault, and that’s why I’m fine, because I deserved it anyway and I really need to get over it.

It’s just that the river has gotten so wide it’d take fifteen engineers just to design a bridge and every single instance of myself that’s ever existed to actually build it.

It’s not like I can just swim across it.

I would have succeeded already if it were that easy.

Why haven’t I succeeded already, it should be that easy, it shouldn’t be this difficult, there must be something wrong.

Like I’m broken or something I don’t know.

Because if this river keeps getting bigger so fast why am I not improving just as fast?

There must be something wrong.

I’m that girl

the one who frustrates you by second guessing herself

the one you’ll eventually get fed up with and leave

I’m that girl who will shout expletives at your receding back as you walk away

and then take it all back with her next breath

I’m that girl who apologises for something

and then does it again

and again

I’m that girl who says she’ll try harder

but then decides she doesn’t even care

at the last minute

I’m that girl who beats herself up at night for giving up

for giving in

for failing

I’m the type of person who will selfishly give in to her feelings instead of just leaving you be

Please

I’m only going to hurt you

and I don’t want to

but later I’ll decide it doesn’t matter anyway

Please

leave

i found a rusty locket

with a broken hinge

the hinge was fine when i found it

but broke when i looked within

i also found a bottle

in pieces but the lid

i put it back together

then it i quickly hid

i found an old capslock key

mine’s been gone a while

i tried to place it there last night

it didnt match the style

these broken things they found me

now they wont go away

they scream; as such astound me

but still they are they stay