The Unicorn in Kinoko

Chapter 11

~~Karl~~

I'm breathing hard. It can't be true, it can't be true. My second time travel to that creepy Kinoko and something was very wrong.
"Aye Sapnap, please don't Sapnap." Nick, the boy depicting Sap, he disappeared with. He wasn't gone as long as Clay but the same thing happened. He came back, different. All the scars from the battles he had fought were gone and he remembered nothing. I see his eyes in front of me, not warm brown like Sapnap's eyes are but gray like the stones on the street.
But brisk steps, I make my way from my bedroom to the office. In there are all the books about the time travel, the originals. The way they were when I was there. The ones in the library are just copies, rewritten lest people get scared of time travel, afraid of me. On the table are the drawings of the people I met in Kinoko. The gray Kinoko.
I take out the picture of Sapnap and turn it over. With my left hand, I fish out a feather pen and dip it in the inkwell. With a couple of quick strokes, the outlines of his face are on paper. I dip the feather again and sketch out my mouth, hair and nose. With the tip of the feather just over the paper, I stop. Just above the surface where his eyes should be. I close my eyes for a second and see Sapnap, Nick, in front of me. Those pale gray eyes that stared at me without knowing who I was. With quick movements, I draw my eyes there. But when I open the box with the little bottles of paint in them. I see that they are almost empty. There's not enough for the image I'm even working on.
"Damn it too." I hiss and close the box. But then I remember that Tina should have made new paint. I hurry down the stairs and out. The streets are sun-warmed and I see Tina sitting on her staircase with Patches on her lap. I walk up to her and she lights up.
"Hey Karl! Good day today?" She strokes the cat across the back and she purrs low. I run one hand through my hair and squint at the sun.
"yes, right." She nods and continues stroking the cat's fur. Tina's entire focus is on Patches. I wiggle back and forth on the soles of my feet. "You possibly don't have color at the moment?"
She looks up at me again and frowns slightly.
"Yes, but is it already gone? You got a new one a week or so ago." I smile a little embarrassedly at her.
"I've painted a lot." She nods and sets Patches down on the ground.
"I'll go in and get it for you." She gets up and disappears into the house. Patches slip away into a couple of bushes and I remain standing where I stand. Thaws quickly come out with a small braided basket with small jars in it. Red, green, blue, yellow, every color I can think of. I accept the basket and smile at her.
"Thank you Tina." She smiles and strokes a dark strand of hair away from her face.
"They were so little Karl, good luck with the painting." We smile at each other and I walk in to me.
The image of Sapnap is on the desk, his unpainted eyes staring out of the paper. I have to tell Sapnap, for his own safety, but how should I do it? If George was so devastated just to hear about what could happen to Dream, how will Sapnap react when he's the one it's going to happen?
There's a knock on my door. Three determined knocks that I recognize all too well.
"Seems like it's time." I sigh and go downstairs to open.

~~Sapnap~~

I stare at Karl, he looks startled. His eyes are staring and his body tense like the strings on my violin. The yellow eye shines like a small lamp and the purple equally so.
"What's happened?" I take him into my arms. My partner starts shaking like an earthquake is shaking his body. "Shhh.. I'm here Karl." I stroke him across the back and spin his curls between my fingers. Anything to put him at ease.
"I can't." He gasps for breath and falls silent mid-sentence. I feel his hands against my chest as he pushes to get away from me. I hold on for a second but let him go. He takes a couple of steps backwards and looks at me with watery eyes. We look at each other, the silence spreading like oil on water.
"What is it?" He scares me. A ferocious horror shines from him and he stares at me as if I were a drop of water in the desert. To be honest, he scares me. Karl backs off one step and then another, until darkness in his house covers his face. But his different colored eyes still shine at me.
"Sap," His voice is low. Like a breeze tickling my eardrums.
"yes?" I take one step closer to him and he backs two. This is exactly how it was when Quackity left us. He walked one step closer, Karl backed two. Then Karl's eyes disappear and I hear a thud from the floor. But I'm not getting any closer, I've frozen solid in the ground. My eyes can slowly look into the dim hallway.
Karl's sitting on the floor. He lifts his head and I see his ruined eyes. They're red-rimmed and I'm backing away. His different-colored irises are surrounded by red lakes.
"You're going to disappear." I stare at my partner. Did I hear right? In response to my inquiring gaze, he repeats himself. "You'll disappear Sap."
And the world is raging around me.