No One Really Understands

Awake.

Karkat awoke with a start. He didn't know where he was. All he could see was darkness, endless, enveloping black, blanketing over all of his senses, choking out his breath and stealing his vision. It was all he could hear, all he could feel, all he could taste and smell. It was all...

Nothing.

He tried to move, but could not. He wasn't even sure if he had a body to move. He certainly couldn't feel or find one. He was aware that he existed, but nothing more than that. He couldn't hear, nor was there anything to hear, but he could somehow... feel something. Something beating dully, like a watch wrapped in cotton. It was lazy, sometimes slowing, sometimes stopping completely for a handful of seconds, but it was always there. For however long he was there, it was right there with him.

Wherever he was, wherever "here" was, he couldn't feel time passing. There wasn't even anything he could have kept time with anyway, except for the beats. Eventually, when he was starting to drown in the endless present, he started using the beats to count the seconds. He knew they were too slow to be seconds, but they were at least something. But even that didn't last very long; no matter how hard he tried he couldn't keep count any higher than the 300s. Eventually, he just gave up and let everything blur together, each tick, each moment, melding into the last, never becoming the past, or the future or anything but "now."

He could have been there for days or weeks or months or even years. Or, it could have been hours. Minutes. Mere seconds. There was no way he could have know and it drove him insane. He could feel himself losing his mind, each tick chipping away at his sanity, punching holes in him as he sank deeper and deeper into the sea of his own thoughts. There was nothing there except for him, his thoughts, his darkness, his ticking. There was nothing there but him, and it was driving him mad.

He wondered briefly if maybe this was what death felt like. The eternal suffocating darkness. The nothingness. If this was what death was, he wasn't sure why he'd wanted to die in the first place. Even the shit he'd gone through had to be better than this. He would surely lose his mind here.

But then again, if he was indeed dead, how could he have a mind to lose? Dead people didn't have minds, or at least not sentient ones. That was the definition of being dead, wasn't it? Not having any kind of brain function. If he was dead, how could he be thinking? How could he feel bored or afraid or feel like he was losing his mind? How could he even wonder if he was dead, if he was dead?

The thinking was painful and confusing so he stopped. He stopped wondering and counting and waiting for nothing and retreated to the back of whatever mind he had, back into the darkness, the blackness, the silence, the endless tick, tick, tick.

The ticking surrounded him.

The ticking engulfed him.

The ticking became him.

Eventually, gradually, the ticking evolved into something more, louder and sharper and more mechanical, a beep rather than a tick. He stopped feeling it so much as he started hearing it, which was startling on its own without the fact that, along with hearing, he was starting to feel and smell and taste. A thick, blanketing scent of sterility. Cold air on his skin, raising goosebumps on his arms. Soft hisses and footsteps and murmurs. More beeps. The occasional prick or prod or poke. Something burning in his throat, something bitter turning in his stomach. Limbs. Fingers. Toes. A body.

Pain.

For a split moment, cold numbness washed over him again and he panicked, thinking he was slipping away again, not wanting to be trapped in his own mind again, fearing the dark numb nothing. Then, he heard something that anchored him in reality.

"Karkat."

It snapped him back into his body. It wasn't a voice he could identify, muffled and far away, but he knew it was his name. Someone one else was saying his name. And if someone else was saying his name, he had to be out, didn't he? There had been no one else in his darkness, no one and nothing except for him, his thoughts, his ticking. But now, there was someone else, and he was finally out. He was out. He was free. He was finally free.

He didn't open his eyes until later. It wasn't really a conscious act. He became aware of his eyes and his closed eyelids and then suddenly he was staring up at the ceiling, bright and glaringly white.

He sat up. He was in a stark, harshly lit room. The air felt like ice and smelled like it had been soaked in bleach. There was medical equipment all around him, including the two large masses of monitors and cables and pumps on either side of him. He looked down at his body. There was a thin hospital gown on him and a threadbare blanket laid across his legs.

Panic went through him. He didn't know where he was. He knew the sounds and the smells and everything else except for the where. The feeling was extremely disorienting and it jarred him badly.

Karkat pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees, hot panic and fear building in his chest. He started gently rocking back and forth, trembling ever so slightly. He pressed his face into his knees as tears stung at his eyes.

He was scared and lost and so very confused, and he wanted Dave. Of all the things he knew then, the one thing he was certain of was Dave. He wanted the security of his arms, the warmth of his chest, the smooth rumble of his voice. He wanted it. He needed it.

Where are you? Karkat thought as his shoulders began to tremble. Please... I need you...

I need you...

A/N: hey guys.

so. that was chapter 17. i know i know, its really short. sorry. but hey at least you got the information you needed so i guess its alright.

chapter 18 might take a little bit because i, as usual, decided it was an A+ idea to write one short ass chapter and then immediately write a really long ass chapter. yeah. makes total sense.

but anyway.

yeah its gonna take a little longer than usual because its 14 pages in the notebook i wrote it down in ((which if you dont know in this notebook is a lot. most of the other chapters are around 10-12 pages.)) so just a heads up about that.

and after chapter 18 there are only 5 more chapters ((that i have written)) i might add another chapter if im not able to wrap everything up the way i want to in chapter 23. but even still, were in the home stretch.

dont worry though. im not gonna be one of those authors who writes one really great fic but then goes radio silent forever and never writes another story. there will be other fanfics. probably((?)) not as long as this one per se, maybe longer maybe shorter, but there will certainly be more. ((speaking of, if you want, give me fanfic suggestions!! i wanna see what you guys want me to write))

so yeah. there will probably be a delay on chapter 18. only 5 or 6 more updates left. im gonna be writing more for sure and give me fanfic suggestions.

alright.

ok.

see you next chapter.