Locked Wheels

Chapter 8

"Dad?"

Karkat looked around in confusion, the air too thick with dust and smoke for him to see farther than a few feet. He saw a figure in the distance, jet-black, silhouetted against the unknown white light on the horizon. When Karkat squinted, something about it felt familiar to him. Like it was someone he'd seen before. Someone he knew. Someone he loved.

"Dad?" Karkat found himself whispering involuntarily. Was that his father? He couldn't tell from this far away, but something about the figure told him that it was.

Karkat took a hesitant half step towards the figure, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He started off walking, all the while keeping his eyes on the horizon. The figure turned into a man, medium height, average stocky build, raven black hair that would have been a giant wavy mess had it not been pulled back in a--

Karkat faltered for a moment, his foot catching on something invisible and him nearly falling to his knees. He caught himself at the last second, bumping into a person who'd appeared out of thin air. Yes. That was his dad. That was him. He hadn't seen him in what felt like years, but he knew his father, and that was him standing there. Karkat started walking faster, pushing past people who were appearing out of nowhere, his gaze still glued onto his father's back. He had to get to him. He just had to. Suddenly, he was pushing through a sea of stubborn people who wouldn't move at all. He was starting to get frustrated, shoving and elbowing his way through. He was so close to his dad, so close him seeing him and finally noticing him.

Then he saw the gun.

Fear stabbed through him, freezing him in place. An unknown hand now had a gun pressed into his father's face, barely three inches from his nose. He didn't know who had the gun or what they were talking about, but terror struck through Karkat as he realized what was about to happen.

"No..." he breathed. "No..."

All at once, everyone around him saw the gun as well and started rushing away. Karkat himself was pushed back a little ways, too stunned to think to move. It was only when someone ran into his shoulder that he snapped into reality.

"Dad!" he screamed, struggling to fight his way through the panicked throng of people stampeding in the opposite direction. He kept being swept back, and he was losing sight of his dad. Someone hit his shoulder hard and he fell to the ground, rolling over at the last second and narrowly avoiding being trampled to death. When he got back up again, the gun was still there pointed at his dad. The person holding it seemed angry now, waving it around wildly and repeated jabbing it into his chest for emphasis on whatever they were shouting about.

"Dad!" Karkat screamed, his voice cracking in his desperation. "Da--"

A gunshot rang out through the air.

"No!"

Karkat awoke with a jolt, his eyes flying open and his hand gripping the sheets with white knuckles. He sat up sharply, his heart still beating hard and his ears still ringing. He looked around his pitch-black room, starting to calm down a bit. He put his face in his hands, groaning loudly in annoyance. He'd thought the nightmares had already stopped. He hadn't had one in almost three weeks.

When Karkat turned to his bedside table to grope for his phone in the darkness, it told him it was only 4:57. Karkat scowled and tossed his phone to the end of his bed and then drew his knees to his chest. He'd only gotten about three hours of sleep, and there was no way he was gonna calm down soon enough to get any more before his alarm rang at 6. He put his head in his knees and growled softly.

"Fuck..." he murmured before standing up and stretching. Whatever. He grabbed one of his jackets from a pile of boxes and slid on a pair of clean-ish sweatpants and padded out into the living room. He shivered in the cold of the house this early. Their air conditioning always went haywire during the night and turned it into a fucking tundra. It was probably the coldest place he'd been since they got to Texas.