Inception {Dreamnotfound}

23 | Haunted Relapse | 23

Fun fact: if you include Inception's prologue, this is the 100th chapter of TLS.
I'm not sure how I've written that many or how y'all have read that many, but hey, thanks for sticking around!
Enjoy. Love ya <3 ~ Owl

~~~

-Sapnap's POV-

Nighttime always feels oddly quiet in the forest.

I think a part of me is still on edge from the city, used to the repetitive nature of never quite being safe. That overhanging thought that you have to be prepared for any possible ambushes makes it near impossible to sleep soundly anymore, and the effects are starting to take their toll on me.

Karl on the other hand, seems quite content here. He's curled up under a pile of what looks to be both his and my blankets, looking too comfortable for me to even debate disturbing him. From my view, his hair covers most of his face, light curls a disheveled mess.

He fell asleep a while ago, wanting at first to listen in to what Tubbo is discussing with Skeppy and Darryl before deciding it's prying into someone else's business and resorting to this instead. I've tried to do so since too, yet found myself laying here aimlessly, left wondering how he managed.

I guess it's easier to sleep when you know someone is there with you. Though having someone watching over the place never made me feel any safer, most likely due to my trust in people fading rapidly when I left Clay behind.

The sudden realisation that Karl must therefore feel safe with me is daunting yet reliving at the same time, and I smile giddily with pride at the thought. I don't care that Clay and George and everyone else is here too. I'm the one right here, right now.

It's progress, surely, no matter how small.

I still don't know where Karl and I stand. By now he's got all his memories back, which is what he has been waiting for. That was what prolonged the initial confrontation, as well as allowing him the time he needed to adjust back to living in this world again.

I'm not sure how well the latter has gone just yet. Sometimes I think he's okay, seeming to find contentment in the new life he's learning to adjust to. Other times he looks lost. So out of place, disoriented and confused, almost like he's expecting to return to whatever he had before what happened to him.

That's what bothers me the most.

The fact that Karl can't seem to let go yet.

I can't tell if it's a lack of acceptance or denial that keeps him from it. I've seen this process happen before, watched George reclaim control over and make sense of his amnesia, and Clay grow back into the best friend I used to know. But Karl's seems so different, trying to let go of what's now effectively a past life for him.

It must've been hard. To return to a world full of unfamiliar people, with no control over any of it, and be expected to adjust to what others see as normal. I keep telling myself that the whole experience must be daunting for him, that I need to be patient and help him through this however I can.

Yet half the time, I wonder if I'm helping. Wonder if I'm worth anything more than the label of soulmate, and if Karl would've kept me around back then had I been anything, anyone else.

I know I mean more than that to him now, that he's past the point of feeling only inclined to love me. Yet I don't know what sort of love that is yet, and I can only hope the system knows what it's doing by pairing us together.

Despite this mix of emotion, I still feel loved. In some crazy, undeserved way on my part, considering what I caused. That thought still remains in the back of my head, the constant denial of if I already lost my chance.