Chapter 1~

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Karl awoke on the floor of his library, which could barely be called a library for how small it was. The walls were lined with all but empty shelves that contained what few books he had filled before migrating all of his time travel info to his time travel book. All of his personal journals were kept in a chest beside his desk in the corner of the room, which was probably why Karl never bothered to use those as a way to remember things: out of sight, out of mind. All other info was better kept safely in his usual notebook. Info about his adventures and about the inbetween were far too important to leave on a shelf or in a box.

Karl had been too exhausted the previous night to leave the library, so he had fallen asleep on the floor. This had happened often lately. It was almost like a cruel reminder that the inbetween was weakening him. He finally stood up and stretched. His entire body ached from sleeping on the uncomfortable hardwood floor, but he ignored that and climbed up the ladder. The main area was completely open, so the second Karl opened the trapdoor, he was met with the warm breeze of spring in the kingdom. He just sat there for a minute, enjoying the short-lived peacefulness. The sound of the fountain and the wind against the trees was interrupted by sudden arguing in the distance. This had become a common occurrence, although Karl wasn’t really sure why or what it was about. This hadn’t happened before as far as he knew. At that point, he wasn't even sure when it started. Though it wasn’t very surprising that Karl didn’t remember when it started, since he was never really able to remember much anyways.

Karl knew for sure that one of the people arguing was Sapnap, but he didn’t know who the other person was. The voice sounded familiar, sure, but he couldn’t quite put a name to the voice. The only other person who had ever really come around there was George, but he knew what his voice sounded like. Besides, Sapnap and George were best friends. Despite how little Karl had seen George as of recent, he knew that the two wouldn’t be having a serious argument, especially not every day. Karl figured that the other person was just someone whom he hadn’t been introduced to, seemingly for a good reason. It didn’t make sense why the person would just keep coming back to argue. He guessed that some people just enjoyed arguing for whatever reason.

Karl climbed back down into his part of the library. He never left the library when he heard arguing. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of it. So he decided to sit down at his desk and flip through the pages of his time travel book. He stopped on the last page that he had filled in. He knew that traveling again was a bad idea. It drained all of his energy and worsened his already terrible memory. He glanced over the words on the newest page, specifically the parts about the inbetween, trying to decide if it would be okay. Usually he went at least a few days without time traveling to recover, which was usually the time he spent with Sapnap, but that wasn’t an option due to the arguing. He used to just be forced into other times randomly, but once he figured out how to just do it himself, he was finally able to  have time to himself without worrying that he would suddenly be in a whole other place. Sometimes he would time travel to occupy himself for a while. And this time, Karl didn’t really seem to have much of a choice unless he wanted to sit and wait for a possible few hours.

He flipped to the next page, letting light fill the room and consume him, eventually leaving him in an almost completely dark area. It was clearly a cave, as shown by the little light provided by the glowberries. Karl could hear running water nearby, leading him to a small village. It was immediately evident that this was a lush cave. It was filled with beautiful plants, which covered the ceiling. The village was built over an underground lake, which was the only other source of light besides the glowberries because of the magma at the bottom. There were only four buildings, each made from terracotta and moss. There was a small town center where a likely 10-15 people were gathered at the moment.

Karl walked a bit closer to the town center to find out what was going on. It was far too crowded for him to be noticed. There were definitely more people there than could typically fit in the available space. Nevertheless, he was able to listen in on what was going on.

"The glowberry harvest isn't looking good this year. We'll barely have enough to last through this month."

"But that's our only source of food!"

Karl looked around seeing that the remaining glowberries were really small and not very plentiful. With that being the main light source and the only food source, things were definitely not looking good for the village. So Karl finally decided to speak up.

"Uh.. Hi," Karl waved. Everyone immediately turned toward him and gathered around, asking who he was and where he came from.

"I'm Karl Jacobs, and I came from uh.." He looked around before pointing to the general direction from which he came, "That way, and I think there's a way out- Given your current situation I don't think you have many options."

The villagers were understandably hesitant. None of them had ever seen the outside world. They had all been born there. Apparently years and years ago their ancestors went into hiding thinking that the world was going to end, and no one had left since then. So it took a lot of convincing, but surprisingly everyone eventually agreed.

The process of getting out of the cave was long and difficult. A couple people almost died, and it was really hard to navigate through the darkness of the cave. But eventually, the light of the outside world was within sight. The people were happy, and most of them made it out. Karl was happy for them, and they were all his friends now. But as always, he had to leave. He excused himself and went behind a big rock, opening his time travel book and waiting to end up in the inbetween.

The in-between was confusing as always: books filled with random nonsense, more mysteries- nothing was making any more sense than it had before. Though he expected as much, so while that was annoying, it wasn't surprising. He just navigated through the endless bright white colored surroundings, which would almost be soothing in different circumstances. (He wished that he could bring Sapnap there, maybe have a picnic. If it weren't for the hidden intentions of the in-between, it would truly be beautiful.)

Eventually, Karl found himself back in his library, flipping to a new page in his book, and writing down his newest adventure. He soon shut the book, yawning. He was exhausted, and the fact that he had slept on the floor the previous night definitely didn't help. He needed to go find Sapnap.

After leaving the library and getting home, he looked around for Sapnap, finding him in the kitchen. Karl practically fell into his arms.

"Hey! Where have you been? I missed you," Sapnap smiled, wrapping his arms around Karl.

"Mm, fell asleep in my library last night, I've been really busy," Karl says tiredly.

"Well if you're tired we can head to bed now, I was just about to anyway," Sapnap looked at him.

"Can we cuddle?" Karl asked sweetly, looking up at Sapnap.

"Of course"

And so the two went to bed.

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