The Sixth Sense but it's Karlnap

Karl

It was autumn now.

7 months.

The street was cold. Tall buildings kept the cold locked in the wide street, light grey clouds looming over their terraces. Only a few orange leaves lingered on the thin branches of trees planted unevenly between the pavement stones, a slight mist circling around each twig that held tightly to the smooth, lean trunk and brittle, mossy branches.

Brown leaves crunched and disintegrated underfoot, yellow garments flew and settled into his fluffy hair, wind whipping round him, pushing his dark eyelashes onto his pale eyelids. A sudden gust of crisp, sharp air flew down the street, almost knocking his frail body to the cold, grainy brick pavement, tearing coral leaves from the skinny trees and dumping them gently to piles of crunching fire, bordering the old buildings.

Sapnap felt the wind hit him, flicking the corners of his papers upwards. He smoothed the paper with a dry finger, scanning the page for the fith time in the last half hour.

Karl Jacobs, age 16

Three years younger the Sapnap. He smiled. Perhaps he could finally make a friend who didn't think he was odd for finding child psychology so intriguing. He again looked at the highlighted information on the paper, hoping it would somehow help him pass time while waiting.

Parental staus : divorced

acute anxiety

socially iscolated

possible mood disorder

The series of diagnoses seemed oddly like accusations, painting the image of a tired, unfeeling boy with an unkept and scruffy appearance, but the small, black and white  photograph clipped to the cover of his documents told a different story. He looked kind even without a smile and his eyes still had life glinting in them, a hopeful sign that maybe his mind wasn't lost to dispair.

A door clicked shut and Sapnap tore his eyes to the noise, releif flooding his senses as the small, fluffy-haired Karl stepped down from a slightly raised step to a brown door. The wind suddenly slapped him, taking his baseball cap with it and carrying it straight towards Karl. The black fabric settled behind the doorstep, hitting Karl's rosy cheek in the process. He rubbed it gently as his grey eyes followed the cap to the floor, flickering to the owner stood awkwardly in front of the wooden bench below a window, a brown, cork clipboard with flapping papers in one hand and the other running apologetically through his dark brown curls.

Karl stepped slowly off the stone slab, bending his knees to pick up the cap, his thin fingers curling around the fabric covered, flimsy plastic part, a small embroided panda appearing as he lifted it from the warm toned leaves. He turned back to the shorter boy, meekly holding the cap out to him, smiling nervously.

"Sorry, uh, thanks..." Sapnap laughed uneasily, taking his cap back slowly. As the boy dropped his small hand, he noticed purple and white paint on his chipped and scuffed nails. Karl nodded, his hair bouncing slightly on top of his head and he stepped to the side, begining to walk past Sapnap, down the chilly street.

With the wind muffling his footsteps, he stuck his hands in the pocket of his beige coat, pulling it inwards and across the dark  purple torso of his colour block hoodie, only part of the turquoise swirl poking out behind the brown material. The bottom of the coat reached only a few centimetres above his knee, flapping as the wind hit it, the broken ribbon, that was supposed to tie around his waist, doing the same.

His clouded brain tuned to his thoughts, wandering the vast space of his imagination. Karl enjoyed making up stories, he had found that walking and sleeping were the optimal times for story making. His head housed an infinite library of fantasies and imaginary worlds, made up characters and wild plots, but also a plethora of real ones too; real stories, of people and places, some short and exciting, some long and droning, some a mix of the two. People always told him he had a great imagination, he simply took the compliment gratefully, and yes he made things up all the time, but he'd never told anyone where the roots of his fictions came from. He didn't want to. They would think he was lying, think he was mad, and Karl didn't want that one more anxious thing to deal with.

He was lost thinking about his latest idea; a twisting tale of time travel and reincarnated lovers, a boy, just like him, who fought through time, losing control of when he was, who kept seeing the same people restored through time, falling in love with the same person each time he travelled, only to lose them the second he flashed into another time. Karl didn't know the ending of this tale yet, and he didn't need to, he would conjure it up eventually.

Reality suddenly materialised around him again, pulling him from his bookshop brain with a warm hand on his shoulder. The cold air pierced his throat as he flinched, drawing in a surprised, nervous breath.

"Hi, sorry," the same voice from earlier said. Karl turned his head, fear flashing across his features as their eyes met, "I'm Sapnap, we were supposed to meet today, I, uh, don't know if you forgot."

Karl stayed silent. His hands gripped the insides of his pockets and his arms tensed around his sides. He felt his breath quicken, his heart beating faster every breath. Sapnap's hand felt cold even through his layers of clothing, it was uncomfortably cold but Karl couldn't bring himself to shake it off. Somehow his fingers were warm yet cold, like one of those unusually nice throbbing pains, it was calming but still made his heart race with fear and he began to shake.

"Karl?" Sapnap removed his soothingly uneasy grip from his slim shoulder. The voice rang through his ears, piercing his senses, flipping the switch to panic and he lost control of his own body. A hot tear slipped from his slate grey eye, rolling down his frigid, pink face, leaving a glistening, salty trail down his cheek. He stood, limbs shaking and palms sweating.

"Karl are you alright?" Karl's breath hitched, a sob clawing at his throat, his fear stricken eyes tearing into Sapnap's already anxious emotions. He wanted to reach out, offer even slight comfort to the panicked boy, but he flinched away. Karl stopped looking into his eyes, turning his quivering, weak body until his back was towards the other. Sapnap watched Karl's silent paces dissaper to the end of the street, his tearful eyes glimpsing back towards him, then the flapping ribbon of his coat was finally out of view and the boy was gone, just like that.

Sapnap wanted to follow, but his feet forbade and all he could think about was the terror on his soft face. He didn't know what Karl had gone through, not everything, but their short interaction had spoke some of that truth. He fumbled with the hat in his hand, his thumb brushing over the embroidered panda, promising himself, he would help that boy.

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thats rather gay icl

anyway, long time no see😃 but hi i wrote again. did u enjoy? r u confused abt the plot? u should b thats the whole point of this btw😑

well cya karlnappers i gotta sleep like imagine staying awake thats rly embarrassing

14/01 hai guys lil bit of a quick edit 🤭