i wanna feel lethal on the inside, i wanna read american psycho again

Dave: Shiver.

Karkat sloshes through murky, knee high water not too far ahead of you. His pace is restless; you struggle to keep up.

A little while ago(three hours, give or take), while you and him were in a hurry to get out of there, you discovered that the further you walked, the more water soaked into your sneakers. You both tried going away from it, but no matter how hard you tried, the water followed you. It's gotten darker as well, the lights dimming and flickering, and though your eyes can finally rest properly, you doubt it's a good omen.

Despite Karkat's obvious ease in traversing through the loch, neither of you have been able to sleep, or even rest. You're most worried for Karkat, though, as he hasn't slept in... what, 16 hours? You guess that's not that much, but the guy looks exhausted. Not much more than you though, you suppose.

You're cold. You got used to the dampness that came with sleeping on the carpet shortly after you got here, but this is different. It's a chill that freezes your core, that settles deeply into your bones, a cold you can't quite seem to shake off. You're not used to being cold in the first place, let alone soaked at the same time.

Karkat seems to be the same way, but with less sluggishness and more motivation, to move past the murk. You've been falling behind him, the shivers and shakes and water making it difficult to keep up. He hasn't seemed to notice your struggle, too focused on what's ahead.

You've been hyping yourself up to say something about it since the water reached your shins. You hate asking for help; it makes you feel weaker than you already are, in this state. You also haven't done it before. Maybe once or twice, but it's nothing that you remember. You're not really sure where to start, either.

Do you just. Ask? Is that how it works? Or do you, like, order him to slow down? You feel like he might hate being told what to do. So, crossing that off the list. Now all you're left with is asking, which... you're not good at that either. How do you ask someone to do something? Is it too late to go back to telling him to do it?

"Hey, uh," you squeeze out of your shivering frame, evening out your voice immediately after you hear it shaking. "Slow down a little, man."

Okay, you told him what to do instead of asking. Which, can you blame yourself? How the fuck do you even ask something like that? What if he says no? To your distress, he looks back at you, scowling.

Then he seems to notice your current state and his face softens a fraction. Thank fuck.

"You should have said something earlier, dumbass. You look like a grubsicle."

"Is everything you eat grub related?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Anything else would be, like, cannibalism? Which, I'm not sure why the highbloods have a problem with, because they kill lowbloods pretty much every day with little to no consequences, so."

"Damn."

You didn't know there was so much violence on his planet. It makes you wonder if he feels lucky to be here.

"Where do you sit on the homospectrum, or whatever?" You ask mindlessly, and deem it as a mistake as soon as you see his shoulders tense.

"That's none of your fucking business." You flinch microscopically at his tone of voice, and he's quick to correct himself. "I mean, maybe to other people, it's great for them to shove it all up in other people's asscracks, but that shits just not for me," he prattles on, waving his hand in the air.

You think you remember him saying something about being a mutant, awhile ago. You're not sure, though. The days have blended together into a nauseating soup of consciousness. Shrugging, you drop the topic, and instead change it to something you think is more pleasant for him to talk about.

"Tell me about your team again?"

He breaks out into a smile, recounting the other five there, telling stories that really have nothing to do with anything. It's nice. If only you weren't so fucking freezing.

You walk for another hour. It gets pitch black for about 20 steps as you reach a high, concrete arch. It's taller than any threshold you've seen for the last five days, and almost gives you the illusion of being free. Almost.

You can't see, and Karkat seems to realize that, grabbing your hand and leading you through until you can see a faint blanket of displaced light, and the scene comes into view.

There are rectangular, concrete pillars, spaced out evenly on grimy tile, with small exposed tiles that reach just outside of the water, and that are just big enough to lay on. They expanse to the top of the stupidly tall ceiling. It's dark, besides a few places of dim light, seemingly coming from nowhere in particular.

You recognize this place.

It's a different level than the one you were on. It's so, so different, and yet...

"Karkat." Your voice echoes against empty space, just like you heard Rose's do whenever she talked.

He looks at you, and you can tell he feels it too by the far away look in his eyes.

"Can I see your book?"

He's perplexed for a moment, but takes it out of his sylladex and hands it to you. You flip through the pages, searching for something until you find it. The page titled "TEREZI" looks back at you, description matching everything surrounding you. Karkat's eyes widen.

"Holy shit," he exclaims, and right as he does, an ear piercing ping! sounds and a blue wall of text appears in front of both of you.

[You have completed Level 1.

The difficulty will increase throughout Levels.

Good luck.]