Homestuck: The Novel

Scene Five

In this chapter you are:Who: JohnWhere: Your house (balcony)When: PresentAdditional chapter warnings:

destruction of property, temporal dislocation, rambling rapping, inexplicable compulsions

Chapter TextChapter 5: Act II: See If Your Dad Is OK

You have never been so certain you were going to die. You even kissed your Liv Taylor poster goodbye.

There is a meteor heading for your house. You have spent the last four minutes running around your house doing things that mostly made no sense. Rose has been playing with your bathroom fixtures instead of helping you make sense of this stupid game.

You're currently staring out at your neighborhood, now actually able to see the flaming rock headed on a collision course with your life. In your hands is a big, strange blue apple, created through the game that might have brought the meteor.

How can this possibly save you?

With nothing to lose, you take a bite. It doesn't taste like apple. You're not sure it has a taste at all.

The world around you goes black. You have the feeling of eyes watching you from the dark. Your neighborhood, the sky, and the ground simply vanish between one blink and the next. Your house now rests upon a pillar of rock standing in a sea of gray clouds. Above is only black, not a star in sight. The wind blows loudly, even more desolate than it was before.

You...don't think you're in Washington anymore.

The kernelsprite is more agitated than ever. With a final pulse, it splits. A black circle with a gray silhouette of the harlequin drops below the cloud cover, and a similar white circle spirals above your house. As the white half ascends, at least four blue spirographs appear directly over the center of your roof.

Only the blue harlequin itself remains at your side. The sprite mysteriously transforms, adding a ghostly body to what was just a head and arm.

For a moment you thought you heard someone say "BOY", as if whispered in the periphery of your awareness.

It was probably just your imagination though.

(YOU THERE. BOY.)

You wonder where your dad is, and if he is okay. (PEEK OVER THE RAILING) With one last nervous glance over the railing, you head inside. The sprite bobs along behind you quite peacefully. Aside from the change in appearance, its transformation doesn't seem to have any relevant ramifications.

There is a strange black substance smeared in various places. Your room. Dad's study. The kitchen. Your dad is nowhere to be found, though his mixing bowl of batter lies abandoned on the floor. He seems to have left in a hurry, For all his absurdities you have put up with, you sure wish he were here right now.

Other than the oily stuff and the kitchen, the house does not seem to have been upended by the close shave with the meteor.

(OPEN THIS DOOR NOW)

You head outside through the utility room. (ADMIRE THIS WALL-MOUNTED GADGET) The power cords leading to your house were severed when your neighborhood disappeared, or you transported, or whatever, but you still seem to have power. Quite bizarre.

(PONDER LAWN AMUSEMENT) Looks like your pogo-ride made the journey, with cake intact, but your swing set is toast. Your trick handcuffs are still hanging on a branch of the tree, though you won't be climbing up to claim them right now. They are dangling over a precarious drop down into the clouds.

(BACK INTO THE HOUSE WITH YOU)
You head back inside and climb the stairs. A weird impulse (OPEN THIS) has you trying the door to Dad's bedroom, even though you know it's locked. And it looks like Rose has at least tried to fix your bathroom. If setting the ripped out fixtures in kind of the right spot can count as fixing.