Chapter 1: Murderer
Karkat Vantas sat in his cell, a class 5 cell with the typical padded walls and small heap of pillows and blankets which he called his “pile”. Karkat has been in this facility for only a few months and he loves it. It’s far more peaceful and friendlier than his old home, a rundown apartment in the ghettos where heroin and other drug needles lined the floors with broken bottles, cigarette butts, and the occasional stain of a long since gone splatter of blood. He was in the Felt Facility for the Criminally Insane.
The Signless walks down the hall ways looking for the boy named Karkat, he had heard much about him and wanted to meet him. He finds the cell with Karkat’s name etched into a metal plate screwed into the thick steel door. Karkat had been knocked out of his daydream by the Signless’s footsteps echoing down the hall; after checking his internal clock he found that dinner time was very near. He sat up and waited for the door to open. The Signless looks up from the name plate to see a guard in all white walk down the hall food cart in tow. When the guard looked up to see the Signless there he stopped and stared, unfamiliar with the Signless he quickly barked a few sentences into a walky talky on his shoulder. As the few people with permission to be in this hallway clearly known and recognized by all the staff, but the Signless was a stranger to the guard and therefor a threat in his eyes.
The Signless quickly steps toward the guard pulling a set of papers out of his cloak pocket, “Sir I can exp-”. The guard recognized him by his voice and stared in awe, the guard bowed quickly getting out cancer sign necklace he had been wearing for years. “Is there anything I can do, my lord and savior?” The Signless, still not used to this kind of personal attention, gets a bit flustered but nods, “I-I need access to this cell” he says his slight Russian accent coming out. The guard looks up his eyes concerned “My lord, the patient Z6 is dangerous an-” the Signless interrupts him, dark undertones lacing the words, “So is my work.” The man stands and unlocks the steel door, its locks creaking and groaning, and hands him a tray of food. The door opens inward and light spills into the padded room. The guard bows again and stands just outside the door, ready to protect his lord if the need arises.
Karkat stares at the Signless and he cocks his head. ‘He’s new. Very new… Actually he looks like he doesn’t even work here, his clothes look nothing like the others.’ He thinks to himself not taking his eyes of the Signless. He took in the Signless’s attributes; unshaven, tall, relatively tan, relaxed and non-threatening. ‘Interesting…’ he thought as the Signless walked in handing the young boy his food tray, it had fresh pancakes and warm soup. “Who are you?” he asks as he grabs the tray and places it on the floor in front of himself. “Who I am doesn’t matter, but you may call me Signless. I am here to find out more about you.” Karkat sighs, “A reporter. That’s who you are, aren’t you? I'm going to say as much as much to you as I did to the last one, which is nothing.” Karkat crosses his arms defiantly and leans back on his pile and pulls the tray into his lap. The Signless laughs lightly, “I’m no reporter you can trust me on that. I find reporters to be repulsive.” Karkat smirks at his response; he knew he wasn’t a reporter; he had nothing on his person that suggested the occupation, he had just asked out of paranoia. “Then, what is it that you want to know about me?”
The Signless turns and nods to the guard still outside the door and closes it before turning back to Karkat to say, “ I’ve just heard a bit about you but I don’t believe what I’ve heard. I just wanted to hear your side of the story” Karkat seethed on the inside how dare this man, this stranger, make him remember it. He hated this man already but he tried to stay calm, “My side? About the whole… incident, right?” The Signless felt his anger instantly, “you don’t have to tell me everything, I just can’t think that a young man such as yourself could do a fraction of what they had said.” He tries to get on the boys good side and make him open up even if it was just a bit. “Just because I'm not over the age of eighteen does not mean I can’t do anything. How much do you know already?” Karkat asked; he was nowhere near opening up to this man, not anyone, no matter how much he wanted to. Karkat did though want to feel calm in the Signless’s presence, he didn’t know why but he just did.
