Chapter 13

                                    

                                          
Eridan

                          
Three Days Ago
                          
I walked through the lobby towards the entrance of the hotel, my backpack slung over one shoulder and my rifle tucked under my arm. I was silent, although even if I had said anything it would have been drowned out by the ear-splitting sound of Karkat screaming at me.
                          
"Where the hell do you think you're going?! You can't just leave; that's ridiculous! You'll get yourself killed! Get back here!" He shouted. 
                          
I was barely listening to him. I walked faster as he followed me, and the others were starting to gather around, but they didn't seem to care very much that I was leaving. I didn't bother to point that out. To be honest, I hadn't been expecting anything else from them.
                          
"It hasn't even been an hour since you woke up! What, you want to just leave us the second you realize you can?!"
                          
"That's the plan," I muttered.
                          
"Eridan, I swear the only way you're walking out that door is over my dead body!"
                          
I turned around. I was flattered that he really cared that much, but that didn't matter enough for me to stay. I had been tired of putting up with all their crap for so long, and now I could finally leave. I wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste. 
                          
I dropped my backpack.
                          
"Have it your way," I said.
                          
Before Karkat could react, I raised my rifle and shot at his head, missing on purpose. I heard a couple of shrieks and everyone jumped out of the way. I definitely wasn't going to actually kill him since he was one of the only ones here I didn't hate with a passion, but I had to get the point across that I was leaving and he couldn't stop me.
                          
He stood there, gaping at me, before suddenly grabbing his sickles off the coffee table nearby and running at me. 
                          
Wow. I didn't think he would actually fight me. I stepped back to grab a pair of daggers out of the side pocket of my backpack and dropped the rifle. I wasn't as good with hand-to-hand combat, but I didn't have much of a choice here.
                          
He tried an overhead hit, but I blocked the blade of his sickle with one of my daggers. He swung the other one to the side of my head and I blocked it too. I grabbed his wrist and twisted until he dropped it, then I pushed him back. I could tell he wasn't really trying. He didn't want me dead either.
                          
Realizing this made me feel sort of bad about what I was doing, but not bad enough. I was sick of dealing with these people, I kept reminding myself. The sooner I got away from them the better.
                          
He ran at me again, faster this time. I swung at his head, but he ducked to the side and grabbed my hand. He wasn't going to give up. I had to take this a little more seriously. I shoved him off and swung at him again. This time he couldn't dodge it quickly enough, and the dagger scratched his cheek. It wasn't deep, but it was bleeding enough to hopefully teach him a lesson. He gasped.
                          
He pushed me back and I tried to slash at him again, but I didn't expect him to escape that time. He slid to the side and kicked me in the stomach, quickly trying to wipe off his cheek in an instinct to hide his blood even though basically all of us knew what color it was by now. I fell to the floor and stood back up quickly. The fight continued like that for a couple more minutes, until I tried to throw one of my daggers at him. He knocked it to the side and swung one of his sickles towards my chest. I knocked it out of his hand and kept fighting with only one dagger.
                          
We didn't stop fighting. It was only getting more and more intense. I could see the others out of the corner of my eye, wondering if they should intervene, but clearly intimidated by the bitter look on my face and the clinking sound of metal on metal.
                          
Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my wrist. I staggered back and looked down at it. It was gushing blood, so much that I could barely see the cut it was coming from.
                          
"Eridan!" Karkat shouted, stopping and dropping his sickles to the floor. At least he didn't seem to have done it on purpose. It wasn't really that bad. It just hurt a lot and would take a while to heal. But at the time I was too angry to realize that.
                          
"You almost cut off my wrist!" I lied.
                          
"Eridan I didn't mean to- I was just trying to-"
                          
"What?! You honestly thought fighting me would stop me from leaving?!"
                          
"You're the one who freaking shot me! I was just trying to make you stay-"
                          
"Of course! You were just trying to make things better! That's what you do, you're always trying to fix things but you keep making them worse! That's what happened with the game, that's the whole reason why everyone died in the first place! It's all because of you trying to make things better! I'm done with it!" I burst. I didn't notice Feferi coming up behind me. She grabbed my arm.
                          
"Eridan, calm-"
                          
I yanked my arm away and pushed her back before turning to the others. Some of them looked terrified, others had the same look of hatred on their face that I imagined they had been feeling towards me all along.
                          
"I'm done with all of you!" I shouted before hauling my backpack over my shoulder and picking up my rifle. I paused to make sure nobody was planning on trying to stop me again and walked out the front door, holding a very specific finger up above my head.
                          
443":}Dp