Dirk
I found myself standing at the entrance to an alley with only a quick second to get myself oriented. My shades were gone and I had no weapons or memory of how I got here. I was completely vulnerable. Oh crap. The street was completely full of zombies. But they weren't just unnamed figures in a crowd this time. Just like some of my previous dreams, every single one of them was someone I knew. It had to be a dream.
But if it was a dream, it wasn't a normal dream. None of us have been having normal dreams. It must have been some weird post-Derse-or-Prospit brain thing. All our dreams were completely lucid, and we could feel everything. We could even close our eyes in the dream without it ending. Sometimes we could control what we do, other times we felt stuck in some kind of predestined movement. But we couldn't change what was happening around us. And even when we knew it was a dream, we couldn't just wake up on command.
So even though this was obviously a dream, I was scared. I knew I would feel all the pain of being attacked, and everything seemed exactly like real life, which explained why I was having so much trouble processing reality when I was awake.
I knew that even if I didn't have the problem of all the dead faces staring through me seeming real, I would still be panicking over the fact that they one day could be. If I had to be honest with myself I would have said I was surprised they weren't already. Getting people killed seemed to be the only thing I was good at. Luckily I didn't see Jake in the crowd for once, but this was still just as bad.
"Dirk."
Not again. The voice was in my mind, quickly being joined by voices of every other face in that crowd.
"What did you do?"
Now they were all blaming me. This was even worse. I started backing up slowly into the alleyway.
"This is your fault."
"You did this!"
"Why couldn't you save us?"
It was horrible. I was being surrounded by the voices of people I loved, repeating over and over the same thoughts I had been trying to push away for days.
"You didn't do enough."
"Why did you even try?"
"Shut up," I muttered through gritted teeth. I couldn't tell if I was sad anymore or just angry. I was mad at them for reminding me of what I had done, but I knew that it was my fault that they were. If I hadn't failed them so badly, I wouldn't even be in this situation. I didn't even know what I did wrong, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me it was definitely something. I was just angry, but not at them. I was angry at myself.
They were coming after me down the alley now. I backed up as far as I could before hitting a brick wall. I pulled my eyes away from them for a moment to see that there was nowhere I could go. The walls on either side were solid, and I had no weapons to fight my way through the crowd, not that I thought I would be able to snap out of my fear long enough to try.
They were only a couple feet away from me. I was going to die. Failing to keep my breathing down to a reasonable level, I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself against the wall. But I could still hear them taunting me.
"You failed."
"This is all your fault."
I knew they were right.
I was ready for them to kill me. I was ready for them to give me what I knew I deserved.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. This is it, I thought for a moment before I realized that it couldn't have been one of the zombies. It wasn't a strong, undead grip that was about to rip me to pieces. This was a gentle touch that somehow managed to send a wave of calmness to my brain.
"Dirk."
I carefully opened my eyes to see Jake, alive and looking at me with an expression that told me everything was going to be okay.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
I glanced past him at the horde of zombies that seemed frozen in place. They were once again unidentifiable figures, and all I could hear was Jake's voice and my own heavy breathing.
I relaxed my body from its position against the wall and tried to swallow my panic. His hand fell off my shoulder but he still stood staring into my eyes like nobody else ever had.
"Dirk-"
Without thinking I threw my arms around him and buried my face into his shoulder.
"I'm so, so sorry," I sobbed.
He hugged me back tightly, bringing my head closer to his. "This isn't your fault," he said.
I wanted to believe him, and his soothing and confident tone almost made me. But I still couldn't get rid of the idea that I was the one to blame for all of this.
"Yes it is, you don't understand."
He pushed me off of him, keeping a steady grip on my shoulders, and looked me directly in the eyes again. I suddenly remembered that I wasn't wearing my shades. My instinct was to look away, but his eyes had a look of trust and sincerity that I couldn't ignore.
"Dirk, listen to me. Whatever happens happens, and unless you deliberately stabbed one of them through the heart or something like that, it's not your fault. I know you, you wouldn't do anything that would put any of us in danger like that."
Then maybe you don't know me like you think you do, I thought at first. But I brushed it away. This wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to think about right now. Besides, Jake was probably right as he always was when it came to me, even if half my mind was telling me he was wrong. Right?
I wiped away my tears and nodded.
"Great," he smiled and held out a pistol to me. "Now let's go kick some ass."
I glanced at the zombie mob. It was still made up of strangers. It's okay, I told myself.
I smirked and grabbed the gun. "I thought you'd never ask."
---
"Dirk?"
My eyes blinked open to a familiar bright sunlit room. As usual, it took me a second to remember where I was. But this time it felt different. The room was usually dark when I woke up, and I could usually see the silhouetted figure of Dave asleep in the opposite bed.
What time is it? I glanced at the clock on the table next to me and squinted my tired eyes to read the hands.
9:17.
Had I really slept that long? I usually wasn't able to make it more than a couple hours without waking up from a dream. What had I even dreamt about? I couldn't remember anything past Jake showing up. But I didn't have the anxiety and panic that came from a nightmare. Instead my mind was peacefully blank. It felt good to have completely empty thoughts for once.
"Dirk?"
I rolled over to see Jake standing in the doorway. "Hey," I said.
He came inside and I rolled back to the other side and grabbed my shades before sitting up on the edge of the bed, where he sat next to me and smiled.
"Well you slept pretty late," he said.
"Yeah, I guess,"
"How did you sleep?"
"Good." I smiled.
He grinned back. "No nightmares?"
"Nope. I told you you would fix it by coming back."
"Oh stop it," he laughed. Oh my god that laugh.
"I'm serious!"
"Whatever, as long as you're feeling better."
I really was starting to feel better. Then I wondered something. "Have you had nightmares?" I asked.
His eyes clouded over. "Not all the time, but... yeah," he said. I didn't want to ask any more because I didn't want to make him upset, and a short silence followed. But apparently I didn't have to ask. "I had a dream where... I came back here to find you and Jane, but when I got here... you had been bitten."
I put my arm around him. "Well it's alright..." I didn't completely know what to say. "Maybe now that we're both here together, all our nightmares will go away."
We sat there in silence for a couple moments until a loud voice from downstairs interrupted us.
"HEY GET DOWN HERE YOU LOVESICK PIECES OF CRAP!"
Jake stood up. "Oh right I forgot, Karkat sent me up here to wake you up because he wanted to talk to everyone."
"I guess we should go then. That guy has some anger issues," I laughed. But I was kind of nervous. If he had something to tell us that he couldn't have just told us individually, it must have been pretty important, or something he didn't want to talk about more than once. What could possibly be wrong this time? He couldn't have done something so bad that he didn't want to talk about it.