A/N: 3,000 words exactly. I feel accomplished.

However, I do not like how this came out. I have such a vivid image of what I want from this, but I've been having trouble getting it, so I'm going to stop working on it, and put it here. Good luck making it through to the end ^_^'

Also, if you're looking for a visual, as I was shit at describing it, watch the end credits for the anime Hyouka. That was my original inspiration for the setting.

And I have not proof-read this, so sorry for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes ^_^'

Warnings: Drabble Drabble Drabble Drabble Drabble Drabble (and mentions of cutting.)

Ciao for now!

~Webs

Observe.

That's the first thing they taught you, the voices: "Look but don't try to touch. You'd never be able to reach them anyway."

You sometimes find that hard to believe, curled up and watching the warped glass disk in front of you. They look so real, always moving, always changing. The voices show you different places, different worlds. Worlds different from your own. You like watching those worlds, where everything is so colorful, and vibrant, and just so... alive.

There are so many different kinds of people, with different hair, and different eyes, and different skin. You like to take mental pictures of your favorites. That red-headed boy at the coffeeshop. That brunette woman in the middle of the street. That burly truck driver with a beard and a flannel shirt. The voices tell you not to get attached, so you don't. You never try to find them again.

Sometimes it's hard though, not to go back. That one bucktoothed boy with glasses at the bookstore. You want so badly to ask the voices to show you them one more time, but you don't, because that's the second thing they taught you: "Don't ask questions. You're here to observe what we choose to show you."

Sometimes you don't like the voices, but they're all you have. Without them you'd be alone. Sometimes you think they're there because you're alone, but you're afraid to ask them if that's true.

Don't ask questions.

So you just sit on the round bed that is your world, huddled up against the pillows laid behind you, watching the crystal door to the other worlds as it hangs in front of you. The brass rings that encircle you are always moving, the two metal beams in constant motion. Sometimes you think they're what's keeping your world afloat in the expanse of stars you're trapped in. You're never close enough to the rings to try and push your hand outside, or even just a finger. Sometimes you think it would be fun to see what you could do in this world all to yourself, but...

This is not a game.

The third thing the voices taught you is that you're there to watch these worlds, and nothing else. You're not supposed to laugh and smile like the people on the mirror. You learned the hard way that you're not supposed to cry or scream like them either.

The voices have called you many things, many names that you don't understand. Mutant, Ghost, Albino, Seer, Karkat. You like the name Karkat. It makes the least sense to you, but when they use it, it sounds like a name, and not an insult. When you talk to the voices, you call yourself Karkat. You don't know if they like it or not.

You don't know how long you've been here. The voices talk about something called time, but you don't understand it. They've tried explaining it, but they gave up after a while. They called you stupid that day.

But these... pink-things the voices call humans, always passing across the mirror, they understand time. That's all they care about. You see them constantly looking at their watches, and clocks, as if they have somewhere to be at every second. You like the humans, more than the voices, even though you'll never be able to see them, not ever in person. But then again, you won't ever see the voices either.

You don't think they're in your head, because you can hear their voices echo out around you, but sometimes you're not sure, because other than the voices and noises from the mirror, the voices are the only sound you hear. You're not sure but you think they own you. They sure act like they do.

Sometimes you look down at yourself, and wonder why the voices don't call you human too. When they're describing you, they call you albino, but you don't know what that means. Your skin is almost as white as your teeth, unless you see something embarrassing on the mirror, like this weird things humans do with their mouths, and you blush. Humans don't seem to have outward bones on their heads either. If you run your fingers over your head, you can feel them, sticking out of the crown of your head. You don't know what they look like, because the mirror never shows what you look like your do. Sometimes you wish it did, but other times, you know it would only show how different you are from them

They wear colorful clothes too. You've only ever worn white, whiter than your skin. It's always baggy pants and a shirt, but they're not uncomfortable. They're softer than your wiry hair, which also comes away white when strands get caught on your fingers.

Sometimes you think albino means white, but you don't ask the voices. The voices don't like when you ask them things.

You never think this is fair, because they're always asking you things. What did you think of that man in the restaurant? Did you like that woman's hair style? Why do you think that man dressed nicely for work?

You don't always know how to answer, because sometimes you don't know what words mean. You don't know what work is. You think it's something humans do everyday, but you can't pinpoint what, because humans do so many things every day, and not every human does the same things as other. Like the humans that dress in clothes similar to yours, but tighter, and neater, they always drink this dark liquid they call coffee, but the people who wear thicker, woven clothing, they always eat this delicious-looking food called tortillas. You want to try coffee and tortillas.

But you only ever eat something the voices call hoofbeast meat, and some green stuff they won't tell you the name of. Sometimes you think you'd get tired of it eventually, but sometimes they won't feed you for a while, so it becomes what you need, and not what you want.

Never want anything.

That's something else they taught you, when you were young and unused to not asking questions. You'd said you wanted clothes like the humans wore, all bright and happy, but they'd flat out refused. They said you weren't meant to want. You were meant to observe.

Always observe...

You don't know if you did anything else before this, because all you seem to remember is this. You've known you change over what they call time. You grow, and gain weight, and your hair gets longer, so you remember being smaller, and chubbier, and you remember even then, they made you watch the mirror.

Even then, you knew the humans were different in so many ways to you. They could go different places, and see new people, while you were, and are, stuck here.

One day, you'd grown excited. You'd seen something in the human world like your own: something they called an observatory. You didn't have any interest in the newer ones; those were boring, but the old ones, the ones of brass and metal and stars. There was this man, Galileo, who made all sorts of instruments like telescopes and things.

But then the voices realized what you were doing, and stopped the images on the mirror. They told you to go to sleep. That was the first time you'd felt anger. Why weren't you allowed to see such things? Why weren't you allowed to smile and be excited that there were things that made you not feel so alone?

You don't remember what happened after that, but you know it hurt. The voices did something to make you hurt, and you've tried not to be angry since.

You remember the day you first saw him vividly. They hadn't fed you in two what they call nights, so you remember being hungry, and sleepless, so they'd turned on the mirror again for you. Normally, the voices would speak to you while you were watching, but they didn't this time. They turned on the mirror, and didn't speak again until what they called morning.

You were watching the daily lives of people who lived in a large apartment building, somewhere that looked warm and dry. The mirror would switch humans every now and then, letting you see a variety of different people, but while it was interesting, your heart wasn't in it like it normally was. You were tired, and hungry, and a little bit, but not much, angry at the voices, and then you saw someone like you.

You'd almost missed him as he left what humans call a bathroom, and would have looked the other way if you'd missed the split second before he slid tinted eyewear onto his face. Red eyes.

You didn't think humans were like you at all. The voices tell you the only color on you is your eyes, and it's mutant. You're not sure what it means, but you know it's not normal, especially for humans. And he'd... he'd had the same color as you.

His hair was like yours too, only a bit... yellower than yours, but definitely unlike anything you'd seen on a human before.

You'd watched him until the mirror changed to another person, but even after that, your thoughts strayed to him. The voices had always told you there's no one like you. No human would ever look like you. So why did he?

You almost asked the voices when they came back, but you'd bit your tongue. Never ask questions. And it didn't matter anyway; you'd never see him again. There was no reason to ask, because it would never come up.

But then it did. You saw him again, in that same hot, dusty place, but outside, at what was labeled a coffee shop. He had that tinted eyewear on out there too, so you couldn't see his eyes, but still you watched him, watching and dreading the moment the mirror would change.

You began to see him more often, though you never asked the voices to let you. Half of you wonders if they're doing it on purpose, but the other half thinks they aren't paying attention to you like they use to.

You don't know why, but that makes you feel lonely. Then, you'd looked back at the mirror, at that strange boy that was so like you, and you didn't feel alone anymore.

You forced yourself to stay up a different night, and, like before, the voices turned the mirror back on, and left. You didn't mind this time, sitting up attentively to see if you'd catch a glimpse of him. You did, eventually, at a library. You don't know what a library is, but it's obviously a place that holds a lot of books, and the boy was reading one.

You could always tell when the mirror is about to change, because the edges get fuzzy and warbled. You were usually okay with it, but then, it was the last thing that you wanted to happen, so you threw out your hand and yelled a word the humans used a lot when upset: No.

You felt a shock go through your body as your hand touched the mirror's surface, but then... nothing happened. The blurriness went away, and the mirror didn't change. It stayed on the boy, and you... felt happy.

The voices must have found out, because as soon as they realized you were smiling, they did that thing again, where they hurt you. You remembered it that time, and you stopped smiling after that. You tried to convince yourself there was no reason to be happy, because the chances of the mirror finding him again...

You stayed awake again another night. The voices allowed you to continue watching the mirror. You saw him again.

The mirror stayed with him longer this time, but still began to fade eventually. You reached forward and touched the surface again, and the mirror stayed. He was at school, and what struck you most about him was that he was alone. He was alone, like you, even though his skin was pink, and his hair almost normal. He was still rejected by society.

Or maybe he chose it to be like that? Sometimes you think that might be the case, but you're not sure, because you can't. Not because he'll hurt you if you do, but because you... can't. You know that hurts more than anything.

You stayed like that until the voices came back, at which you immediately retracted your hand and let the mirror change subjects. You hoped it would let you find him again.

The voices started asking you harder questions, with bigger and harder words, and they got angrier when you didn't know how to answer. You started to think you're... failing them. At what, you don't know. You noticed they started getting more frantic, muttering things to you about running out of time.

You don't understand what they mean. Time wasn't something you could accumulate, right? You try not to think too hard about it.

One night, when you're watching the blonde boy with red eyes, he does something. You're not sure what, or why he was doing it. He was holding something silver, then he set it on his arm, and there was suddenly red. You didn't understand. How... how could you get red from silver? Perhaps it had something to do with skin...?

You'd looked at your arm, exposed as the sleeve of your shirt slid down to hold your palm against the surface. Maybe... You'd pulled your hand back, and poked at your arm with your nail. You couldn't make red. Maybe you two were different after all...

You put your hand back on the mirror, shaking yourself and deciding that you didn't care about that. Maybe it was a human thing.

You watched him until the voices came back again.

By then, as they start speaking rapidly to you, something about project termination, drugs, and stupid bureaucracy, none of which you understood. You knew what a project was, but...

You look up, from where you think the voices were coming, holding a pillow to your chest in confusion. Drugs. You remember a human mentioning something about them. Some were for illnesses, some made you feel good for something called recreation, but those ones were bad.

That poses an interesting thought for you: how could something be bad if it makes you feel good?

One look at the mirror, at the darkened surface where the boy often appeared, and you understand that completely. Is the boy a drug to you? You don't know. By that definition, he is.

The voices start getting louder, shouting, and you find that they're not aimed at you. There's a new voice, one you've never heard. You'd grown to recognize four distinct voices, only coming in variations of pairs, but now there's a fifth voice, and it sounds the angriest of them all.

You think something is about to happen, but then the angry voice leaves, and the others go back to normal. You don't understand what just happened.

You start to have nightmares about the voice. He yelled things like death, being put down, cancellation. You don't understand them, but you know they're bad. You stop sleeping altogether, spending the time the voices are away watching the blonde boy, whom you've nicknamed Star for the shade of his hair.

The mirror always seems to find him when you think about him. You start to think you can control the mirror. Up until then, you hadn't planned on ever using the mirror yourself, so it didn't matter if you could control it or not.

You like watching Star make what you've heard him call "sick beats". Again, you're not sure what that means, but you like it a lot, when he isn't speaking weirdly along with it. You just like the sound on it's own; you wish he'd do more of just that.

You don't know how many "nights" pass before the angry voice comes back again, but it's in the middle of your time watching Star. You pull your hand away from the mirror in panic, afraid they'd notice you could control it, but it doesn't seem like they're paying attention to you, from wherever they are.

They're yelling again, using words you don't understand. You really wish you could, especially now, since you feel like this all has something to do with you, with something you're not doing. You don't think this is fair, since they told you all you're supposed to do is observe, and you've done that... Maybe they know you've been watching Star more than anything else?

The angry voice gets louder, and it almost shakes your dias from it's rings. You clutch at the platform's bed, and for the first time you're scared for your life. Maybe that's what death means? The end of life?

No, you don't want to believe that. You don't want death to be that. You want death to mean you go to the humans' world, and see Star. You look at the mirror, and reach out your hand, but you're stopped half way when a blinding light is switched on, far too bright for your eyes. The voices had told you that your eyes were something called "photosensitive", meaning they don't like light. That's why your world was always night.

But now, somewhere above you, a light is shining through, like a lid pulled off a jar. You're terrified of what that means; maybe death does mean they end your life? You don't want that. You don't want that at all.

You screw your eyes shut against the light, resisting the urge to cover your ears against the voices that have become ten times louder. You blindly find the mirror again, placing your palm flat against it, and whispering words you didn't know you knew: Take me away.

Your world goes black.

A/N: I'll let you decide whether or not he made it to see Dave, or if he was killed.

Ciao!

~Webs