Your sore eyes blink open, revealing the dark, stormy sky. With a pained grunt you pull yourself into a sitting position. You glance around to see that everyone else was asleep, leaning against one another. You could see Rose's white fur poking out from Kanaya's arms. Beside you sat Eridan, still leaning against you.

He hadn't talked to you since the kiss, but he still decided to sleep next to you. You had no idea the reason why, but you were okay with it as long as he stuck with you. It was weird how attached I had become to him. If you were being honest with yourself, you had befriended everyone. You wanted them all to turn back, go somewhere safer, but you already knew they weren't going to do that.

Looking up to the sky, you notice the smallest sliver of sunlight break from the ground. Rather than going back to sleep, you decide to take a quick look around just in case. You turn back to Eridan and gently move him, propping him against the ruin wall. You struggle up and grab your staff just in case.

You begin to walk in a random direction, looking around as you do so. As you walk, bit by bit the sun rises, lighting up the desolate plains. Dead trees scattered the land, giving the area a more despairing weight to it.

You completely freeze up when you hear a sound. You knew there was no way Gamzee could have escaped, so it wasn't him. You hear the sound once more, realising that it definitely wasn't something dangerous.

You decide to walk towards the sound, the strangled cries getting louder as you went. You carefully peak over a small pile of stones to see a crow tangled in half dead vines.

"Oh you poor thing," you coo, "Let's get you out of here."

You lean over further, sitting you staff down and begin to untangle the vine. Once it finally got loose, it jumped away, ready to fly off. But it just lets out a loud cry, tucking one wing away while the other doesn't. It had been injured.

"Okay, you're going to injure yourself further."

Much to the crow's distaste you pick him up with one hand, your other gripping your staff. You haul yourself back to your feet and decide to head back, seeing as the sun was shining brightly and the others should be awake.

Just as you had thought, once you returned, everyone was awake. You could see that they were all munching on some food. Since you couldn't start any fire in case you alerted the enemy of your presence, you had precooked some food.

"Oh, (y/n), there you are." Kanaya states.

"Yeah, just went for a look around and found this guy." You say, your head gesturing to the bundle in your arms.

The bird lets out an annoyed 'caw' before settling down to rest.

"Well, lucky you got back," Sollux grins, "we were planning on leaving you behind."

"No, we weren't," Feferi huffs, "I'd never leave (y/n) behind."

You laugh, "well, thanks for waiting then."

You slip on your bag, making sure not to hurt the crow, and rest your staff between your bag and back. Karkat tosses you some jerky and you all head off.

"Hey Vriska, can you come here." You ask, looking over at the trickster.

She rolls her eyes, "fiiiiiiiine."

She walks over to you; you grab one of her hands, confusing her. You mumble to yourself, before your eyes flash blue. You smile at her nodding.

"I lifted that spell," you explain, "you are free to leave if you wish."

And with that you begin to walk ahead, glancing down at the sleeping bird in your arms. He had been sleeping since you had gotten back to camp, he must have spent so long trying to escape.

Your eyes then travel up to the mountain you were heading for. It wouldn't be long until you reached it. You could only just see the craggy path you were to take to get to the oversized castle that sat upon it.

You begin to gently pet the crow's soft feathers in order to distract yourself. You knew what was to come, but you were hoping that it would have taken longer. You force yourself to look up once again, the horrifying looming sense of dread pressed down on you.

You spent almost all of your life here, and you did everything in your power to escape. Now you were walking straight back in. But this time, you weren't alone.