#an au where pitch is a hikikomori

[calmboyl]

I had a what if idea, where pitch just is a hikikomori (a recluse) and it does partially fit in with his character (at least in my eyes) yes im throwing out like, almost all the canon here but this is my idea and i can bend it to my will! ( ^ω^ ) also i thought changing the word hikikomori to pikikomori would be funny, yk switching a letter. i think its cute! and thats also what i decided to name this au, i also think there are like not many altercations with other spirits and myths with Pitch. he might’ve been out there and moving in the past but now he just stays hidden completely from sight, once in a while you’ll get to see or year about him being out but i think its mainly just the bare minimum for his existential. i think that some spirits (probably North) would be worried for him, maybe once in a while a spirit might hang out but not much, maybe drop of food or smth?

anyways heres some info on hikikomories

Hikikomori (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引きこもり, lit. "pulling inward, being confined"), also known as severe social withdrawal, is total withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. Hikikomori refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves. The concept is primarily recognized only in Japan, although similar concepts exist in other languages and cultures. Hikikomori have been described as loners or "modern-day hermits". Estimates suggest that half a million Japanese youths have become social recluses, as well as more than half a million middle-aged individuals.

While many people feel the pressures of the outside world, hikikomori react by complete social withdrawal. In some more severe cases, they isolate themselves in their bedrooms for months or years at a time. They usually have few or no friends. In interviews with current or recovering hikikomori, media reports and documentaries have captured the strong levels of psychological distress and angst felt by these individuals.

While hikikomori favor indoor activities, some venture outdoors occasionally. The withdrawal from society usually starts gradually. Affected people may appear unhappy, lose their friends, become insecure and shy, and talk less.

When it comes to psychosocial support, it is hard for therapists to attain direct access to hikikomori. research to find different and effective treatment plans to aid hikikomori has been ongoing. One such treatment plan is focused on the families of hikikomori. Such focus primarily includes educational intervention programs (e.g. lectures, role-play, etc.) that are geared towards reducing any averse stigma that family members have towards psychiatric disorders like hikikomori. These educational programs are derived from other established family support programs, specifically Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT). CRAFT specifically trains family members to express positive and functional communication, whereas MHFA provides skills to support hikikomori with depression/suicidal like behaviour. Studies so far that have modified the family unit's behavioral response to a hikikomori has yielded positive results, indicating that family behavior is essential for recovery, however further research is still needed.

Although there has been a primary emphasis on educating family members, there are also therapy programs for the hikikomori themselves to participate in, like exercise therapy. The individual psychotherapy methods that are being stressed in current research are primarily directed towards cultivating self-confidence within the hikikomori. However, studies have delineated that efficacious treatment of hikikomori requires a multifaceted approach rather than the utilization of one individual approach, such as individual psychotherapy or family therapy.

[vilevexedvixen]

AU Jervis Tetch

Me and @dariusblake have discussed how we'd write our own Batman / DC TV or comic series and each individual character that would appear in it. Tetch being among them. At his core, Tetch is someone deeply reluctant to stay in the real world and would first seek to create his own sanctuary (his Wonderland) like a Hikikomori before even considering developing a mind control device. Which would be later on, when he feels it's the only real way to feel in control of his life which - up to that point - slowly fell to pieces. He'd be one of the earliest antagonists sent to Arkham while it's still a respected institution genuinely there to help mentally ill and vulnerable people get back on their feet, before Arkham (under Strange's management) is effectively turned into a prison for super-criminals.

I'm also of the mind that Tetch would look very average, not a pretty boy or a decrepit leprechaun. Maybe on the shorter side and seeming shorter by the way he haunches both to make himself smaller and because he himself feels small with his cripplingly low self esteem after years of being put down and treated like he didn't belong. Creating Wonderland as a place where he does finally belong, though still feeling stuck behind the looking glass unable to reach through it for company. Isolated in his escapist safe haven.

Like in the animated series, Tetch would work in tech with a grant from the Wayne foundation, but not on a project to "enhance the brain's potential". Instead to make the neural / Brain-computer interface (BCI) of a more cost-effective mind-controlled prosthesis. Something which would go on to be used in Gotham's main hospital for patients with amputations and limb-paralysis. The focus being on stimulating motor function and sensory input. At home he'd try to translate that same BCI for simulating sensation and motion (like lucid dreaming, disconnecting is like awaking in the midst of REM sleep) in a virtual landscape (basically an especially immersive VR software akin to Sword Art Online's nerve gear) dubbed "WonderOS" and his pet project running on it called "Wonderland".

Less a direct recreation of Wonderland from Lewis Carol's novels and more his personal sandbox to tweak and enjoy in his own time. Although its only user, Tetch put meticulous detail into his avatar that no one would likely see. Standing tall and proud with a top hat and bow tie. His smile charming, rather than unnerving. He'd always manage to overdress no matter the occasion in real life, so it felt fitting to extend that habit here too. With so little going on in his life outside of his job, what started as a fun side-project soon encompassed all of his free time. Progressively losing his interoception the more he becomes engrossed in his pet-project. Easily losing track of time to the point of forgetting to sleep, eat or drink, or would fall asleep in the sandbox and be disorientated whenever he'd wake still wearing the headset.

Still, he'd always disconnect eventually. Each time hit like a worse hangover than the last. His shortening time spent in the real world only existing to fuel himself for a longer expedition into his expanding digital world. That is until he'd exhausted all its mechanics and NPC interactions. By now, adding more felt hollow. He'd know exactly what they'd say anyway so why bother? The comforting predictability of the oasis he'd constructed started showing its cracks, or rather it could no longer obscure what cracks had been there all this time. The loneliness... the isolation. When was the last time he spoke to a real person, even at work?

Frankly it was always hard to know what to talk about. He'd tried pitching Wonder OS at work before, garnering minimal interest at best. Like most of his ideas. It always seemed like any attempt to make conversation ended abruptly with no explanation. Who would want to spend time with him in the virtual world if people never wanted to do so in the real one? No, if he wanted to add more player characters he'd have to reach out a different way.

For all his difficulties making friends in the real world, Tetch accrued a fair few online. He'd originally used the forums to post tech support tips, gush about his favourite books, and provide updates about Wonder OS' development to mixed reception. Some genuine interest arose, so when the time came to test Wonderland's "multiplayer mode" there were already a handful of people eager to test it within an hour of the announcement's upload. He'd had about ten additional headsets he'd built for multiplayer mode ready to post and was willing to make more but for now he happily sent out the initial batch. Specially made to not include the admin privilege of being able to log off. He would get to dictate if or when they leave and, well, he cannot guarantee they'll be back so it's best not to give them the option.

Tetch's performance at work may have been deteriorating before, but now his complete absence was noticed enough to garner a pink slip. One which never arrived. While Tetch's absence may have been more an annoyance to his colleagues that hadn't yet realised how much they leaned on him to get things done until now, the people he'd roped into being his captive audience were missed far sooner. Although they were found soon after their missing person cases were opened (being stuck at home), it only raised more questions. When someone tried yanking off one of their headsets, they were in a catatonic state - still partially in Wonderland.

The escalation from a missing persons case to some sort of hostage situation lead to the cases being grouped together and them entering Batman's radar. A common link was a. the headsets and b. the return address - which directly led back to Tetch. Most of the users hadn't recycled the packaging of their hardware before putting it on, making it easy to find. It's a good thing too, since no one (not even Tetch, who is the only one actually able to leave) has left Wonderland for a full week by the time Batman's on his trail. Too much longer and they'd keel over from neglecting to eat or drink.

Expecting a fight and some nefarious hostage scheme (as with the mob bosses he's faced thus far), Batman is shocked to find not a mastermind controlling a flurry of monitors, but someone rigged to their headset just like the other hostages. His apartment was in a shoddy state. Cables strewn about the floor haphazardly like mangrove roots in a swamp, the air stale and warm from days worth of heat emanating from the hardware that dominated the room he was found in. Curtains shut and dusty, untouched for what must have been months. Among the cables were tubes, an IV drip? Did Tetch plan ahead to make sure he could survive indefinitely rigged up to whatever he'd made?

After inspecting the computer the headset was connected to, Batman forcefully overrides Tetch's admin privileges and logs the hostages off. That alone seemed to stir something, like Tetch was in the midst of a night terror, which grew into a full-blown, panicked breakdown when Batman pulled his headset off. Shaking like a leaf, hands clasping his head as he sank from his chair to the floor. Honestly Batman doesn't really know what to do. Up until now he'd cracked down on Gotham's crime families who all put up a fierce fight, but this... is different. Still, it seems best to bring him in, if only to get him out of this dingy apartment and figure out where to go from there.

The GCPD aren't sure how to prosecute him. Would what he did be legally considered kidnapping? Or any other crime? He's kept in a holding cell while they fumble for a specific crime to charge him with. With nothing landing, he's instead sent to be a long-stay patient at Arkham (which at this point is a genuine respected psychiatric hospital for regular civilian patients) for both evaluation and therapy. They confiscated the hardware he'd used to run Wonder OS and sent it in for analysis, though couldn't make heads nor tails of a lot of his work.

Honestly being "sentenced" to free therapy really wasn't much of a punishment at all! Still took some time to adjust to the cold white brick walls, overly sanitised surroundings and the inescapable brightness both natural and not that did his head no favours. Haven't they heard of curtains? Until therapy he hadn't realised how infrequently he spoke out loud, stammering with nerves and the unfamiliarity of it. Like his mouth had forgotten what to do. Despite it all he was grateful for the company each session brought, even if it was for a prescribed purpose. Each chat feeling more sincere than any he'd had in years, to the point that his heart sank a little as each session came to a close. He hadn't really drank tea before coming here. Coffee, especially on days he'd forgotten to really sleep working all night on Wonder OS, was his go to, but a switch might be in order. Been a while since he last felt this calm. Calm enough that even his stammer was beginning to fade with the help of some speech therapy alongside his normal sessions.

The tea and kind words warming him to the idea that maybe the world isn't so scary and that he might even have a place in it. After a year or so of progress, the staff agreed to release him on probation. Pretty difficult to build a social support network while cooped up in an asylum, so they thought it best to give Tetch the opportunity to go out and meet new people. With no real support network to go back to, he'd really be starting from scratch like a tourist. Not the safest idea in Gotham, so they pointed him towards a few clubs and support groups first as a good starting point.

Of course, he went with the book club. Barely saying a word for the first few meetings, what confidence he was emboldened with upon release was slightly dampened by the reality of actually having to put himself out there. Truth be told, a few of the club's members recognised Tetch from his "Wonderland" incident a year ago and those that did make a concerted effort not to sit next to him, not that he was especially keen to initiate conversation either. That was until the week's topic turned to Alice in Wonderland, at the suggestion of one such clued-in member. As they'd suspected, Tetch perked right up, brimming with energy to discuss it!

The sudden shift in gears was pretty jarring, but one that people warmed up to. Though he'd still mainly talk about the story and occasionally let slip about aspects of his passion project (not realising it made more people clock where they'd heard of him from), it opened the door for more general conversation. His excited friendliness still on the jittery side, one of the members felt a little bad about how clearly anxious he was and offered to help him feel more welcome.

Giving advice on what helped him, including teaching Tetch how to microdose, which they preferred to take by brewing magic mushrooms into tea. And it helped! Becoming part of Tetch's morning routine, it's the closest he's felt to being himself back in Wonderland since well... you know. Tetch responded well to therapy, making remarkable progress even without medication, so his therapists though it best not to prescribe anything since it wasn't strictly necessary. The difference self-medicating made had Tetch second-guessing their judgement though.

After a few months of settling in, for once Tetch is invited to a social gathering outside of the book club to their annual Christmas do. In his youth as an apprentice lab tech at Wayne Enterprises he hadn't really gone out before. Most alcohol tasted vile to him unless it was disguised by more pleasant things like in a cocktail, not to mention how hard it hit him after barely a few sips felt as unpleasant as it tasted. Even so, he felt in no position to be picky about where they went that night given how flattered his was that they thought to invite him at all!

Most of the bars were fine, but a bit too loud and crowded for his liking. He may be able to cope with people better now he's started having his morning "tea", but it was still a bit overwhelming. That was until they reached one of Gotham's Goth bars. How rare it was for him to finally not feel overdressed! Amidst the buckles and leather waistcoats, lace and striking makeup he, weirdly, fit right in despite his attire being far more colourful than the bar's usual clientele. By the night's end he'd gravitated away from the group he'd come with, making his own fun with new people for the first time in forever. People he'd come to know as friends as he truly started re-building his life better than it was before!

Since his old workplace fired him before Batman linked him with the missing persons and found him, and Arkham's vouching for him didn't get Tetch his job back (especially since they weren't too happy tetch had adapted their BCI for recreational use), Tetch was out of work. That was until Grant Walker reached out, wanting to adapt Tetch's Wonderland to create a virtual theme park and to improve the IRL parks' AR and immersive elements (think the Xbox connect Disneyland game, but actually functional). An opportunity Tetch couldn't pass up, given he'd been struggling to find work since leaving Arkham and was entering an increasingly precarious financial situation.

Since Tetch adapted Wayne Enterprise's BCI they'd help develop into the hardware running Wonder OS, there was some dispute about whether or not his project would be entirely his own IP or if the resources he technically stole to make it could get him in legal trouble. "Fortunately" Walker offered to protect Tetch from any such case, in exchange for Tetch granting Walker the right to use, market and profit from the virtual he'd created Wonderland - which he agreed to. As successful as Walker's ventures so often were, the opportunity to experiment with park ideas without the expense of land or labour seemed too tantilising to pass-up. Not to mention it could be another venue of advertising his existing IPs to people who otherwise couldn't afford to go to the parks themselves.

Initially, the public reception to announcing Wonderland's debut was... mixed. Reviews from playtesters were glowing, and Walker had his team refine the multiplayer headsets Tetch had prototyped into something that could be made and distributed much more cheaply. Still, trust in Tetch's handiwork was minimal at best after what he did, how could they trust he wouldn't just use it to trap more people again? A green tick of approval from an asylum wouldn't be enough to convince people Tetch was sane. Eventually though, a mix of relentless promotion and sanitisation of Tetch's past got Walker the results he wanted and a steady player base grew.

Honestly, Tetch had tried deliberately to avoid going back into Wonderland or doing any work on his old pet project while he was still getting back on his feet. Especially because until he had a reason to return to the real world, he probably never would have. Oh the temptation, especially early on, was gnawing at him as the dread and self-doubt lingered despite all the progress he'd made in therapy. Returning to it now seems... strange. Like staring at an old picture of himself, so detached from how he felt at the time he'd made it. But he needed the money, and was a different person now, right?

By his therapists' orders, Tetch limits his screen-time only to a few hours a day and goes on a walk / runs errands outside for at least an hour every day, to better facilitate chances of meeting new people and to prevent another spiral into self-isolation. The people he used to chat with online, his old "friends" of sorts, weren't exactly keen to keep talking to him anyway after nearly dying of dehydration in his digital cage, so he didn't have much reason to go back online anyway. That is except for one person, though Tetch hadn't realised it. Too busy making a new life out in the world, to notice the hundreds of messages spamming his inbox on every conceivable chatroom he used to frequent.

"Cat" / Caterina Bressi, one of the Bressi mob family that mostly deals in drugs and information, has helped with her family's dealings modernise by data farming and hacking into police devices and those of other mobsters either for blackmail or to sell to other people in Gotham's underworld who need the info for their own schemes. She is bed-bound due to a mix of chronic illnesses that leave her with little strength and energy to do anything, which is partly why she was on the same forums of Tetch and why they related to each other in their isolation. Cat's skills in coding are the only thing keeping her family from seeing her as anything but a liability and she resents being whittled down to her unappreciated usefulness - again, like Tetch was in the lab. She was one of the people who was sent a prototype headset and actually loved every minute in Wonderland and desperately wished to go back once she was "rescued" from it.

She eventually get's back in contact with Tetch and convinces him to restore the old version of Wonderland (not the polished, commercial form it now was under Walker). .Partly out of sympathy and partly due to some difficulties adjusting to his newly formed social life and existance out in public, Tetch is grateful to still have a friend he relates to in ways he can't with his new, more "well-adjusted" friends and ends up spending more and more time with Cat. .Overtime, their friendship morphs into an unhealthy dependancy (moreso Cat depending on Tetch than the other way around) as she begins to isolate him from his newer friend groups.

Eventually, to get away from her responsibilities to her family she insists Tetch use his lab experience with nerve-based prosthetics to help her move again. Both to get away from her family and so they do not narrow her self-worth down to how useful she is to them. Tetch insists she is fine as she is and he can help her without changing her in that way, but eventually caves and makes what would become the basis of this AU's version of the mind control device. Not actually mind-control, but instead stimulating controlled movement of the body similar to how some existing peripheral nerve interfaces work Although the main controls were designed so Cat / the person being moved is the one controlling the motion, it can in theory be connected to another person (have a remote control centre on someone else, as a backup of sorts).

Once completed, Cat begins to tag along with Tetch everywhere he went so she wouldn't be alone even for a minute. Which became an issue when he had to go to work, since Walker was worried about leaks of any new content his team might work on if someone like Cat tagged along with Tetch to work. When Tetch tries to enforce reasonable boundaries and see his newer friends more like before Cat came back into his life (offering to help her make more friends of her own / introduce him to his other friends) she refused and doubled down in her attempts to control his day to day activities.

Defying his therapist's orders, wanting to relive how their old friendship was, she encouraged him to work more on the old WonderOS and give her access to it so she could help him with it too and spend more time in Wonderland again.

Without Tetch's knowledge, Cat steals Tetch's old lab notes and changes the old WonderOS code to be compatible with her peripheral nerve interface's control centre - basically wanting to see if she can fully immerse herself like a ghost in the machine and fully escape her real life. Once Tetch finds out, right before she's about to upload herself, he tries to stop her - worried it might kill her or otherwise go wrong. In the scuffle, Cat falls and Tetch isn't sure if her plan worked or if he'd just accidentally killed her or failed to prevent her death (if her plan killed her). Not sure what to do with the body, he jerryrigs the control centre so he can use it and (once revival fails) ends up trying to evade suspicion (and preserve his sanity) by animating her like she was still alive, trying to rationalise it all.

Given his new friends haven't seen him in a while, a couple days into his descent into madness they visit him. If this was part of an animated series, I would show his descent into madness as an abreviated montage of him going through the motions of grief while mimicking his day-to-day routine with her reanimated corpse weekend at Bernie's style - probably to this song, ending with his friends' knock at the door:

Once he is eventually returned to Arkham (charged with Cat's manslaughter and found with the old headset back on but now "haunted" with Cat's ghost in the machine goding him to stay in Wonderland instead of dreary reality - especially with his return to Arkham once again isolating from his new friends, even as they do try and visit) the doctors think he is hallucinating, but he's not. He just keeps one foot in the escapist realm he created, both in an attempt to deal with his guilt towards what happened to Cat (even if she personally holds no hard feelings and considers what happened an improvement on her old life), and for comfort like he did back before his first admission to Arkham. I like to think of it like Pyro-Vision / an AR WonderOS ("Wonder-Vision") built into his hat that's genuinely painful and distressing to remove.

Tetch's access to his Wonder-Vision varies depending on the management at Arkham. Hugo Strange allows him to use it, but sometimes deliberately removes it - both of which serve to help Strange better understand Tetch (by his behaviour in both circumstances). Under Bolton's management, access to Tetch's Wonder-Vision is strictly prohibited (as with most posessions of the inmates). While still under Hugo's management, however, Cat tries everything in her power to expand her reach across other devices. Including Strange's work computer at Arkham, meddling with his work in her wake (if accidentally). It wasn't long before her seeming sentience was distinguishable from just an irritating computer virus. Strange couldn't help but seize the opportunity to study (and toy with) one of the rare instances of seemingly true artificial intelligence. He manages to trap her in his system through a mix of almost complete isolation from local networks and an aggressive firewall he had one of the security staff code.

Kept like a fairy in a jar, he studied her much like he did Tetch. Their co-dependent friendship based largely on their shared isolation. When one might prove uncooperative, the other might run their mouth in ways that implicated the other. Once studying them separately bore nothing more of note, Strange did exactly what Cat had hoped she'd forever escaped since becoming a ghost in the machine... He re-embodied her. Not with mortal flesh, fortunately, but with something just as infuriatingly restrictive - a pixel pet (robotic toy body with digital interface, like a cross between a tamagotchi / pixel chic and a furby) to keep Jervis company after losing his hat priviages.

That is the gist of things so far! I will update as and when new plot beats and edits come to mind.

[alirasworlds]

Omiri: Help me....

[A/N: I... Don’t really know how to explain this oneshot? I’ve been playing the game Omori lately, and god damn it’s, I’m relating to it a lot more than I thought I would, mainly in how the protag is. So as per my norm I ended up writing this after the scene in question happened.

Note, I, didn’t really think of using the protag(Sunny I’ve seen people call him? I named him Mono in my file so...), as with most games I tend to, insert a version of myself into it or use a oc to better help me figure out their headspace and how to write the world so to speak, plus I DID see there was concept art of a female Omori/Sunny, so I’ve, sort of used that here and tried to expand on a verse where I guess Sunny/the protag was a girl? With a fair amount of differences and my own additions I will eventually explain in a few cases? However I came up with my own designs for this character’s IRL form and dream self I’ll share later and she’s got her own name.

To keep this somewhat on track and so people don’t hopefully get mad at me if I title it Omori, I’ve decided to call this verse “Omiri”, as it wasn’t until after I decided on that name that I realized Omori is from the word Hikikomori, and since I believe a character swap au where Mari and Sunny swap place for one reason or another(I’ve been avoiding spoilers as best I can so I don’t fully know why) is the Hikiki verse, or something, soo Omiri works so hopefully people don’t get mad?

Anyway, the protag’s name is as follows, note I may change her real world name as I went for my default one involving part of my URL I normally use until I figure out a different one. IRL: Alira Omi Dream: Omiri

Note she is still related to Mari like Sunny is. Scene is when you’re over at Basil’s house for dinner. And with that I shall shush and let the fic speak for itself XD]

Alira froze when she heard Kel tell Basil she was moving, head immediately snapping up from her plate to look at Basil, who had completely froze, his hand dropping his spoon back into the bowl as he looked at Kel.

Kel, you dummy���!

“W-What? …” Basil’s tone was that of pure shock, expression one of a forced smile, and it made Alira want to hug him. “Alira’s… m-moving...?”

Kel, ever the oblivious one, continued. “Oh yeah! I thought I already mentioned it…” He took another bite of his food before going on. “I must have forgot.” Another bite. “She’s moving in… three days, I think?” He took another bite, but paused and gave an apologetic smile to Basil. “Sorry... I thought you already knew.”

“O-Oh… Uh...” his voice and smile were shaky, fragile, hardly holding it together. “No, I guess I must have missed it…” His expression cracked, just the slightest. “S-Sorry… Umm…” He pulled his expression together enough to make an embarrassed smile.  “M-May I be excused? I… I have to go to the bathroom.”

Polly gave him a nod and he quickly got up from his seat, rushing to the doorway to the rest of his house, but he paused and looked back at Alira, expression one of him close to tears, before he bolted into the hallway out of sight.

“What’s up with him?” Kel asked to no one in particular as Alira stared after her best friend, heart beating painfully in her chest as something painful gripped her heart. “Well, that’s just how it is. When you gotta go, you gotta go!”

“...If there are any leftovers, put them in a bag please, I like this.” Alira softly said as she quickly stood up, bowl still having some of the soup, and rushed after Basil after she put his photo album he gave her in her bag.

She looked at the door she remembered led to the bathroom and saw the light was off, regardless, she went over and entered.

“Everything is going to be okay…. Everything is going to be okay….” Even with the lights off, she could still see well enough to see Basil, gripping at his head, and shaking as he stood there, desperately saying to himself. “Everything is going to be okay… Everything is going to be okay…”

She could also see what looked to be a dark shadow on the floor, in the shape of vines or roots coming from a tree, pulsing beneath his feet. Her mind immediately recognized it as something like, the thing haunting her….

The door behind her shut with an audible click as the knob slipped from her grip, causing Basil to whirl around to look at her, clearly startled as he said shakily. “O-Oh… It’s you… Alira…” He forced a smile. “You’re here… I’m so glad…”

She stepped towards him in concern as he then asked. “You… You can see it too, can’t you? Something… behind you….”

She felt the hair on the back of her neck, with her hair currently up in that loose bun Basil had generously done for her earlier, standing up on end at that as she felt that familiar feeling of her Something right behind her.

Her expression quirked in fear, and she forced herself to not look at the mirror behind Basil as she walked up to him, and where he got a better look at her expression, which he was quick to ask about as his own quirked in concerned fright. “Alira… W-Why… Why do you look so scared?”

She felt her hand shaking as she brought up her hand to bite on the side of it in an attempt to calm herself, shutting her eyes as she shakily tried to will it to go away. “It’s not behind me it’s not behind me…” She breathed in, calming down just enough to open her eyes and walk up to the bathroom mirror. It was not going to be there, it couldn’t, it shouldn’t, she told it to go away...

“It’s not there... it’s not there... it’s not-” The desperate mantra she was uttering stopped, when she spotted that black mass, with the one eye, peering at her from over her shoulder. Staring, haunting, judging-

She inhaled sharply as she stepped back, eyes filling with tears without delay, and she spun around before crashing into Basil, almost knocking him over as she latched onto him in the form of a hug, shaking like a leaf like he was.

She couldn’t speak, her throat shut with fear and fright, but despite this Basil was quick to react and latch onto her in return, grip almost like a vice and tight but also… Gentle.

She tried to catch her breath, tried to force herself to calm down, but it wasn’t working, that THING WAS BEHIND HER-

“Alira…” Basil’s voice, she latched onto that sound, trying so hard to focus on that instead of the thing behind her.  “Everything is okay now, isn’t it?”

She took a few moments to breathe, and nodded once she felt she calmed down a bit. “I… I think….” She certainly calmed down enough to speak at least.

After a few moments, she let go of Basil, stepping back to give him room once he very reluctantly let go of her, still holding onto her hands though. Her hands, delicate like his own, but thinner clearly.

She smiled at him shakily and opened her mouth to say something, but all she let out was a strangled cry as she felt something wrap around her neck and pull tight.

She gasped for air as she ripped her hands away from Basil’s to claw at her neck, Basil backing up in alarm and fright as he saw that thing behind her wrap some part of itself around her neck, jolting her back as she clawed at it and struggled for air. She couldn’t breathe…!

It was trying to.. It was trying to…! No…!

“N-no! You’re not…!” Basil sprung forward, hands over the pitch black thing around her neck, grasping onto it, and while he felt his own Something stirring beneath his feet, he still managed to wrech the thing away from her neck, allowing her to gasp for air as she stumbled back, eyes wide with pure fear and panic as she visibly shook.

Her eyes filled with tears as she began backing up towards the door, crying out pitifully in a tearful tone. “I… I don’t want to…”

“W...Wait… P-please, Alira…” Basil tearfully begged her as she backed up, reaching out for her. “Don’t leave me… Not again…”

“I…. I… I don’t want to go…!” She sobbed out, her Something pricking at her back and making her cry even more. “I-I want… To stay…! Please, please don’t make me… leave him…!”

She didn’t want to leave, she realized. Not just now, not now when Basil clearly needed support, but to leave at all, she wanted to stay in Faraway, she didn’t want to move when had her mother ever talked about moving she couldn’t remember but she DIDN'T WANT TO-

Despite herself, something in her made her turn around, open the door, and leave despite her best friend’s and her own pleading.