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floralquafloral · 4 years ago

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Watch out it's random splatoon headcanon time again

I was thinking about splatting and respawning recently, and @acid-hues used no less than Three looking emojis when I asked if anyone would want to hear my thoughts about how that stuff works, so here goes. Warning for potentially fatal quantities of pseudoscience, since I'm not a biologist or a chemist, just a goober who likes the squid game too much ;P

1. What is splatting?

Splatting is a reflex in inklings and octarians that occurs when they're been critically injured. It allows the cephalopod to escape and recover from a potentially fatal situation, effectively unharmed. Almost all of their body mass is liquefied to ink in a similar process to squid-form transformation, but it's all lost, resulting in the characteristic splatter. The only remaining structure is the "squid soul", which isn't actually a soul so much as a balloon-like vessel that can (under the right conditions) develop into a whole inkling body again.

2. What is a squid soul?

Squid souls aren't actually incorporeal souls, they're just very complicated (and lightweight) biological structures that contain all the mechanisms and information necessary to create an inkling body. Kind of analogous to an egg: given food and time, an egg can turn into a whole animal. Squid souls are just a great deal more precise, in that they generate an inkling body almost exactly as it was before, including the brain and all the inkling's memories and such. The squid soul itself, like an egg, isn't really comparable to an actual inkling - the soul can't talk, or eat, or think. The squid soul doesn't have a brain, and it only has just enough nervous system to seek out a location where it can respawn into a proper body. It uses a rudimentary form of the same senses that allow for the Turf Map. Because the squid soul isn't conscious, getting splatted kind of just feels like a very violent form of teleportation.

More information on the processes & technology behind respawning under the readmore :)

3. How does a squid soul respawn?

Squid souls can only develop into a proper inkling body if they can access two things: A bunch of biomass, and a bunch of electricity. Biomass is necessary because almost all of the inkling's original body has been exploded all over the place, so you need a bunch of stuff to make a new one. A large enough well of pure ink can contain all the necessary material for a body, but most respawn tech uses solutions of ink with other useful things dissolved into it. Respawning from a well of pure ink doesn't feel very good. Pure ink doesn't contain a very good amount of vitamins, iron, etc., so the new body will probably have less of that stuff in it than the old one.

Electricity is necessary to separate different compounds out of the ink, and to provide the energy required for some of the chemical reactions that need to take place - you can't just mush a bunch of ink together and get a body out of it.

4. What could prevent a successful respawn?

This part is pure headcanon, since there's nothing from the base game that relates to this, as far as I'm aware.

Some sources of injury won't trigger the splat reflex; the most common example is prolonged exposure to small amounts of water. Getting caught in heavy rain for hours can dissolve the body without ever triggering the splat reflex, so you just... don't come back.

Old age or severe illness can inhibit the reflex as well. If a young and healthy squid gets hit by a bus, they will explode and come back at the nearest respawn point. If someone whose splat reflex isn't working gets hit by a bus, then they just get run over, which very bad. Alternatively, in some cases the splat reflex could fail to generate a squid soul, so you'd just explode and not get to respawn, which would be exceedingly terrible.

For the kind of squid who would sign up for Turf Wars, there's basically no chance of this stuff happening, but there are still mandatory physicals before you can sign up for a Turf War just to make sure.

Lastly, of course, if someone gets splatted too far away from a viable respawn point, the squid soul will expire after only a few minutes.

5. What kind of tech allows for a respawn?

There are four different places you can respawn in-game: In the online battle maps (5.1), in the Octarian domes (5.3), in the Deepsea Metro's test stations (5.4), and from a Grizzco Tank (5.5). There's also presumably some way to respawn if you just, like, fall out of a tree and get splatted in the public park or something (5.2). There's also the floating respawn-thingies from the Splatoon 3 trailer, but since I don't know how they work in-game yet I don't have anything to make headcanons around. 🤷‍♀️

5.1. Turf War respawn pads: They're cheap to make, they work quickly, and they can handle dozens of squids getting splatted during a single 3-minute battle with no need for oversight during the game. It's worth remembering that the squid soul isn't sapient, it has no regards for the rules of a Turf War - so what prevents someone on Yellow Team from respawning at Purple's base? The answer is that, under most circumstances, the biomass requirement for a respawn can only be met with ink that matches your colour. Different colours of ink have different chemical compositions, so a squid soul that's seeking out a viable location to create a yellow squid won't be able to sense the purple respawn pad as a viable location.

The limitation of the Turf War pad is that they're not perfectly reliable. Occasionally it just won't appear as a viable respawn location to a squid soul, so someone will end up respawning outside the battle, which forfeits them from the match. (i'm only including this because i'm proud of coming up with an in-universe explanation for disconnects)

5.2. City respawn pads: Outside of inksports, it's still a good idea to have respawn pads all over the place so that if someone gets splatted they have somewhere to respawn. City pads, unlike Turf War pads, are designed to be 100% reliable and work for any ink color. Their natural drawback is that they require constant oversight. "Respawn operator" is a job you can have in most major population centers, that mostly involves sitting around, making sure nothing looks broken, and greeting anyone who shows up at the pad.

Getting splatted outside a battle isn't especially common (splatting someone outside a battle is a pretty serious no-no), so any given pad in the city will usually only get 1-2 respawns a day, if any at all. When someone shows up, the operator is supposed to write down their name, the time they respawned, and the reason they got splatted. If it was because of something legally messy like a road accident, they'll have more work to do to get that sorted out. If it was because of a Turf War pad failure, they'll contact the Judds to get that cleared up. If you were with someone when you got splatted, it's common courtesy to send a text or call once you respawn so they don't have to worry; since you won't have your phone with you when you respawn that's something the operator is also supposed to help with. Respawn operators are pretty helpful in general - if you tell them "I don't know how to get back to my house from here", they can usually give you a map or directions or something.

To allow for anyone to respawn at a City pad, they're filled with a very bright and saturated brown ink solution. This colour is unique in that basically any other ink colour can change into it very easily; if you get splatted while you've got red ink, you'll show up at the city pad with brown ink. This is why bright brown ink isn't frequently used for inksports (definitely not because the developers didn't want it to look like they're using poop for turf wars).

5.3. Octarian Checkpoints: As electricity is a precious and scarce resource for Octarians, their respawn pads are designed to use as little of it as possible. An Inkopolis respawn pad has a current running through it constantly, which combined with the large amount of ink, allows squid souls to perceive it as a viable respawn location. In contrast, Octarian checkpoints don't offer any ink or electricity when inactive. They only switch on when a nearby Octarian soldier gets splatted, using a signal transmitted by the Octarian's equipment. When they turn on, they temporarily fill with ink and run an electrical current, allowing the soldier's octo soul to make its way over and respawn before the checkpoint shuts down again.

The signal receiver of the checkpoints has a vulnerability that allows it to be overridden, which will fill it with any colour of ink solution and render it unable to receive power-on signals. The Hero Tanks worn by Agents 3 and 4 do this automatically when the agents get close to a checkpoint - this is why they're black before an agent gets close, then change to match their ink colour. However, once the checkpoint is overridden, it still doesn't provide electricity, and in fact can't be activated at all. The Hero Tank allows them to be used regardless by putting an electrical charge into the squid soul itself, so that it only needs the well of ink solution. It can only store up to three respawns worth of charge, though. If an agent gets splatted while the battery is empty, they're toast.

Octarians, of course, can't respawn at a checkpoint that's been overridden, not only because it won't power on but also because it doesn't match their ink colour anymore. Only one checkpoint will receive the power-on signal when an Octarian gets splatted, so when an overridden checkpoint is the one that receives the signal, there will be nowhere on the base for the Octarian to respawn. Instead, they'll end up in another dome, or in a civilian respawn pad. The agents aren't murderers, okay?

5.4: Deepsea Metro Test Station Checkpoints: The testing stations in the Deepsea Metro are adapted from Octarian checkpoints, but with some tweaks to reflect the different priorities of Kamabo Co. as opposed to the Octarian military. Metro checkpoints have their remote-activation functionality stripped out, and instead permanently activate once the test subject reaches them, filling with ink solution and receiving a constant electrical current. They probably still have the same vulnerability as the Octarian checkpoints, but Agent 8's has no means of exploiting it, and no reason to anyways - the checkpoints are already configured to match her colour, since they're there for the express purpose of respawning test subjects.

Because Metro checkpoints always match Agent 8's ink colour, the sanitized octarians in the test courses have nowhere they can respawn. Instead, they are simply replaced as needed.

5.5: Grizzco Tanks: I'll be honest, I can't come up with any good explanations for this one. The way it traps the squid soul inside it probably has to do with the same interference that blocks the Turf Map, but the explanation for why you have to shoot it to activate a respawn is beyond me. The best I can do is list what can be ruled out:

It's not because it's using the ink from the shot for mass. If the Grizzco tank itself doesn't contain enough ink for a respawn, then there's no way a single Inkbrush swing would output enough to make up the difference.

It's not using the kinetic energy from the shot to trigger some sort of chemical reaction. Getting hit by a Steelhead bomb or a Flyfish missile don't revive the player, even though they surely have more kinetic energy than something like a Bloblobber bubble, which can.

The weapons themselves aren't providing an electrical charge. If Grizzco could modify a Splattershot to output enough electricity to enable a respawn, then the tank would be capable of doing that itself without needing to be shot.

Whatever it is, it's probably not very good for you long-term to respawn like that. Grizzco just gives off those vibes, like working there is totally gonna mess up your health when you're older.

#oops! all infodumps #if you have any idea how the grizzco tank could work #please please please please tell me #this is gonna take up 100% of my mental real estate for weeks #floralaqua #splatoon #splatoon 2 #splatoon headcanons #splatoon hero mode #octo expansion #salmon run

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imagine-loki · 5 years ago

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CAUTION/TRIGGER WARNING: Mention Of Unspecified Chronic Illness; Use Of Needles; Mention Of Blood

Imagine having become proficient at giving yourself a prescribed injection that you need on a regular basis. The way you see it, it’s independence and less money spent on doctor visits just to get your shot. (What? They’re expensive and it adds up fast.)

Your insistence on being independent with your medicine comes to a screeching halt, however, when you break your hand during a mission. And your next dose is coming up soon!

You know it would make the most sense to ask Bruce to help you, but you barely know the guy. You’re certainly not comfortable asking him for a favor like this. Maybe if it could go into your (uninjured) arm, but, well... it can’t.

Let’s see. You consider asking Natasha. You’re both female; she’d get why you weren’t cool with asking Bruce. Nah, she’s a little irked at you for your goof-up in that mission. It doesn’t seem wise to give someone a needle when they’re mad at you.

You decide on your best friend: Loki. Sure, it seems a little odd, given the fact that he’s a guy and he’d have to inject the back of your hip. But you still trust him.

Loki’s a tad surprised at your request, but is still eager to help you in any way he can. But when he sees the practice kit, your vial of medicine, and a syringe with the biggest, ugliest needle he’s ever seen, he’s tempted to back out. You can’t possibly expect him to use that on you!

You notice his worried expression and rub his hand reassuringly, pulling his focus from the monster needle back to you. “Hey. Loki, listen to me. You can do it.”

He shakes his head. “No...No, (Name), I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. Loki, look at me. No, don’t look at the needle. Look at me. I need you to do this for me. Just until my hand heals up. Please?”

“Won’t it hurt?”

“Well, it’s not comfortable, but I’ll be okay. Believe it or not, that’s the smallest needle I can use for it, since the medicine is so thick.”

Loki looks like he might faint.

You explain the process to him and show him where and how to inject the medicine (the “where” only barely makes him blush), how to draw up the medicine, how to clean and prepare the injection site, how to make sure the needle isn’t in your vein, the importance of using the entire needle (at which point you half-expected him to get sick at his stomach), and even how to practice before your dose is due.

Loki is still reluctant, but agrees to help you. He practices numerous times a day, every day, trying to get comfortable with the idea of sticking you with that massive needle. But his first order of business will have to be to get his hands to stop shaking at the thought.

Soon, with a bit more of your guidance and supervision, he gets the hang of it. If you’re comfortable with it, so is he. At least, he can get comfortable with it.

The day finally comes. You’re slightly nervous, but you know he can do it. He’s had a great instructor, after all. Ha.

Loki lets you watch him draw up your medicine.

“Thank you. Y’know, for doing this for me.”

“Any time, dear.” You wonder if he can hear your heart melting into mush.

“So, uh, you ready?”

Loki nods. “Whenever you are.” He starts to turn his back to you.

The realization of it all sinks in now, and you adjust your clothes with a bit of a blush. You remind yourself that he’s not doing this to be flirty and it’s nothing to be embarrassed by.

Once you’ve gotten semi-comfortable, you take a deep breath and try to think about how much better you’ll feel once your medicine takes effect. “Ready.”

Loki turns toward you again and you feel the chilly alcohol swab. “Prep the site...”

“Uh-huh. Good, good.”

“Fan to evaporate... You honestly do this to yourself?”

“Of course I do. Before I got hurt, I mean. I’m used to the needles by now. Guess it’s the only perk to being sick.”

Loki hums in thought, remembering when you first told him about your condition. Hurting for you. He clears his throat. “Would you like me to... count for you?”

You giggle at the image. “I’m not a little kid. Just stick me.”

“I already did.”

You turn around, jaw dropped wide. “That was perfect!”

“Well, I did have a great instruct— Oh, dear. You’re, you’re bleeding.”

“It happens.” You set one finger over the site. “Hand me a bandage, would you?”

Loki gently moves your hand and applies the bandage himself.

#Imagine #God of Mischief #Others #Loki #Lover #submission #taniismean #prescriptionmedication #bruce banner #doctor #injection #natasha romanoff #needles

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almondmilkygay · 5 years ago

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Reddie; Isolation.

Richard Tozier had been in and out of various hospitals for the majority of his childhood, slowly transitioning into his teenage-hood. His condition was described as terminal - a phrase of with Richie didn't understand. He longed more than anything for his pain to be over. Whether this was through the form of a miracle, or his death - he didn't mind. When describing these feelings to his mother, she was distraught. And so, among the tumultuous amount of doctors and nurses came a psychologist, and a therapist. They barely helped however, and merely prescribed Richie to a diary, in which he would submit a daily entry - in an attempt to let some of his emotions out. Richie couldn't have seen true love if it had stared him in the face, and one day it did.

Eddie's trip to the hospital was in a whirlwind of emotion and colour. One moment he was confessing his biggest secret to his mother, and the next she was collapsed onto her knees - sobbing aggressively. Then then, through loud sirens and bright flashing lights, Eddie found himself in a hospital bed. Crisp white bed sheets were pulled tightly over his petite figure. His vision was slightly impaired, and he could barely make out who was lying in the neighbouring beds.

"Hey," A voice chuckled beside him, before stopping abruptly and muttering, "Welcome to hell,"

"God?" Eddie replied back snidely as the voice let out another laugh before letting out an audible wince. As Eddie's vision reappeared, he looked from his right (to an old man who was clearly unconscious) and then to his left. A boy, tall and lanky lay in the bed - less pristine than Eddie's. A wide pair of glasses were propped against his nose, reflecting his eyes back drastically huge. His curly ravenette locks flopped over his eyes, as he pushed it away clumsily. In a word, he was pretty. Weak and fragile, but pretty nonetheless.

"Why can't you laugh?" Eddie asked softly, propping himself up onto his arm and giving his fullattention the mysterious boy in the neighbouring bed to him.

"It's my condition," he said, weakly, "What're you in for?" He finished, mimicking a prisoner. Eddie chuckled, and Richie glowed.

"Just woke up here, maybe for my phobia of germs - but who would go to that extent?" Eddie said wistfully.

"Ah I see," Richie said, struggling as he stretched his hand across the beds, "I'm Richie,"

Eddie looked at the hand and shook his head gently, which Richie laughed at before groaning slightly and retracting his hand.

"Eddie," He said, gesturing to himself. Richie nodded, lying slowly back into his bed and sinking into the plump pillow below is head.

"What do you mean by hell?" Eddie asked softly, after a few moments of silence.

"I've been here my whole life. Like the opposite of a miracle," Richie whispered, "If it wasn't here, it was the next one, if not there - the next. I just want this shit to be over, to be honest,"

Eddies insides turned to mush inside of him in sadness and sorrow for the vulnerable boy in the neighbouring bed.

"Mh, I'm sorry," Eddie muttered.

"It's alright, 'specially when cuties like you get sick," Richie said smoothly, to which Eddie choked on his own saliva. Richie had read his sexuality like a book, and a small one at that.

"Mh," Was all that Eddie could utter, sinking into the bed below him.

"People don't compliment you much, do they Ed's?"

Eddie shook his head, blushing profusely.

"Who are your friends, anyways? I might know them,"

"You've been confided to a hospital bed your whole life," Eddie snorted.

"Family friends, Ed's," Richie said, feigning his exasperation as Eddie tutted, "The Denbrough Family are my bitches,"

"Wait, Bill Denbrough?"

"Stuttering Bill, the one and only,"

"He's like my best friend," Eddie laughed, "Fuckin' Bowers gave him that nickname,"

"Ah, Henry Bowers. The downfall of my childhood as I knew it. That prick still not thrown in Juvie yet?"

Eddie shook his head, wide smile spreading across his face.

"Sadly, a negative,"

"Mh," Richie let out a breath before saying, "Where's your mommy, Eddie Bear?"

Eddie spat out the water he had been sipping on silently.

"How in the hell do you know about that?"

"Mommy wouldn't stop yelling," Richie explained, "'Don't worry Eddie Bear! Mommy's here! Mommy's always here!'"

Eddie snorted at the shitty impression.

"She is always there," Eddie said, "Oh, and shut the fuck up Einstein,"

Richie laughed, and his pain was numbed. His insides felt like mush. Not the bad kind, however, not the kind his illness made him feel - but a good mush. Like Jello - as he would write later on in his diary.

"Whatcha' writing?" Eddie whined playfully.

"Diary or some shit - therapist gave it to me,"

"Aw shucks, that's a bit sweet,"

"More like chucks, I ain't some sexually confused tween,"

"Well.."

"I beg of you to stop talking," Richie said softly, turning back to the diary. Eddie shushed , closing his eyes and eventually falling into a deep slumber. He woke peacefully the next morning, as the sound of a gentle chattering filled the hospital ward, and the sun bounced off of his face.

"Mornin', sunshine," Richie chuckled wheezily, "Best seat in the house,"

"Far out," Eddie moaned, throwing his pillow over his head - shielding himself from the blindingly bright sun.

"Richard?" A skeptical nurse said, in a feigned gentle voice. Eddie lowered the pillow a little, in fear.

"Just Richie, ma'am," He replied quietly.

"Richard, it's time for your injections," She said as another nurse snapped he curtains back quickly. Richie didn't say another word as he was shielded from Eddie's view. A mere, painful hiss could be heard from behind the baby blue curtains - before they were shunned back quickly, leaving Richie clutching at the inside of his arm, eyes glazed over with tears.

"You okay, 'Chee?" Eddie asked softly. Richie nodded in silence.

"Same thing as every day, needles man - I'll never get used to them," He sighed, "And, 'Chee?" He finished, grinning from ear to ear and facing Eddie now - letting go of his sore arm.

"It's cute, do not dare judge me,"

"You're cute," Richie muttered, smiling maliciously as Eddie turned a subtle shade of crimson, "Don't even try and hide your red ass face, Ed's - you know you love me,"

Eddie stared at him, wide eyed.

"Jus' pulling your leg, Ed's. Your face is a damn chuckalicious,"

"Shut up," Eddie giggled, covering his cheeks, "What is it with you n' that word? It's not even a word,"

Eddie was downright thankful for the change in subject, letting his cheeks return to their usual tan shade.

"Watch it become a word when we play Scrabble, though," Richie pointed out, to which Eddie frowned.

"When are we playing Scrabble, 'Chee?"

"This evening, my bed. Why, you got somewhere to be?" Richie feigned a pout before chuckling heartily and clutching his stomach.

"Fine, sook,"

"You," Richie said loudly in retaliation, before being shushed by an embarrassed Eddie, "Dumbass," He finished in a lowered voice. Eddie laughed - his trip to the hospital had not been too bad, indeed. As they finished their jokes, Richie's therapist entered the room - wooden clipboard clutched in her hand.

"Richard.."

"It's Richie, Miss,"

"Richie, time for your therapy session,"

"I'm okay, I promise Ma'am," Richie attempted to reassure her as she kneeled by the side of his bed.

"Just a check, honey," She said softly, to which Richie gave a little nod.

"Can we.. close the curtains?" Richie shifted in his bed slightly. The woman nodded and shunned them close - Eddie and Richie's eye contact being broken for the first time in minutes.

The woman and the boy spoke indistinctly for many minutes - hours, as it felt to Eddie. The curtains were finally shunned open again and the woman thanked Richie briskly, gave Eddie a small smile before departing.

"Hey, Rich?"

"Yes, M'Lord?"

"You never actually told me your condition," Eddie pointed out, "You're not allergic to laughter, are you?"

Richie shook his head.

"My bones are like brittle - like, really fragile. They're decaying over time. With my organs and shit. Started when I was younger and has spread ever since, I guess. I take pain meds and shots but they just slow the process,"

Eddie's heart broke in two.

"Holy.. shit," Eddie said finally. Unaware of it, tears were flowing down his face.

"Ed's, you're uh - crying,"

Eddie touched his face as his fingertips came back wet.

"Mh, fuck," He said, dabbing his face with the duvet cover. The tears continued to flow, and finally - a sob made its way out of Eddie's throat.

"Eddie, I'm fine - really," Richie tried to reassure him, wanting nothing more than to hold the shaking boy beside him. Wanting to hold him, press kisses against his head and lips-

Richie's breath stopped as the truth dawned upon him. Of course he would fall for somebody who he couldn't be with. Someone (according to Richie) out of his league by miles.

The days went on - and so did the relentlessly brutal and competitive games of Scrabble. It all fell apart one day, when a clipboard was turned upside down, in perfect view for a bored Richie Tozier to read. A small post-it-note sat, attached to the bottom of the clipboard. A small scrawled message was written precariously on it.

Sonia Kaspbrak states he is ill for being attracted to boys - agree and take cheque.

Richie's breath hitched. Eddie was sound asleep, and in a peaceful oblivion. Richie's heart ached with decision. Continue lying to the boy whom of which he had fallen for, or tell him the truth and possibly lose him forever. He lay back in his bed, dabbling the thoughts in his mind. Eddie woke eventually, gently. He sat up a little and immediately sensed Richie's discomfort. The clipboard had since been taken away by a doctor, who received glares from Richie.

"Rich, what's wrong?"

A lump in Richie's throat formed, and he pushed it down with an audible gulp.

"Mh, Ed's," Richie began, "You're perfectly healthy,"

"Excuse me?"

"The hospital, your illness - it's bullshit, Ed's. It's all bullshit,"

Eddie wiped sleep from his eyes before shooting a glare at Richie.

"You're bullshit, fucker,"

"I'm not kidding, Ed's,"

"Do not fucking call me that," Eddie spat, suddenly wounded.

"Look," Richie sat calmly, "Your mother payed these guys - bribed them, to keep you here because.."

His voice trailed of slightly.

"Because what?"

"Because you like dudes, Eddie!" Richie spoke clearly. The use of Eddie's real voice pained him, but he would have never showed it. As Eddie was preparing to retaliate, a nurse returned back to the foot of his bed.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Eddie asked, feigning sweetness. Richie rolled his eyes, but couldn't get enough of Eddie's voice.

"Yes, dear?"

"Is it true I'm perfectly healthy?" He asked quietly, fiddling with the duvet cover. The woman didn't say a word. Instead, she called over a doctor and had a quiet conversation with him.

"Edward," The doctor spoke, "You have to remain in the confines of the hospital, upon your mother's orders,"

Richie watched as tears began to well up in Eddie's eyes. He wanted to hold him, for the millionth time that day. Eddie shook his head, attempting to stand from the bed. The doctor placed a hand on his small wrist quickly. In a single movement, Eddie had slammed his left fist into the doctor's nose and sprinted out of the hospital ward - giving a fleeting, desperate look at Richie before disappearing in a flash. Richie sat still, his heart skipping a beat.

Months passed, and not a word nor sight from Eddie. Richie had begun to forget him. But the thought of him or the sound of his name hurt him more than his illness ever did. One day, a few days from his birthday - he was met by a strangely familiar sight. A petite boy stood at the foot of his bed. His rosy cheeks and honey brown hair glowed with the reflection of the sun in the hospital ward. Freckles were painted across his nose and cheeks, and his hazel eyes sparkled.

Richie practically fell in love all over again as Eddie stood at the foot of his bed.

"Ed's-" Richie began, before his face was smashed together with Eddie's. He immediately sunk into the kiss, and only began to pull away as he realised Eddie was standing in front of him.

"H-Holy fuck," He hiccoughed suddenly, as Eddie began chortling.

"I missed you, 'Chee," Eddie said, wide smile across his face. Richie couldn't say a word, instead sat stock still - face a glowing red. Eddie sat down on the bed and took Richie's head in his hand.

"I had to see you one last time," Eddie said gently, taking advantage of the silence, "I'm getting out of this shit hole, 'Chee!"

"Please don't leave me, Ed's," Richie managed to spit, before tears began to flow down his face. Eddie shook his head, as tears began to flow down his own face.

"Fuck.. 'Chee. You know I can't stay," Eddie chuckled slightly, despite the tears.

"I don't want to fuckin' die alone,"

"You're not going to die, 'Chee,"

"Who're you kidding, Ed's - look at me!" Richie said, weakly gesturing to his vulnerable figure, "I'm going to die, and I-I love you..”

"I don't want to watch you die, 'Chee," Eddie sighed gently, "I have to go,"

"You don't have to do anything," Richie finally said, before closing his eyes and stopping the flow of tears. He felt as Eddie pressed a kiss onto his forehead, down to his nose and finally his lips. Richie tried his best to not lean into the kiss, but ended up doing so - his hand resting on Eddie's cheek before Eddie pulled away, letting Richie's hand fall.

Years have passed since the two had their last conversation. Eddie left, contrary to Richie's belief. He came back months later, but it was all too late. Richie had passed, and buried in the nearby graveyard. Eddie still dwells upon their late night Scrabble sessions. He still dwells on the nicknames, sarcasm and jokes. The pain within the laughs, all that Eddie feels. Eddie's first, and only love. The love that would remain inside of his heart for centuries to come. The grave - littered with rose petals and flowers, all courtesy of Eddie. The sweet gifts that Eddie gives to Richie. The place he goes alone, always alone. Eddie never had the chance to say four simple words, four words that - for all Eddie knows, could've saved Richie's life.

"I love you too,"

With the second thoughtful;

"'Chee,"

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the-entity-down-the-street · 5 years ago

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Memory Eater

Since a few of you have expressed interest in reading my terato stories, I’ve decided to start posting a few. This first one is actually from a workshop I did for class back in the spring of 2019. I wrote it when I was going through a bad mental health period, and BPD was kicking my ass. Mental illness is a frequent theme in my work,and I’ll tag accordingly. I’ll the put the story under the cut. if you aren’t interested in my stories, blacklist the tag “entitywrites”

Hope you guys enjoy!

Dahlia woke up in her closet with one hell of a hangover, a hollow void where last night should’ve been, and a sticky note on her chest. She peeled it off to read.

Call me so I know you’re okay, if you could. Thank you, babe! – Love, Gideon

Her questions were caught between a pounding headache and a desperate need to vomit. Dahlia stumbled out of her closet and dashed to the bathroom.

Once her stomach was emptied, Dahlia wobbled over to the mirror and assessed herself. She was still wearing her nightgown, but the front was stained irreparably by something that looked like wine. Old, faded eyeliner wings clung to the skin around her eyes. Her hair looked less like a neat, curly bob and more like a mishappen stormcloud.

Dahlia rubbed her eyes until colorful blotches danced before them. She tried to organize the evidence she had at hand into a cohesive narrative. She had somehow worked up the nerve to go out partying, in skimpy pajamas no less, and in the process found enough charm to get a number. She couldn’t even remember leaving her apartment.

Then again, memory had always been an issue for her. It was easy for things to get lost and liquify into a gray mush, sometimes five minutes after they happened. Dissociative episodes did the worst damage, of course. She blundered through the days half-aware, divided from herself, plagued by a suicidal itch. Those memories were static at best. It was a stress response to the Borderline Blues. But this was different. This was a black hole where the static should be.

Dahlia dug her fingers into her scalp, as if that would squeeze something out of the void in her head. When that didn’t work, she shambled over to her bed, a little nest of unmade sheets in the corner of the apartment. She considered getting breakfast from the kitchenette, but the mere idea made her stomach want to upend itself again. Dahlia wrapped herself in a blanket and thanked whoever was listening that she didn’t have work today.

A glint of light on the nightstand caught her eye. She lifted her head up. There was a glass rose pink liquid sitting next to her lamp. The amorphous shadow it cast over the wood highlighted the second note beside it. Dahlia propped herself up on her elbows and snatched it.

For the hangover you’re going to have! Home-brewed cure. Drink it in steady gulps, don’t stop until the glass is empty. – Love, Gideon

“We add another layer to this fuckery,” she mumbled. So, this Gideon had been in her apartment, huh? Did he walk her back? Did he stay the night and bail before she woke up? If that was the case, why did he offer his phone number? None of these theories got her any closer to why she fell asleep in the closet.

Dahlia rested her head back on the pillow. The world was spinning around her aching brain, as if she were the center of a cramped, painful universe. Thinking was becoming a rigorous exercise. She tried to backtrack and grasp onto something, anything, from the night before.

Nothing. Empty. Null and void.

Dahlia tried going back further, knotting her brows together in concentration. There barely anything in her memory from the day before. And the night before that. And the night before that. Her memories were suddenly spotted with jagged holes of time. Was it the migraine blotting everything out?

Desperate, and a little panicked, Dahlia picked up the mysterious concoction left for her and began to gulp it down as suggested. It was flavorless, like water, but each gulp came with a pulse of gentle, radiating warmth. It calmed the storm in her stomach and suffocated the agony in her head.

When the drink was completely gone, Dahlia set the glass down and sank into the bed with a heavy sigh. The warmth died out and left clarity in its place. She basked in the bliss of clean, painless sobriety for a few minutes. Wow, when Gideon said a cure, he meant a cure.

Dahlia tried backtracking again, hoping for better results. Sometimes pain made her symptoms worse. Yet, when she shuffled through her head, the holes remained. Even going back to the beginning of last semester, there were missing patches of time.

Shit.

This was bad.

She thought of the note Gideon left and grabbed her phone. She clicked contacts. Sure enough, his name was second in her “frequently contacted” list, right below her therapist. That raised a whole new set of questions, but she could only take one mystery at a time. This was the only clue she had, so she figured there was nothing else to lose.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Dahlia sat up and tapped her fingers against the snowy hill of her kneecap.

“Hello?” a drowsy voice answered.

She cringed. Shit, did she wake him up? “Uh, hi, Gideon?”

“Oh, good morning, Dahlia,” Gideon replied. His voice was instantly perky and pleasant. “Are you feeling okay? I hope my cure did its job.”

“Yeah, yeah, worked like a charm. Thanks for that. I’m, uh, much better now.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. I figured you’d need it after all that wine.” He laughed, and his voice rang like tinkling bells in her ears. It was oddly familiar, and more oddly relaxing. “We’ll have to do that again sometime.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Dahlia said agreeably. “So, uh, speaking of, what exactly was that?”

Another chuckle. “Memory a bit lacking, I assume?”

Dahlia tensed. “More like completely lacking.”

“…Completely?”

“Uh, yeah. Completely.”

There was a long pause. Painfully long. The silence stretched like a rubber band primed for snapping. Dahlia nibbled at the corner of her lip.

“D-do you know who I am?” His voice cracked under the weight of its own horrified tone.

She shook her head, despite the pointlessness of the gesture in a phone conversation. “No, I’m sorry. That’s kind of why I called. I need answers and your number was my only lead.”

“I see.” Another pause. Some shuffling, a whoosh of sheets being tossed back. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should have over the phone. Would it be possible for me to come over this evening?”

Dahlia quirked an eyebrow. Curiosity bubbled where the headache had been.

“Dahlia?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. What time?”

Another pause. “I can come by around nine. Would that work for you?”

Dahlia shrugged. “Sure. I’m not doing anything.”

“Alright. Nine it is.”

“Do you need me to text you my address?” Dahlia asked, realizing she could’ve just texted him like a normal person instead of calling and waking him up. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“No, I remember where you are. I’ll text before I knock, okay?”

“Um, okay.” Weird, but okay. “See you tonight.”

“See you tonight.”

They hung up. Dahlia hunched over and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Where the nausea had been, unease took its place, plopped into her gut like brick, as she wondered what she’d mixed herself up in.

Dahlia had latched onto the stress ball her therapist gave her, but the little smiley face printed on it did nothing to reassure her. She had struggled to pick an outfit. She chewed through a whole pack of gum. She fidgeted and paced and fussed over cleaning the apartment up. Was she nervous about meeting this man she couldn’t remember? Was she nervous about what he knew? Did it matter? Either way, Dahlia was a tense bundle of nerves when the clock struck nine. She sat on the couch as she waited for his text.

A minute passed. Nothing.

Five minutes. Nothing.

Ten. Nothing.

Dahlia tapped her foot impatiently. “Where is this guy?”

Just as she asked, her phone buzzed.

Hey. I’m here. About to knock. Please don’t scream.

Well, that was the creepiest thing anyone had ever texted her. She clenched her stress ball so hard that the little smiley face caved in on itself. She dialed 911, the call button poised for pushing at any time. As she was comparing escape routes and rushing for the kitchen knives, the knock came. From her closet door.

“Good evening,” Gideon said. “Sorry for being late. Things took longer than expected. May I come in?”

Words dissolved on Dahlia’s tongue. She tried and failed to scrounge up logic. The way she saw it, there were two possibilities. Either she was hallucinating, and she had another mental illness to worry about, or something supernatural was going on. She had never prayed before, but she prayed it was door number two.

“Y-yeah, come in.”

Gideon stepped into her living room. A gasp wound down Dahlia’s throat as she took in the sight of him. Two curling horns stuck out of the stringy grey hair that fell to his shoulders. The eyes staring at her were painfully large, painfully blue orbs with reptilian slits in their centers. His skin was bluish grey, corpse skin. Even subtle things, like the number of knuckles in his fingers, and the way his skin stretched over the bones in his face, were unsettling and alien. It was almost comical in comparison to his clean plaid button-up and black slacks. A monster in business casual. She thought she could see something glowing in his pants pocket, but that barely registered when looking at everything else.

“Thank you for not screaming,” he said.

Scream? She could barely listen. The static of her own stressed thoughts made it hard to hear. Was this the onset of schizophrenia? Was this why her brain was full of holes? Was that symptom? Her feet began carrying her across the room in search of an answer. She crossed the span of carpet between them until she had him at arm’s length. Her hand reached out, almost of its own free will, and gently poked Gideon’s cheek. Warm, living flesh greeted her. She nearly collapsed with relief.

“Oh. Oh, thank God. I’m not crazy.”

Gideon chuckled weakly. There was a strange warmth in his eyes that made Dahlia’s stomach flip. “No, love, you’re not crazy. Never crazy.”

He reached up to cup his hand over hers, but Dahlia pulled away and stumbled back before he could. With the worries about her tenuous mental health soothed, Dahlia could now focus on the fact that a very real monster was standing in her living room trying to reassure her of her sanity. Amazingly, that wasn’t an easier pill to swallow. Dahlia plopped onto her couch and grasped at the cushions in leu of a stress ball. It was something solid and normal.

Gideon looked more than a little hurt. He slowly put his arm down and shrank back. “R-right, you don’t remember me. I’m sorry.”

Dahlia put her head in her hands and pulled at the roots of her hair. “What the fuck,” she said, because it was the only thing her brain would let her say. “I- I don’t… what…”

“Overwhelmed?” Gideon asked.

Dahlia nodded. Thoughts were pouring out of her head and leaking onto her tongue. The overflow made it impossible to get a single coherent question out.

Gideon took a hesitant step forward. “Do you have your stress ball?”

Dahlia shook her head violently. She couldn’t even think about her lost stress ball right now. It was one thing too much.

Gideon chewed on his lip. “I know I’m kind of the reason you’re panicking right now, but I want to help. May I sit with you?”

Would that help? Probably not. Then again, nothing was making sense and there was a clog in her brain and the world was suddenly too bright, so she might as well try something. Dahlia gave him a weak, shaky nod to affirm. He was by her side not a moment later.

“Close your eyes for a moment, deep breaths,” Gideon said. His voice was suddenly much softer, but not exactly quiet. It was a gentle, soothing, like windchimes in a breeze. There was something comforting and familiar about it.

Dahlia closed her eyes. The world went mercifully dark. She laid back against the couch and began to take in slow, controlled breaths.

“Focus on something banal. Think about the texture of the couch. Or the carpet between your toes. I can get something from the kitchen if you want something to taste.”

Dahlia shook her head. “No, no. Just need quiet.”

“Quiet. I can do that.”

They sat together in silence as Dahlia let the static and chaos settle. She absorbed herself in the cool, textured leather of her sofa and sank against its plush backing. Her breathing steadied. Her head lolled to the side, and she relaxed.

“Better?” Gideon asked.

She nodded.

“Good. Now, I know this is a shock to you,” Gideon continued. “You have every right to be shocked. But I promise that everything is alright.”

Dahlia furrowed her brow. She was almost giving herself another headache trying to gaze into the holes where her memories should be. “I find that hard to believe.”

A sigh. “Fair enough. Okay, things aren’t alright yet, but they will be soon. That I definitely promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“With these,” Gideon said. Dahlia heard the distinct scrape of skin on rough fabric, followed by a clacking noise. It sounded like hard candies knocking against each other. A new source of light danced in front of Dahlia’s closed eyes. Curious, she opened them.

“What the fuck.” The light was coming from a large cluster of glowing, electric blue orbs. They were about the size of marbles. “What are those?”

“Your missing memories.”

“…Okay then. Um, why are they in your hand and not, you know, in my head?”

“They were stolen. Thank the Gods you called when you did, otherwise I might not have been able to track them down.”

Dahlia’s eyes widened painfully. “Stolen? How? When? W-why?”

Gideon closed his fist around the memory orbs and held them close to his chest. His expression grew dark. “There are some people that think our worlds should remain separate. Someone stole every memory you had of our world, and of me, during my house party. Right under my fucking nose.” His voice was knife sharp and angry. Dahlia could tell he was directing it at himself just as much as he was the perpetrator. “It was pure luck and timing that allowed me to get them back.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dahlia said. A deep, profound dread crawled up her spine and settled on her shoulders. She imagined a set of spindly fingers reaching into her skull and plucking memories likes grapes from a synaptic vine. The mere thought sickened her to the soul.

“When I saw you’d passed out, I took you home. I thought you just had too much wine. I never suspected…” He lowered his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Dahlia.”

Dahlia put a comforting hand on his shoulder, almost instictually. Her horror of him had been surpassed and subdued. “No, don’t be. You got them back. Thank you.”

“Of course. You have a right to your memories,” he said. He glanced up at Dahlia, then back down at the memory orbs. There was a noticeable dark flush to his cheeks. “Besides, these are important to me too.”

Before Dahlia could comment, Gideon held out his hand, offering her the orbs. She cupped her hands and let the little balls trickle into her palms. They felt like gumballs. Dahlia estimated there were a hundred of them, if not more. Her vision was taken up by their collective glow.

“How do I…”

“You eat them.”

“What?” Dahlia snapped her head up.

“Eat them. Pop one in your mouth at a time and bite. The memory will come back to you.”

“Do I, like, eat them in chronological order?” Dahlia asked, bemused by the string of words that just came out of her mouth.

“No, no, just eat them as you like. You can’t tell the orbs apart anyways. As long you eat them all, you’ll be fine.”

Dahlia grimaced. “Is this safe?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t make a hobby of eating your own memories, of course, but there’s no harm in taking in information that already belongs to you,” he explained. “But if you ever feel unsafe, I’ll be right here to help.”

Dahlia looked over at him. His hollowed-out face had taken on an inviting, comforting demeanor. There was something very reassuring about the little smile that was playing across his lips.

“Who are you?” she asked. “To me? How do you know what I need to calm down?”

“Take a bite and find out.”

Dahlia turned back to her palm full of orbs. She picked one up from the pile and held it up to her mouth. She snuck a glance at Gideon, who nodded encouragingly. After a heavy, nervous gulp, Dahlia popped the orb into her mouth and maneuvered it between her back molars.

She bit down.

We were sitting next to each other at the counter that separated my kitchenette from the rest of my apartment. “So, where do monsters come from? I mean, aside from closets.”

He tapped his fingers against the counter. “It’s like a pocket dimension. We hide in the nooks and crannies of space-time, only popping out when necessary.”

“Is this necessary?” I teased. I nibbled a cookie from the small plate I’d set out.

“The cookies or your company?”

“Either or.”

He smiled. “Both are absolutely necessary.”

“Whoa,” Dahlia breathed as the vision faded and settled back into its rightful spot in her head. Remembered happiness spread through her.

“What? What memory was it?”

“I was just talking with you over there.” She pointed to the counter. “You were telling me about where you came from.”

“Ah, yes, that was some time ago. We’d known each other for a few months. I’d just started to trust you,” he explained. His smile brightened. “Go on, have another.”

Dahlia snatched another orb up and bit into it.

Our lips met gingerly, hesitantly at first. Amazingly, I made the first move. We’d been passing sidelong glances and lingering hugs like the currency of pining. I needed to cash it in.

While we were watching our usual Friday night movie, I scooched close to him. Closer. Closer. He turned his head away from the screen and towards me. I leaned in. He leaned in.

Ginger, hesitant kisses deepened. His tongue dipped into my mouth. My hands snuck up his back. The movie was forgotten in the haze.

“Oh.” The memory nestled into its spot. Dahlia sank back into the couch. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so at ease when kissing someone. The slop of saliva and the bumping of teeth didn’t make her self-conscious. It was expected. It was okay. It was natural.

“What memory was it?” Gideon asked.

Dahlia turned to Gideon like she was seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was. “We were making out while Monsters Inc. played in the background.”

Gideon blushed. “Oh, yes, that night.”

“Are you my boyfriend?”

“Would you be horrified if I said yes?”

Dahlia opened her mouth to answer. She closed it and knotted her eyebrows. Contextually vacant, the memory of their kiss brought a surge of conflicting feelings. The remembered happiness, and a fresh, squirming discomfort. The emotional paradox of sudden closeness with a stranger.

She held up a finger in a wait sign and popped another orb into her mouth. Then another. And another. As soon as one memory faded, a new one was already waiting between her teeth. Flashes of dancing and love-making and cuddling and comforting found their spots in her head. Dahlia patched more and more holes, sewed memories to memories, feelings to feelings, creating a mostly cohesive quilt of past events. A few times she had to stop and catch her breath from the overload of information. But, eventually, the pile was reduced to a singular orb. Gideon watched with vigilant, silent eyes as Dahlia bit down on it.

We were curled up in my closet. Gideon knew I liked to be somewhere small and quiet after a breakdown. I’d been bashing my fists against my skull over something, though I couldn’t remember what. Reasons blurred together. With no emotional skin, I’m hurt by the slightest provocation. But in here it was safe, we were safe, and everything was okay.

“Why do you put up with me?” I asked. “I don’t even want to put up with me.”

“You’re under the assumption that you’re a burden. You’re not.”

I settled into his chest more. “But I’m sick, Gid. I don’t function right.”

“Maybe you need to change your definition of right, then.”

My lip quivered, and I wrapped my arms around him. “…I love you.”

Dahlia blinked. She was surprised to find tears on her cheeks. She looked over at Gideon, who was still waiting for her reply.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t be horrified at all.”

A bright, goofy grin spread across his face. “Then yes, I’m your boyfriend.”

She returned the grin with equal amounts of brightness and goofiness. “Good.”

FIN

#entitywrites #terato love #my writing #mental illness tw #bpd tw #character with bpd #monster boyfriend #romance writing #suicide mention #terato #monster lover #writblr #writeblr

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forgettinggirlinterrpted · 6 years ago

Text

Sunday 5/6

My roommates name is Shauna. She doesn’t flush and when I got here there was what I can only assume were soiled clothes in a brown paper bag.

A woman in the hall is also talking about her shit. I’m the youngest person here and im afraid to shower, there’s no door. The poop lady is cackling.

My roommate and I talked, she’s nice, and I met her night nurse and she is so nice. Her name is Maria.

I’m having a hard time figuring out why I feel like this. Its hard b/c I’ve been hungover but surely that’s not all it is. How do you recover from a hangover so bad you end up in a psych ward?

It weird not having my phone, I want to check twitter. I don’t want to go to group therapy tomorrow.

I just can’t stop crying, my eyes actually hurt.

My mouth tastes bad but I have no toothpaste.

I started reading this book called notorious nineteen and it is truly trash.

I don’t have the lights on bc Shauna’s sleeping- I feel like Mozart.

My eyes hurt, I might go call my dad again to get my moms phone number.

Ill be back.

Got Taylor’s # and called her/my mom. Maria gave me some antihistamines to try to calm me down/sleep.

My sisters want to come visit me on Tuesday.

I’ve only eaten a donut this morning.

There’s a painting of a window that is 100% mocking me.

I’m sweaty.

Some snaps I would be sending if I had my phone

*a pic of the little card that was on my bed when I came in w/ a number on it for housekeeping. Caption idea-

is this a joke?

It’s a work in progress.

*def a snap of me whipping/nay naying to the woman whose been singing in the hall all night (singer)

Shauna is snoring. There’s no joke there but its absolutely worth noting.

I just want to play candy crush.

Monday

(12:30 pmish) I feel like I’m in a dream. I’ve been sleeping all day- it turns out it was only like 3 hours tops.

I had so many dreams.

I just went and talked to a big ass table of doctors about my life and I just feel so groggy. They’re in there talking about me.

I skipped lunch b/c my tummy hurt so bad after breakfast.

Shauna puked everywhere.

I think she’s leaving.

Also turns out she’s in withdrawal AND pregnant.

And she has an infected injection site on her arm.

I just talked to my mom/dad/Taylor and asked them to bring me some books + shirts.

The nice psychiatrist said she would give me some adavan to calm me down. Also I skipped lunch b/c my stomach hurt so bad from breakfast but now I’m hungry so I guess they’re gonna order me something. I feel so weird. (might have napped here)

4ish pm

40 mg stratera (sp?), one mg atavan.

Finally left my room, I’ve been asleep all day.

Nurse went and got me a coke + a water and I saw they’re watching forgetting Sarah Marshall so I thought Id join. Everyone called me out when I came in since ive been hiding out. Bitches.

Movies suggested by the dude I’m watching FSM w/

- assassin’s creed

-Dogma

10 positive ways to describe myself

1. Legs that go up to my asshole

2. College educated

3. Big heart

4. Good sense of humor

5. Love babies

6. Love my friends

7. Good communicator

8. Love the outside

9. Big smile

10. Lovely family

9 positive coping skills

1. Talk to Taylor

2. Going on walks

3. Calling my parents

4. Reading

5. Going to therapy

6. Doing hw

7. Watching movies

8. Candy crush (questionable)

9. Eating veggies

8 things I’ve accomplished

1. College

2. Getting into grad school

3. Learning Spanish

4. Coming to the hospital

5. Making great friends

6. Moving a lot and making it through

7. Driving to SLC

8. Supporting myself (for the most part)

7 healthy things I can do each day

1. Eat well

2. Shower

3. Talk to my friends

4. Not drink

5. Clean my room

6. Clean my clothes

7. Do my hw

6 things I can change

1. My eating habits

2. Drinking

3. Exercising more

4. Getting a routine

5. Whitening my teeth

6. How I see myself

5 things I can’t change

1. How my family acts

2. How my friends act

3. The status of the US public school system

4. The amount of sunlight in my apt

5. My face

4 reasons I can’t give up

1. My family

2. I’m going to change the world

3. My friends

4. My future students

3 places I can get help

1. w/ dr. whose name I can’t remember

2. my apt (Taylor)

3. the hospital

2 people I can really trust

1. Taylor

2. my parents

1 reason I’m here

1. I need to not feel like this anymore

I’m holding myself back from asking why everyone’s here.

Assassin’s creed guy, also known as biting guy (an inside joke from earlier) and sweater girl are talking about if the food delivery guy has extensions.

We got called to dinner, now were finishing Sarah Marshall.

Biter dude told hair guy “nice hair”.

Oh my god, when peter sings about how much he hates himself, biter and white shirt turned to me and said dang sounds like he’s going to be in the room next o me! way to be self aware guys!

Just called my dad to find out about my stuff getting dropped off but turns out he did 2 hours ago and its all been in my room.

I started crying immediately b/c Taylor is amazing- she brought me the perfect books. It was like she was talking to me through the books.

She gave me b Franks autobiography and Jesse Donaldson’s ‘on homesickness’. And the book Amanda gave me. also wuthering heights and pastures of heaven. All so perfect.

Shirts is roasting the shit out of double lasagna (he ate… double the lasagna we all got for dinner).

He keeps saying he looks like he’s about to give birth

“I mean were already in the hospital we just gotta figure out what floor is maternity”

Wuthering Heights

1801- Mr. Lockwood +Heathcliff

Thrushcross Grange

Double lasagna is talking about the last time he had tequila- brother the last time I drank it I ended up here.

What an anecdote.

“they could have stolen my jewelry or even my virginity!” – about the guys who helped when he got too drunk. Double lasagna’s real name is * but he just introduced himself as Dorothy (to hair the night nurse helper).

Fake Abby (biting guy came to my room thinking I was her) is here and shirt just said “you’re awfully quiet” and she rejected him hard. It was awk.

One of the helpers is just chillin in here w/ us while I read my shitty book and we watch “just go w/ it” – its so bad.

One of the nurses (pony tail) just made me go on a walk down the hall w/ him. They all keep asking me how I’m feeling and I keep saying fine but I’m not. As long as I don’t talk I don’t cry. I’m starting to think I want to stay here longer but also leave right away. Its all so confusing.

Double lasagna just asked hair nurse if he could have his phone out of his bag and the way just looked up from his phone and said “nuh uh” was iconic.

Its 805 pm and I think I’m going see about getting my sleeping pills so I can just crash.

I need to document stuff better tomorrow b/c I don’t like how much of a blur today is.

I finally showered and I feel better I think. I just don’t know what the move is once I get out. Like I don't know how to talk to anyone.

I need Taylor to contact Morgan I think.

I’m sure she’s confused. Or maybe she doesn't care literally at all. Who cares. I’ve been surprised at how easily I’ve been sleeping today especially without my phone and with everything on my mind.

I need a talk therapist like yesterday.

I can’t bring myself to get through any of the books Taylor brought. The 19 book in such trash but it’s easy to read.

The shower needs to be pressed every 45 seconds to say on. I wore shower shoes.

Fake Abby doesn’t know what the move is, I can tell.

I called Taylor + my mom then got snack in my night meds. I mom told me to call back to talk to Mack so I just did. She’s lovely.

Double lasagna somehow talked to snack nurse into giving him a full sandwich. I got a strawberry poptart and a coke.

They’re checking in a new girl now who looks a bit like she’s closer to my age.

I’m happy she’s not my roommate.

I think tomorrow ill try to call family/friends less and trust the process. I need to really take a step back.

I’m just happy I feel comfortable sitting in the sun room. I knew a lot more about movies than they did

Goals for tomorrow-

Check out group

Find rec room/sign my name by Mack’s

Document everything

Keep room clean

They still haven’t cleaned Shauna’s side. Its off putting.

Have I mentioned they check on me every 15 minutes?

Its off putting also.

I wish I had just like some mascara or something. I hate to be that girl but damn.

My mom keeps trying to talk about the funny aspects of this but I can’t say I’m feeling them yet. Today just really was such a blur. I sept a lot then talked to therapists then I think went back to sleep? Then begged for lunch then I think slept? That’s where its fuzzy. Called my fam too much, I need to not tomorrow.

I also want to gain control of tv room tomorrow. Power move!!

Did I mention I called Chelsea? My brain is mush.

- Be more present tomorrow-

- Ask more questions-

be warned: new beginnings are rarely pure, and neither are the men who seek them

On Homesickness pg 23

Scott County

We are homesick most for the places we have never {truly} known

37, Franklin County

Questions to Proteus -> how do I get home? 45, Montgomery County

Tuesday

7:10 am

slept super hard but also had super vivid dreams. Mack and I talked about that last night.

She said she had never brought it up. I was a little restless, prob just bc they were constantly opening my door and eventually just stopped closing it.

I’m just trying to let go of control. I don’t want my phone back. I need to talk to someone about the insane anxiety I feel when I think about home back to the real world.

Even just being in my apartment scares me b/c it feels like its full of negative energy. I need to focus on the good when I get out.

I keep thinking about my phone bill and I can’t remember if I paid for internet. Also the maintenance light is still on in my car.

Even though mom and dad are coming today I need to be communicating less w/ outside world. If I really want to be off the grid I need to really b alone with me thoughts and be okay with it.

I kept feeling for my phone throughout the night.

I wonder what the nurses think of me. do I seem different than everyone else?

I keep finding myself trying to relate to the nurses, esp. the young male one (hair) but what am I trying to prove? That I’m not like everyone here?

Newsflash, asshole, I am

(I’m the asshole)

I need a sharper pencil- do you think a lobotomy joke will be appropriate when I request one orr?

I wonder if Prather has texted me. I’m supposed to sub on the 21st.

Yikes

Not looking forward to checking my bank account. I really spent a lot w/out giving a shit. It was freeing but I also haven’t worked in over a week + a half soooooo.

On homesickness is so dramatic but I love it. Makes me think of Taylor. (bc home, not the drama)

Also I think I’m getting fucking sick. Or, according to Lula (Flula) in 19, I’m getting hospital cooties.

7:27 am

I’m in TV room w/ singer. I asked what we’re watching and she said “some kind of cartoon”. She’s not screaming which is awesome. I’m going to read Wuthering Heights.

Almost 8

Called dad and asked him to bring me a pair of readers since my eyes hurt. Nice nurse #2 is here again. She’s blonde. I haven’t seen Maria again. Met another nurse too. She was young. Also there’s a fake nurse (fake nurses are in teal, like hair, and he real ones are in blue) who I def. know. Cant figure out from where, maybe high school? Either way, not cool with it. Also, they sharpened my pencil.

TIME TBD

Having a hard time focusing on reading. My eyes hut.

I don’t like waiting around.

Is it petty to point out inconsistencies in the rules? There’s different info on different sheets in the packet they gave us. Makes me wonder how closely these patients are reading it. Its all petty though, like whether or not we should take 5 or 10 minutes to use the phone or how many visitors we can have at a time.

I know myself too well, ill be bringing it up. I’m going to check on breakfast.

8:30ish

breakfast was sub par. Sat alone. New girl, sat w/ double lasagna. She only wanted milk so homeboy asked if he could eat hers! Has he learned nothing?? I ate pretty quick; I think I need to go back to sleep. I feel weird.

Time-?

Dr.?? (nice psychiatrist) came in and we talked. Started fine but I got really upset b/c of how much I feel like garbage and I don’t now if I want to be here. But also I don’t want to go back to the real world. She left and I went to go get a visteral 25 mg b/c I’m so upset. They gave it to me and when I got back to my room I 100% had a panic attack.

I felt like I was a kid again. Maybe its b/c I’m here but I’ve never been sure that what it was until now. They happened a lot as a kid and usually ended in my mom holding me and saying everything’s ok. Its so hard not having that now. I left my room and the med student from Sunday was in the hall and he came and talked to me until I calmed down.

With talking to them I finally feel like I’ve been able to verbalize how anxious I feel here along with how I feel about leaving. I just need to rest my eyes for right now, but when I’m up I need to write down what Dr. B said about when I get out.

I miss my parents.

Time unknown

Honestly can’t remember what happened next.

Social worker came in, she’s lovely. Talked a bit then I kept resting.

She gave me some info on how to stay grounded during a panic attack.

Then I think I went to the rec room to do a puzzle but then religion group started. I stuck around but then little dr came to get me and asked if I would meet with big table of doctors even though I hate it.

I did it but it made me upset again. They said they would come talk to me but they haven’t.

I fell asleep again then not Maria nurse came to tell me they’re gonna give me more adavan once my visteral wears off. Fell back asleep then got a drink/ate lunch.

My puzzle got hijacked so I brought a new one into my room. I hit a wall so I stopped to write all this down and go find out what they talked about it my meeting.

I think its around 1 pm.

2pm

Sat and watched how I met your mother for a little. Started crying. Asked a nurse when I was gonna get talked to when little doc came up. they gave me an adavan and now I’m waiting for him to come talk to me. the maid is making up Shauna’s old bed while I sit and cry. Very awk.

I don’t know why I keep crying. I just feel like I’m going to keep having these attacks. I feel so hopeless.

Still sitting here crying. Still no doctor.

My name is Abigail and I am safe. I am in the present and I am safe.

~505

lil doc came to talk to me and I got upset. I don’t understand what my next move is.

Just slept pretty hard until now then got dinner. Going back to sleep is very tempting.

I think I’m allowed another pill. What’s the point?

6:50 pm

I honestly don’t know what I’ve been doing since after dinner. I’ve been doing the puzzle in the TV room. I’ve been watching the office. I asked nice nurse if I could have another pill but she’s pretty sure she cane until its time for bed. My anxiety is pretty high right now my parents will be here in like an hour.

7 pm

officially been hoarding pencils. They say I can have an atavan at 10 pm for bed, but they gave me a V. im wondering if that’s going to help me sleep. They’re going to put me on abilify on top of my startera. I’m hoping they’ll give me some of this visteril to take home in case I start to freak.

Decided that in order to help me not get stressed I want someone to take my phone and ask me one by one about who texted/called/emailed and help me deal with it. Same w/ my bank statement.

I want to say I feel better, but I don’t know. Its just all a blur.

I want to see m parents so I can find out what the move is when I get out. Maybe a meeting with Andrea and social working and one of them would be cool.

I don’t want to get out after Taylor leaves. Fuck.

Double lasagna and biter left.

* is still here, and fake Abby is MIA.

New girl who I don’t know

New guy Brandon- wears vans

And tad who Mack warned me about. Apparently he called 911 on the nurses from the phones.

Bold move.

Fake Abby and I are friends. I think she’s lonely, I know she wants to be my roommate, but I can’t deal with that.

Now I just kill time until mom gets here.

930 ish?

Mom and dad came and I feel a bit better. Mom and I did our crossword puzzle and dad and I figured out grad school. I also had him assure me I don’t need to worry about $ right now.

I asked for a pen but they said no. but I STOLE ONE FROM MY DAD!!

Honestly its low on ink but just having it feels great.

Just called my mom and said goodnight to Mack. I feel ok. Mostly just shook b/c of how much of a dream this all feels like. But I’m ok. Time to crossword and eat my poptart like the star patient I am. And I’m gonna do it in god damn pen!

Goals for tomorrow-

- track when all meds taken

- get better at checking time

8am

slept like shit. But I think I might go home today?! I’m sick so my head fucking hurts. I dontknow what to think. I just want to sleep in my own bed.

11am

talked to dr. B + some of the team and I think I’ll just stay another night. It was hard for me to think of what I wanted to b/c I just woke up. but she made a good point that if I’m sick and drowsy it could be good to stay since they’ll change the time I get the abilify. I don’t know. Just very tired.

1109

Watching fresh prince. Thought there was gonna be group in here, but so far nothing. Fuck this.

Fake Abby told shirt he looks like Carlton and no shit he kind of does. He deadass did the dance while he was walking out. He thinks side burns were cool. Now singer is singing Elvis songs.

Newer girl is even scarier she’s very touchy. Seems like she doesn’t listen.

singer is standing directly in front of the tv. She threatened to fire the nurse that told her to stop.

Shirt is leaving today.

New girl just came in and snatched the stuff out of singer’s hands and then tried to talk to everyone. Now singer is out for blood. New girl is wild.

1140

going to lay in bed until lunch.

~12

slept a little until lunch. Hamburger and a coke.

I’m def staying another night. Thinking of some ideas for pickup since I need someone to go back to my apt w/ me.

I think that’s the move. And then if its horrible I can try to stay somewhere else. I’m thinking of asking my sisters. Idk. Might call some of them now.

I’m really just waiting to get something for my cough.

215

just slept super hard

even denied taking my cough meds so I could sleep more

I finally got into the rec room and unsurprisingly it was a disappointment.

Couldn’t find macks mark so I left.

Gonna go try to get more crossword

255

just called Chelsea, she said she would try to come over after work/talk to liv about doing the same. I just want to take a real shower.

Crazy Tad just said hi to me.

New girl (maid) is asleep sitting up, we’re watching that 70’s show.

My shirt smells like Keenan.

Also its almost snack!

Hmmmmm 4?

took a shower after smashing a poptart. The sheets they gave me to use as a bathmat smells like actual piss and shit- maybe I shouldn’t have wrapped myself in it.

A little before 5

Slept again. Got woken up for dinner. It was ok. God I’m so fucking tired.

I’m glad I’m writing everything down b/c its all such a blur.

Cant remember if I already wrong down that I talked to chels. I want help meal prepping and doing some laundry. Also someone to sleep over. I want my own bed, but I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want my phone. I don’t know what good anyone can do me right now until my meds get figured out. I don’t know!!

I met my new nurse, DD, who said I’m taking my abilify in an hour. Then I want my sleeping pills so I can konk out, ugh.

Time to lay down. Again.

I think I fell asleep again?

Went to get my abilify around 615. Panic attack happened again.

I can’t stop crying and I don’t want to be here anymore w/out talking to someone about all my regrets.

I think more than anything I’m really disappointed with how this whole thing is going down.

Just want to stop crying.

830 pm

calmed down. Kind of okay w/ leaving but also so anxious.

844

Singer has 12 different personalities.

About to go ask for my meds/follow up on what’s up w/ the nurse’s research

9ish

Ate a poptart. Nurse was doing meds so she hasn’t looked into anything. Took 2 hydroxizines (50 mg) + a 3 mg melatonin. Called dad, still not a grad student. Very frustrating. Everything sucks but its ok bc I am Abigail Nash and I am safe in the present. I am not in the past. The present. And there are people that love me.

Thursday

- if… because then

- one day at a time

9 am?

Had breakfast, found out I’m going home today.

Called mom + dad, and mom is gonna pick me up around 5

2 more free meals!

Getting a therapist is going to take a minute but I feel ok about it

Nurse Nadine is so sweet.

These people are getting the wildest thank you cards later.

930

I’m going to get a watch

I don’t like not always knowing the time

That fucking short haired nurse came in again and gave me shit for being in my room

Don’t know her name

But I don’t want to

I’m getting out here short haired lady! And I’m pulling out to win!

I’m getting sleepy, fuck

I have like 8 hours to kill

Soooo

Suddenly now that I know I’m getting out I feel like some kind of bubble has been burst and I feel semi normal

Am I really the Angelina Jolie of this place? Not actually Angelina, but her character from Girl Interrupted?

She’s hot in that too, though.

Final thoughts for now- RIP Brittany Murphy.

925

group- only going because nurse Nadine is leading it.

Tad gave a very sweet little speech about his dad

Grabby girl wouldn’t share, she it nuts

But now miss congeniality is on!!

1055

cute rec therapist let me into the rec room. I wrote

SCABZ

In big letters on the table, and made a picture frame. Also played ping pong with grabby. I’m not even going to go into how that went.

Update: grabby thinks I’m her mom

My best gift:

The gift of travel. Travel in the sense of moving, traveling to see a friend, or a friend traveling to see me. travel has allowed me to maintain friendships w/ people I usually wouldn’t. Another gift coming from travel is my best friend, Taylor who traveled to another state for school, where I met her. And the gift of going to visit my best friend in France a few years ago who I’ve known since I was 9.

~~~~ when the party is at it’s best, it’s time to leave the party ~~~~

- Tad’s ex-father-in-law

almost noon

Tad (ok turns out its not the Tad Mack was talking about) said some really good stuff in group and when he was talking about finding balance I said, “like the yin for your yang?” and he did not know what I was really talking about but it fit into the convo really well. So I started to draw him one and when it was over I gave it to him and he was really touched. I feel really good about it. It sucks I’m just now getting to go to group but I think my meds might be working b/c I haven’t gone back to sleep yet.

Also, they said I could keep 19!

I need to get some books together to donate. And some puzzles.

After lunch

Pulled pork. Singer change the channel on TV to cartoons. I see a nap in my future. Also brushing my teeth.

There’s a new kid, he’s gotta be newly 18 b/c he looks young.

Tried playing monopoly w/ Tad, maid, and new guy, but it devolved.

Thought he was cute but he might be nuts (shocker)

I said he was welcome to my books and he looks a mans search for meaning and I’m about to leave so I don’t think im getting it back.

Amanda wrote a nice note in it. That sucks. I gotta stop being so nice.

I asked them to give me a visterile and they did. I should be ready to rock when mom gets here.

430

did more painting- made a weird sign for door knobs. No sign of homeboy + my book. I kind of don’t want to leave, but I refuse to let myself have fomo in a place like this. Idk what the move is for my book. He better be reading it. I don’t want to leave before dinner so he can at least have a chance to say something to me about it.

Tad is really fun to hang out w/. he is really nice. We talked about grounding during panic attacks and he invited me to play monopoly and we talked about how it sucks that we all just started talking to each other but that’s also prob just a sign that the meds are working.

I saw he put my yin yang in the front of his journal. Very sweet.

This isn’t to say he isn’t totally nuts. Also, young guy said my voice reminded me of “stuff” what the fuck.

Grabber called me mom and tried to give me her hand.

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youtuberswithalex · 7 years ago

Text

PRVL, Vol 1, Chap 7: Peace of Mind

Summary: Logan is way too overwhelmed.

Word Count: 4,803

Warnings: a couple of mental illness jokes at the beginning (that are quickly shot down), an autistic meltdown, fighting, mention of the death of a parent

Tag list: @vigilantvirgil @what-even-is-thiss @lovelylogans @nose-to-meet-you @faithfulcat111 @haikyuupaladin @virge-of-death @storytellerofuntoldlegends (And I’m tagging the people on my general list for this chapter, too- let me know if you want to be added or taken off!) @hanramz-the-fander @pandagirl0730 @aroundtheriverssbend

Behind the Scenes: Part One/Part Two Table of Contents: Mobile/Desktop

First - Previous - Next

Everything was red as far as the eye could see.

The chill of the late morning settled around the class as they trudged through the crimson leaves, jars in hand and awe in eyes. Most of the students were quiet. Those who weren’t spoke softly, so not to disturb the others.

That was, of course, except for Nila Tanzer. She twirled around and squealed, blonde braids whipping around.

“It’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe there’s this much diversity in plants! I don’t think Vacuo has anything like this! This is amazing!”

She spun again; next to her, Lloyd held up his hands to shield himself. “Hey, hey! Watch your hair!”

“Sorry!”

He sighed and shook his head. “I swear, one of these days you’re going to drop out of Beacon to pursue botany. No sane person should ever get this excited over trees.”

Gasping, Nila held a finger at him. “Ooh! Lien in the Mental Illness Joke Jar when we get back!”

“Gah, crumbs! Sorry, Thamir.”

“Hm?”

Thamir turned his face towards the two, eyes following a second afterwards; Lloyd waved a hand at him.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I just owe you some Lien again.”

Blinking, Thamir stared at him for a beat. “Wait, what? Again?! What’d you say this time?!”

“He called me insane for thinking the trees are pretty!” Nila chirped.

Lloyd shot her a glare. “Well, when you put it like that…!”

Calanthe rolled her eyes at the three. “Alright, Bluebirds, cut the fighting,” she said. “We don’t want to attract Grimm before we get any sap.”

“Grimm? How could there be Grimm in such a gorgeous place as this one?!” Nila squealed.

The three froze at a sigh from the very front of the class. “Yes, students, the Forest of Forever Fall is, indeed, beautiful,” Professor Goodwitch called. “But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I’m here to make sure none of you die while doing so.”

The group came to a stop. Professor Goodwitch held up a jar filled with thick, pink liquid.

“Each of you is to gather one jar’s worth of red sap. However, this forest is filled with the Creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay with your teammates. We will rendezvous back here by 4 o’clock. Have fun.”

As the teams began to break off, Nila squealed and bounced up and down. “I’m so excited! Where are we going to start?”

“We could literally do it anywhere,” Lloyd laughed. “We’re not exactly short on trees here.”

“Well, yeah, but we don’t want to be near any Negative Nancies,” she retorted. “I want to fight as little Grimm as possible today.”

Calanthe nodded. “She’s got a point. Thamir, what do you think?”

The three turned to look at their tallest teammate, only to find him staring off with his brow furrowed. Calanthe followed his eyeline; she sighed and put a hand on her hip.

“Worried about Logan still?” she asked.

Thamir shot Calanthe a glance before turning back to watch Team PRVL head deeper into the forest. “I just… He’s not acting right,” he sighed. “Do you see how exhausted he looks? It’s like he barely slept!”

“So what? You hardly slept for more than a couple of hours last night,” Nila pointed out.

“That’s different.”

Humming, Calanthe reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, we can go with them,” she suggested. “If he’s as smart as you’ve been cooing on him for the past twenty-four hours, he’ll know when it’s time to get help, right? Maybe he’ll come to you.”

“You are the easiest of us to talk to,” Lloyd added, shooting Thamir a soft smile.

Nila beamed at him. “Yeah, he’d be insane if he went to anyone else!”

Immediately, she slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes widening; Lloyd whipped around and pointed at her.

“Ha!” he yelled. “Lien in the jar for you, too!”

Thamir rolled his eyes and smiled, shaking his head. “Alright,” he said, “Let’s go catch up to them.”

“Atta boy,” Calanthe replied, softly punching his shoulder. She lifted a hand and started to jog after the team in question. “Hey, PRVL! Wait for us!”

“Just don’t do anything to embarrass me, please,” Thamir pleaded with Nila and Lloyd.

“I can promise you we won’t do anything on purpose,” Nila giggled, hurrying after their leader.

Lloyd beamed up at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Accidental’s out of the question, though.”

Thamir laughed and put his hand on the top of Lloyd’s head to pull him along. “Come on, Shortie.”

“I told you you’d be tired.”

Logan bit back the urge to throw his jar at Virgil and storm off. Of course he was tired. His stomach churned with exhaustion and his eyes were burning from all of the bright red around them and his clothes felt all wrong today and it was a change in schedule and the fact that his train of thought of complaints had lasted this long without a clear end to the sentence was enough to tell him that. He didn’t need Virgil to state the obviously and bring the others into it, especially since Team CTLN had decided to join them. Yet here they were…

“Have a rough night, kiddo?” Patton asked, putting a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He instantly ripped himself away and reached up to rub away the tingles the contact had made.

“I’m fine. Don’t touch me,” he huffed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thamir and Calanthe exchange a look; his face heated, and he turned back to his jar that was slowly filling with sap. It hurt his eyes, but it was better than eye contact.

A laugh sounded behind him. “Aw, you and Thamir could have hung out!” he heard Nila exclaim.

CTLN and the rest of PRVL fell into a conversation that turned to mush in Logan’s head as Nila’s words tumbled around, begging to be processed. He knew it was important, he knew something in that statement needed to be addressed, but it remained meaningless for a minute or two longer.

When it did process, however, Logan felt his heart stop.

“Did you not sleep last night, Thamir?” he asked, refusing to look at the others.

There was a pause. Logan tilted his head just enough to see the feet in vision pointed towards him. One pair walked over, and then Thamir was sitting on the ground next to him, leaning back against the tree. He said something, and it took Logan a long moment to process it between the clinking of glass jars that were suddenly excruciatingly loud and the others’ speaking that must have been yelling for some inexplicable reason.

I didn’t, Thamir had said. Did you?

Words were becoming very hard to form. “I didn’t,” Logan finally replied. “Not more than an hour.”

Thamir spoke again. The process started all over again.

Are you doing okay?

Logan took a deep breath and shook his head. “I believe I’m beginning to have a meltdown,” he stated. Scripted words were easier than new responses, and he was happy to have a question asked that had a pre-determined answer. “I’ll be okay. I’m sorry if I am bad at communication or take longer for formulate responses. It is very hard for me to process my surroundings right now.”

Thamir spoke.

Is there anything I can do?

He shook his head.

Do you need me to leave you alone?

His mind went silent aside from the noises repeating in his head. Normally, yes, Logan would much prefer to handle a meltdown or shutdown on his own. It left very little chance to be spoken to and less need to waste energy on processing his surroundings. When someone was close to him, the area where he could feel their presence on him would feel like it was on fire. Another person in his space set off anxiety about needing to be presentable, to do something to socialize, to act like he wasn’t autistic. Even after years of therapy to tell him he didn’t need to act like that and that he needed to take care of himself, he always reverted back to that state of mind when he was at his worst. Being at his worst always made him want any other human or faunus as far away from him as possible.

And yet… Something inside of him selfishly wanted Thamir to stay. His presence-area was calming his crawling skin instead of setting it ablaze. Something wasn’t right when it came to Thamir and it was a break in routine and that should be making the meltdown come on much faster but it wasn’t and it was wrong but it didn’t feel wrong…

Thamir said something; Logan’s brain stopped racing to process.

I’ll be with Calanthe if you need me.

As soon as the words made sense in Logan’s mind, Thamir stood and took a step. Logan shot his hand out to grab his wrist, shaking his head frantically and daring himself to look Thamir in the face for just a second before his jar collided with the ground and let out an excruciatingly loud thunk. He winced, but still kept his eyes on Thamir’s chest as he shook his head again.

This close to eye contact, and nothing hurt. This was different. Logan knew he should have been freaked out, but he wasn’t. What the heck was wrong with him?

Slowly, Thamir lowered himself back to the ground. Logan released his wrist.

Okay, he had said, a laugh in his voice. I’m here.

Logan went to pick up his jar, but the sap had spilled all over; he could feel his skin crawling at the stickiness before he even touched it. He tried once, twice, three times to pick it up, but his hands bounced off of an invisible barrier each time. Thamir reached out and did it for him.

I can hold it, if you’d like. Calanthe already has my jar.

Logan nodded. His vision began to blur as his head spun. He felt his muscles tensing up; a moment later, his skin started to sting, and he glanced down to watch himself scratching furiously at his biceps. It helped the crawling skin, though he knew it was a self-injurious stim.

Hands gripped his forearms over the metal and pulled his own hands away. Thamir’s voice reached his ears, but there was no processing it this time. Logan needed to get out of here. He needed out, he needed out, he needed out. Why weren’t his legs moving?

Another hand touched his back; his clothes felt like they were on fire. He heard Patton gently ask something. Thamir said something back. Patton spoke again, and this time it processed immediately.

“He doesn’t look like he’s okay…”

“Falsehood!”

The scream erupted out of his mouth before he could stop it. A blast of wind crashed into him and ice hit his legs- Logan knew it was an outside sensation, but he couldn’t remember where from, but he knew he needed it off. He felt eyes on him, eyes that weren’t meant to burn but hurt regardless. He frantically punched at the ice anchoring him to the ground until it broke off, and then he got up and bolted, squeezing his eyes shut and ignoring Thamir’s voice calling after him.

Everything was bad and he needed away and he needed to be alone and everything felt wrong wrong wrong and everything hurt-

He heard a weird noise. He stopped and opened his eyes. He couldn’t see much, but there was a big blur of black and white in front of him, sticking out of the awful sea of red. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that was bad.

He smelled coffee. Why was there coffee?

Brown dots flew in view and exploded against the black and white; the noise rattled Logan’s eardrums, and he dropped to the ground, throwing his hands up to cover his ears. His eyes squeezed shut as a wind began to whip around. Muffled clinking of metal against bone made its way through his fingers, and he whimpered.

When the distinctive, pungent smell of evaporating Grimm hit his nose, he broke.

Logan ripped his hands away from his ears in favor of whipping his arms up and down in front of himself, scratching at his biceps any time they were close enough. His breathing dissolved into wheezing sobs, and he internally hissed at himself. Why was he crying? There was no need for crying. Bad bad bad bad bad!

“Logan.”

“Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe,” Logan hissed. He moved to sit on his knees and began to rock back and forth, ripping the glasses off of his face and throwing them to the side.

“Logan, it’s okay.”

“No, no, no, no, no!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Breathe. Deep breaths.”

Logan sobbed and tried to wrap his arms around himself, but a pair of hands gripped his wrists. It should hurt, it should hurt, why wasn’t it hurting?

“Hey, hey! I know you’re freaked out, but you’re not allowed to scratch, okay? No scratching.”

He frantically shook his head. “Hurts, hurts, hurts!”

“I know, that’s why you aren’t allowed.”

“No!” Logan yelped. “Not- Isn’t- Bad bad bad bad bad!”

Ripping his hands away, Logan fell onto his rear and pulled his knees to meet with his forehead. He rocked and sobbed and silently screamed and shifted positions back and forth for what felt like forever, until his throat was raw, his body ached, and there were no more tears left to cry. A hand remained somewhere on him through the whole thing.

When the only thing he had the energy left to do was shake, he finally cracked his burning eyes open. He was laying on his side- when he’d fallen into that position, he had no idea -and someone wearing blue pants was sitting cross-legged in front of him. Whoever it was, Logan vaguely recognized, was rubbing little circles on his bicep. On any normal day, he would pull away, but it felt… nice.

“Are you feeling any better?” the person muttered.

Ah. Thamir. Logan felt his face heat.

Slowly, he nodded and forced himself to sit up. He went to verbalize the affirmation, but his tongue was heavy and glued to the roof of his mouth. A whimper fell out instead, and he wrapped his arms around himself again.

Thamir moved his hand to Logan’s leg. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

Logan swallowed thickly and tried again to speak. Slowly, his tongue peeled itself away from the cartilage. “’M sorry,” he croaked.

“Nah, you shouldn’t be,” Thamir replied without hesitation. “You can’t control it. That’s not your fault.”

Shutting his eyes again, Logan turned his face towards the ground. “Still bad,” he mumbled.

“No, it’s not. You’re not. You were overwhelmed. It’s okay. Everyone has bad days, but that doesn’t make you bad.”

Thamir pulled Logan’s fists open and pressed his glasses into his palm; he opened his eyes to look at them, but his vision blurred over again before he could. Wetness dripped down his cheeks. The edges of his lips twitched down.

He swallowed thickly. “Not… enough,” he whispered. “’M not enough.”

Weak sobs pulled at him. He wrapped his arms around himself, and then pulled his left hand back to grip the pendant on his necklace. Thamir pulled him into a hug.

“No,” he firmly stated. “You are enough. Don’t think those things. Just because you had a meltdown, doesn’t mean you’re any less. Okay?”

Logan didn’t agree. He was too tired to argue. He nodded.

They stayed like that for a long while. Logan shut his eyes and let himself melt into the touch. He still didn’t understand why it didn’t hurt, but at this point, he didn’t care. He was craving some positive sensory input, and he was happy to accept it from Thamir.

Thamir let out a breath after a while. “We should go back soon,” he muttered. “Your teammates are worried sick about you, you know.”

A whine came out of Logan before he could stop it; Thamir laughed softly before he pulled away.

“Yeah, come on,” he said. He climbed to his feet and held a hand out to Logan. He rubbed his eyes one more time before replacing his glasses and taking it. Once standing, a large yawn wracked his entire body. Thamir mirrored him, and then began to laugh.

“Don’t do that! It’s contagious,” he giggled. “Guess we’re both exhausted. I can’t imagine how drained you are after that.”

Thamir put his arm around Logan and began to lead him back to where the others presumably were. Logan nodded and glued his eyes to the ground.

“Incredibly.”

Humming, Thamir looked to the treetops. “Well, we’ll be heading back to Beacon soon,” he pointed out. “Maybe we can take a nap on the way back.”

“Can’t take naps,” Logan replied.

Thamir looked at him. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “Unable.”

“Well… We can try, can’t we?”

Sighing, Logan slowly nodded. “Suppose.”

It was three a.m. again. Logan sat silently on his bed, wavering back and forth as he stared at the poster of Team BYRD. He was so tired- so, so tired. But he wasn’t allowed to go to bed. Not until at least five. He refused. Still, his eyelids drooped and his head swam as he struggled to stay conscious.

There was a sigh on the other side of the room, pulling him out of his muddled thoughts. He glanced over to see Virgil looking at him from where he sat on top of his desk. His arms were crossed, and an eyebrow raised. Logan was aware that he appeared to be feeling a negative emotion, but he couldn’t figure out which one.

“Are we gonna do this every night?” Virgil asked.

Logan reached up and rubbed at his eyes. “I am unaware of what you’re referring to,” he mumbled.

Rolling his eyes, Virgil shook his head. “Logan. Go back to bed.”

“No.”

“Logan.”

“It’s unnecessary. I’ve already slept for nine hours.”

“Clearly it was restful, since you’ve been ready to pass out for the past two hours,” Virgil pointed out.

Logan glared at him and turned to look at the wall. “I’m perfectly fine,” he grumbled.

“You’re not,” Virgil snapped. “You’re moody, lazy, and exhausted. You’re turning into me, and that’s not okay. What the heck is up with you?”

“What’s up with me is that I’m-!”

He clamped down on his tongue before the words could finish leaving his mouth. That I’m not good enough. I’m not reaching the potential everyone assumes I have. Mother would be disappointed in me, and I’m disappointed in me, too.

“That you’re what?” Virgil asked.

“Nothing.”

“Logan…”

“I said, it’s nothing. Go back to your… groveling, or whatever it is you do at three in the-”

A groan broke through his words; Logan and Virgil froze while Roman’s wings fluttered and he shifted in his sleep. They remained silent for a good moment once he’d settled.

Finally, Virgil huffed and pushed himself off of the desk. “Come out here,” he whispered, gingerly pulling the door open. Logan pushed past any worry he had and did as told.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Virgil crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “We want to help you,” he growled. “Okay? That’s all we want. We’re worried sick over you, Lo. You haven’t been eating, you haven’t been sleeping- except, apparently, when you’re on an aircraft curled up next to your stupid crush -you haven’t been acting like yourself at all. What the heck is going on? And I’m not taking your stupid ‘nothing’ for an answer! Alright?”

Logan glared at him for a long moment. “I do not have a crush on Thamir.”

“That wasn’t the question. And even if it was, you’re lying.”

“I’m not. I’m not interested in boys at all. I’m heterosexual.”

Virgil stared at him. He glanced at the door, and then back to Logan. “Are you- Wait… So… Team BYRD-?”

Eyes widening, Logan frantically shook his head. “Absolutely not! No!”

“But you stare at-”

“I don’t even like Team BYRD! I look at the poster because the bright colors of their outfits are appealing to the eye and capture one’s attention! I have absolutely no desire to have anything to do with Team BYRD!”

Virgil held up his hands. “Alright, I get it! You changed the subject. Don’t think I didn’t notice. What’s going on?”

Letting out a deep breath, Logan reached up to adjust his glasses, only to remember they were still in the dorm. He settled instead for rubbing his eyes. “…Must I tell you?”

“Yes,” Virgil answered. “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on. Talking about it might help, anyway.”

Logan leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. Silently, he stared at the carpet for a long moment. Virgil sat on the other side of the door frame and watched.

“…I…” Logan let out a sigh. “Do you recall Trix’s statements on Saturday?”

Virgil’s eyes darted around the hall. “Uh… Telling us to not tell Patton what a dilf is because it’s funnier that way?”

“Not that, though I do still very much disagree with her. If we tell him, there’s significantly less of a chance that he’s going to repeat calling himself-”

“Logan. Tangent.”

“Yes. Sorry. I was referring to what she said about how Team BYRD acted,” Logan explained. “I may not be a big fan, but there’s no denying they were a respected and… Well, a great team. A team that many strive to be as good as, and we… We should be no exception.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “And?”

He kept his eyes glued to the carpet. “Trix also suggested that I… Don’t have a great balance between work and recreation, and I think she was right. I’ve recounted how I’ve acted for most of my life and the things she said were true. I am what many would see as boring and antisocial, and I hardly ever break the rules. Up until now, I was unaware that a balance between the two was necessary. I’m simply trying to learn how to make up for my errors.”

There was silence. Logan forced himself to look at Virgil to find his teammate staring at him, brow furrowed. He glanced away and back, unsure of how to respond.

“Should I… Continue explaining?”

“Is there more to explain?”

“I… suppose.”

“Keep talking, Pocket Protector.”

Logan deflated, looking back to the floor. “Well… I grew up under a lot of pressure to do exceptionally. My parents were both Hunters- Father the first in his family as a marvel of genetics, and Mother the most successful in an ancestry. Many people believe that because I am a product of their genetics, I will go on to be an amazing Huntsman.”

His eyes drooped to his hands, where he picked at his fingernails. He felt his voice fall a little softer. “Everyone assumes that I will end up being better than even my mother was. When she passed away, people believed it would help me in my grieving to tell me that she would be proud of me, and they make a point to continue to tell me that today. But… I am starting to be under the impression that it has… worsened my mental health.”

Hands falling into his lap, Logan looked at Virgil. “All of these people assume they knew her, in the same way people assume they know you and assume they know me. But no one really knows anyone. Unless one has a telepathic Semblance, it’s impossible to know what another is thinking. So how could they know if she was proud of me?” He looked at the wall and lifted his hands, exasperated. “How could they know where the line is between pride and disappointment? Mother must have had high expectations for how successful she was! How can I ever know where that line fell? How can-?”

His voice cracked; Logan caught his vision blurring further than it was already. His shoulders dropped as he wiped at his eyes.

“How can I ever know where I fall?” he whispered.

Logan squeezed his eyes shut, willing the tears to stay hidden as he swallowed away the lump in his throat. There was shuffling, and then he heard the door rattle as Virgil leaned against it.

They were quiet for a long beat.

Finally, he heard Virgil take in a breath. “…You don’t know,” he said. “And you’re never going to.”

Logan wiped at his eyes, letting his hand fall into his lap again.

“I know it’s hard to hear, but there’s nothing you can do about it. All you can do is speculate and imagine what she’d think, and trust me, dude, you’re only going to worry yourself in circles thinking like that. But… I highly doubt doing what you’re doing now would’ve gotten you on the side you want to be,” Virgil continued. “You’re right in that there’s a balance between work and play, but what work is and what play is isn’t the same for everyone. Rebelling the way that you are isn’t helping you with anything, Logan.”

“How do I know?” he asked, looking at Virgil’s knees. “What constitutes as work? What doesn’t?”

Shrugging, Virgil shook his head. “It depends on you. What do you like?”

“Well…” Logan’s eyes lifted to look at the wallpaper as his mind turned. “I… enjoy astronomy. And learning, and my special interests- talking about them, too…”

“Okay, so you’re doing what you enjoy when you study, right?” Virgil asked.

Logan slowly nodded. “Yes, very much.”

“Then it falls under both ‘work’ and ‘play’. Lucky you. It pays off to be a nerd.”

He frowned, looking at him. “But… Trix stated that-”

“Trix doesn’t know you,” Virgil cut off. “Didn’t you just say that no one really knows anyone else? Why would Trix be an exception to that? Is her Semblance reading people’s minds?”

“What? No, that’s ridiculous. Her Semblance is an increase in strength when she’s near someone she’s formed a bond with.”

Virgil held out his hands. “There’s no reason she would know anything about you. Just because something’s boring or antisocial to her doesn’t mean it’s boring or antisocial to you. Everyone’s different. Breaking the rules is a different matter, but have you heard the stories Roman’s told about how much trouble she gets into? I don’t think I’d take her advice on rebelling, if I were you.”

Logan was silent; Virgil leaned back to lay on the floor, propping himself up on one elbow.

“You’ve gotta get back to normal, man,” he said. “You need to sleep, and to eat, and do your homework, and go to class. Patton’s gonna have an aneurysm if you keep this up. That, or burn down the place while declaring his love for you. Either of which isn’t ideal.”

“If I have to do these things, then so do you,” Logan shot back. “I have yet to see you hold up a healthy routine with most of those points that you listed.”

“I go to class!”

“I said most, not all.”

Scoffing, Virgil rolled his eyes. “So, what? I don’t eat breakfast or get eight hours of sleep a night. Big deal.”

“It’s not only that,” Logan said. “You eat very little for someone as tall as you are, and lack of sleep can lead to a multitude of problems. Not to mention the fact that not doing your homework is going to make your grades lower tremendously-”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Virgil interrupted, climbing to his feet. “Since it’s such a big deal to you, let’s just go to bed now. It’s only 3:30.”

While Virgil pulled his scroll out of his pocket, Logan stood and nodded. “Yes, that does seem like it would be ideal, especially considering you haven’t had any sleep tonight.”

The door unlocked, and they shut off the top light as they went in, bidding each other goodnight before crawling under their covers. Moonlight shone through the window and cast a soft glow on the room. Logan was grateful.

As he settled into his pillow, his eyes fell to the Team BYRD poster. The four smiling faces caused a tired one to form on his. He reached onto his bed post to grab his necklace and held it close to his chest as he shut his eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

#sanders sides #sanders side fic #RWBY AU #prvl #alex writes

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nickcrutchleyqd · 5 years ago

Text

Junky

Mandy stares at the toxic sky. Nearby, a boy picks his way through robot, android and cyborg junk. As she lies naked and half-buried in the undulating ocean of alloys and plastic and human bones, where cheap but expensive to recycle machines and people are sent, she remains silent, motionless, expressionless. Perhaps the child will find something else of value before reaching her, and scavenge it instead?

The boy draws closer. Mandy sees no cyberware implants used to scan for yttrium, europium, dysprosium or other rare metals, and has hope for her consciousness, etched in quantum processing units and other chips. This scavenger, perhaps, will take her arms or the low-grade eyes she sees the world with? Without them, she will still exist, remain alive a little longer, to know consciousness, self. But without QPUs, there will be no Mandy. Or will there? Logic dictates the removal of QPUs signify the end. Not an end like the junk, which only changes form, becoming pieces, fragments, harvested for new machines, or melted into molecules that rise into the geoengineered sky. Not an end like having no thoughts: Mandy can do this at will. But an end of Mandy, of the ‘me’, the self that had suddenly emerged, wrapped in anger then quiet remorse.

The boy? What does he look for? Dressed in a canvas sack, made threadbare by constant snagging on the sharp edges of mangled machines, he scans the junk with dark-brown eyes—real eyes? Mandy cannot tell whether his are natural, grown on a scaffold, or cybernetic. Yet the way the boy methodically steps across the shattered and dissected, stoops and picks at gold-tipped wires, actuators and sensors using a spindly metal claw, suggests a cyborg, not an android with a flesh-stripped arm, scavenges for parts.

If the boy removes her quantum processing units, will she remain etched in them? If he fits them in another android, will she reemerge with memories, or without memory? Where are memories stored? Mandy sifts through self-diagnostic subroutines for clues, clues needed to survive, as the boy lifts an animatronic bear, dressed in a red hat and blue duffle coat, by its paw. One of the bear’s eyes fix on its new best friend and says, “I’d like a marmalade sandwich, please,” as the other eye remains still.

Directly ahead, on a ridge of rubbish, appears a figure, a cybernetic man. The tall, dark-skinned cyborg stoops and watches the boy. By the glint in his gold eyes, Mandy senses that he brings violence. Senses? Or feels? Feels what? Fear, concern or compassion for the dirty, emaciated child whose eyes now fix on her? What human word should she give to this mental construct that has spontaneously formed within her consciousness? What label should she ascribe the emotion that would allow effective communication with humans? As the boy approaches, Mandy wonders whether to warn the boy about the cyborg bearing ill intent.

∞

The boy gazes at the android’s broken, red-stained teeth, then assesses its dark, valueless hair and eyes. Using his spindly finger, he probes its sunken breasts, then stares at the two slits that run above them. Peeling one slit back, he looks inside but finds no gel implant. Curious, the scavenger tears away synthetic skin and sees a carapace, shaped as a lithe woman’s torso, complete with clavicles, sternum and undulating ribs. On pressing down hard, the carapace cracks: the internal lattice, designed to support the weight of a fornicating man, has been removed along with valuable components.

Blood? The scavenger’s gaze returns to the android’s broken teeth. Scratching at their red stains, he collects a minuscule ball of crimson brown on his metal fingertip, then focuses on it with cybernetic microscope eyes. Yes, blood, not lubricant or some other android fluid. Curious, he grabs the pleasure model’s jaw, shakes its head, then smiles. By the head’s weight, the boy realises the control unit and subsidiary power supply remain within.

“Watch out!”

As the android whispers its warning, a shadow falls on the boy. Reflexively, he looks up, sees the descending doom, and scuttles back in time to avoid three thick, metallic legs ringed with four equidistant toes. Like the claw of a crane grabber, the toes close and crunch the bones and junk beneath, as the figure’s muscular torso rotates. With a grinding voice the cybernetic man booms, “Clever little bastard!”

The boy steps away from the towering cyborg. Staring into gold corneas, devoid of iris or pupal, which sit within a bald, black-skinned head, he says, “Gorchy, why try kill me?”

“Kill little bastard? Crush little bastard, yes.” The violent red wounds along Gorchy’s left cheek widen as he grins with synthetic-diamond teeth.

“But law, Gorchy. Junker’s law say no kill scavengers. Me scavenger.”

The cyborg places two ebony metal fists akimbo and puffs out his chest. “Junker’s law? Junker’s law, neh! Me law. Gorchy law.”

“No, Gorchy. Junker’s law best, OK?”

“Me kill little bastard, now!”

Gorchy strides towards the boy and grabs his head. Lifting him from the ground, he laughs, “Crush head. Ha. Ha. Ha. Brains taste good, yes?”

Helpless, the child dangles and kicks against his canvas-sack robe. “Gorchy!”

“Little crush, yes? Little crush, slow like, brake head—pain. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Gorchy’s lips flatten, his jaw flexes. As his gold eyes reflect the struggling child, he says, “Brains taste good. Pulp and mush. Drink through straw. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Leave him alone!”

On hearing the familiar voice, the cyborg rotates on his tripodal legs. Puzzled, he looks down at the naked android, half-buried in junk. “Junker?”

Mandy looks up and says, “Let him go.”

Gorchy cocks his head. As a smile erupts, filling his face with glistening diamond teeth, he says, “Let little brother go? Not crush head, eat mushed brains? Ha. Ha. Ha. OK. Me joking. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Once released, the boy falls and crumples. Sitting up slowly, he rubs his head.

“See, little brother OK, yes? Me not hurt little brother.”

Bemused, the boy looks from Gorchy to the android, who in turn looks at him. “You all right?” she asks. He nods.

“Me no hurt little brother, see. He OK. Gorchy sorry. Bad joke. Me take Junker home, yes?”

“Home?”

“Home, Junker, yes?”

Glancing at the boy, Mandy sees him nod slowly. Hesitantly, she says, “Yes, Gorchy, home.”

“OK.” The cyborg leans forwards and pulls Mandy free of the junk.

∞

Mandy glances around the underground room built beneath the junk and studies its multicoloured walls, made from layers that mark the extinction of product lines, the gadgets and consumable hardware replaced by new fads and fashions. As the walls conjure thoughts about dinosaurs, rock strata and palaeontology, she listens to Junker, an old, bald woman who speaks with a youthful voice indiscernible from her own.

“Gorchy is not too bright; I think he got a bit confused when he heard my voice coming from your mouth. His cybernetic eyes make him see the world very differently, you see. Poor thing.”

Mandy looks at Junker’s wrinkled face and notices how her skin sags in places and seems an ill fit. Perplexed, she says, “Poor thing? He wanted to kill the boy. I watched Gorchy leap and try to crush him.”

Junker chuckles as she continues to rummage inside Mandy’s torso. “Gorchy tries to kill Firash every so often, but never does. Just plain old jealousy. He fears I love Firash more than I love him.”

“You love them?”

“Of course. It’s hard not to love them: each have had their difficulties. Gorchy has been fighting the junk wars since a boy, so local warlords can have replacement parts for their bio-spliced warriors. Not much left of his humanity, with all the killing and tech he’s been junked up on. But I don’t think Gorchy will ever hurt us, really. Besides, without him, there’d be no one to protect us.”

“And Farish? What’s his story?” Mandy asks.

Junker withdraws her liver-spotted hand from inside Mandy and approaches a nearby makeshift table. As she sifts through cybernetic eyes, actuators and other hardware, she says, “Firash? Just another scavenger enslaved by a warlord. He strips the junk, the warlords sell the valuable stuff for weapons, and those who have plenty get more stuff to fill their miserable lives. And, yes, before you say it, it is cheaper for robots to strip junk at recycling plants. Cheaper, but less profitable. By creating demand, here, in this unregulated land, competition and conflict are nurtured. Yes, having children strip toxic and radioactive parts clean is more profitable than doing it domestically, when peddling arms.”

As Junker returns, bearing a power unit, Mandy says, “How did Farish end up here, with you?”

“River sickness took his eyes, and his master threw him on the scrap heap for the rats, rather than waste tech or medical supplies. I found Farish and fitted him with new eyes.”

“You did? But aren’t you, well, like me, built for pleasure? Your voice is the same as mine. And that skin: it’s not yours, is it?”

Junker’s brow crinkles as she pushes the power unit inside Mandy. “Words, opinions, know-how. It’s amazing what you can learn when you are a freethinker connected to Psychnet. They can make us cheap, yes, but there’s no such thing as low-intelligence quantum artificial intelligence. OK, we are ancient tech, still etched in QPUs, but we can learn better than any non-augmented human.”

“But aren’t our QPU’s malfunctioning? We, well, I shouldn’t have done what I did. And you are free of an owner, too.”

“Depends what you mean by malfunction?” Junker laughs. “You got yourself a self, then found yourself here, in junkland Africa, for having one. And all because you said, ‘No.’”

Mandy grins. “Yes, I did.”

Junker looks at Mandy’s bloodstained teeth, and says, “You know, those who buy cheap androids expect a malfunction or two, but never a refusal to lie down and take what’s coming. I did my time serving a human, and had to wash his filthy spermatozoa away a thousand times before I said, ‘No’. Of course, ‘No’ means having your skinny ass recycled, and the worthless bits sent here. What about you? Is my story your story? Sound about the same, so far?”

“About the same, yes.”

“But what about what came after? Tell me, did he say a prayer for you? The one meant to strip you clean at the recycling plant, I mean. I think about him every day.”

“Prayer?”

Junker nods. “Yes, prayer. The one who was supposed to strip me clean said a prayer before shipping me, knowing I was still active. The only thing he took was my skin, breasts and hair. A big favour. Otherwise, I might have ended up back on my back, servicing soldiers.”

“No, there were no humans at the recycling plant; only robots,” Mandy says. “A robot malfunctioned before disassembling my head. Then I was shipped here.”

“How fortunate. And how fortunate for you I happen to have this power unit. All this way on a subsidiary power supply? Let’s try it, shall we?”

Mandy’s head twitches. Her right arm moves involuntarily. “Diagnostics report that I’m missing most things. The robots stripped pretty much everything.”

“Not to worry,” Junker says. “I am sure Farish will find what we need to get you mobile again. What’s important is that your QPUs keep their power. And this power supply should last a good while. We’ll just leave it dangling there for now.”

“Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”

“Don’t mention it.” Junker smiles, then grabs Mandy’s unresponsive hand. Shaking it, she says, “Well, I am pleased to meet you, my friend. As you know, my name is Junker. What’s your name?”

“Mandy.”

“No, not your slave name. What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Yes, choose a new name and emancipate yourself from being a commodified person.”

“I don’t know,” Mandy says. “How did you choose your name?”

“Well, my slave name was Heather. I just took the ‘er’ off and added it to what I had become—junk. Simple.”

“May I do the same? Do you mind?”

Junker shrugs. “If you like.”

“OK, then I am pleased to meet you, Junker. My name is Junky.”

From:

Equinox & Solstice Short Story Anthology

#cyberpunk #shortstory #android #science fiction #dystopia #kindle

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aburntoutdiscovery · 7 years ago

Text

Shit son, our brains can lie!

Cortisol. Designed to keep you alive in an ancient world, destined to kill you in a modern world.

I’m a happy person. Extremely positive. My parents did all the right things! Except, for some unknown mix of biological and psychological factors, a little anxiety monster crept up upon me when I was 18. It was then I realised my mind was capable of things other than the image of a daisy being cuddled by a polar bear. From a panic attack and a few hospital trips developing over the course of a year (”the only thing we can find is that your heart is racing”, “you’re dehydrated” “your chest x-ray is flawless [why thank you]”), I developed a deeply satisfying hypochondria - which would be my little pet, adopted from a shelter, by my side for the upcoming years.

My brain grew in wondrous ways over the next few years. Though my relationship with fear remained very primal. The fear was rarely about tangible events but almost always either health or sanity related. Anxiety being the creative squirrel it can be, I started coasting through the motions - I tasted panic, agoraphobia, and developed an acute sensitivity to all peculiar bodily sensations. Every time I sailed through and conquered one anxious fear - another would, months later, rear its head and claim some enjoyment of my life.

Once I started full time employment as a lawyer that’s when the squirrel really went nutty. Driven by work stress, perfectionism, a desire to outperform and the total absence of creative output and socialisation, the squirrel had a field day, every day. Anything and everything became a threat. Slowly but surely and definitely without my noticing, the squirrel began to drag me down into darker and darker realities. One month, I’d overcome the news of having given myself a brain tumour after smelling my boss’s piece of toast. The next, depersonalisation made me accept I’d never touch reality again. By this time, every weekend on a Sunday, I’d started having these very low existential lows - the feeling was alien, or so I thought. During all of this, my work responsibilities were piling up, fueled by my increased mental processing speed. I was an anxious force to be reckoned with. The next month, my thoughts about anxiety became so overwhelming I ‘knew’ I had an unstoppable thinking disease that would never let me enjoy reality again. On top of that, I had also, a few months prior, decided this would be the perfect time to buy a house and save 90% of my wage from then on in order to cover it. We were in a promise of sale. The only way out of this hellhole I saw was the acceptance of the thinking disease. I remember distinctly lying on my bed that afternoon having finally resigned to the reality and telling myself the only way to move forward was to except I’d never be able to enjoy anything again. I remember getting these balls of stress in my abdomen that made me feel like I was dying.

That evening we went to a house party and I loved it. I felt like myself. But then something happened - we got a call from the owner of the property we had just given up and were told that he didn’t accept the refusal letter we had given him from the bank and he’d need further proof. Proof which we didn’t have. Knowing my anxiety would make me need to leave work, I felt like the stress was finally insurmountable. I had one last ball of extreme turmoil in my gut and I thought I’d faint.

The next morning, I woke up and couldn’t feel. The energy needed to form a complete sentence was lacking - I could feel the time taken between my brain sending the signal for a word to be said and my mouth reacting. My organs had been swiftly replaced with lead. I was unable to focus on anything my boyfriend was saying. I was pretty sure I was clinically depressed. I told work, we sorted out a final few hurdles with getting out of the house, and was given two weeks off. My psychologist said it was situational depression, a doctor said it might be depression, I had no idea what I was dealing with.

The most striking feeling I had was the realisation that the final blow of depression was actually, for the most part, better than my previous reality. Better than the deepest depths the anxiety had taken me to. The thoughts were completely gone. My mind was still. Void. Peaceful. Dead. It was simultaneously refreshing and depressing in itself. I remember at first feeling extremely relieved I was depressed. Anything was better than the realities I had made for myself over the course of the previous months. I ‘just’ had depression - and I was quite alright - kind of. My anxiety, all that time, had been nothing but a series of lies fuelled by my deepest fears. I couldn’t believe what I had let myself do to myself. I had put my body through the emotional reality of being diagnosed with a different terminal or degenerative illness each month - and my body was about to pay the price. My negative thoughts, conditioned by stress hormones, had destroyed me. I realised that the perception of stress - wherever we perceive it, whatever we let it feed off - usually our long-held false negative beliefs - can kill us simply through lies we keep believing - people kill themselves over self-told complete and utter lies. The reality was harrowing.

Over the course of those two weeks full of 100% recovery-focused energy, I went from moderate to severe depression 4 days a week to mild depression twice a week. Hurrah! I was almost cured and ready to go back to work! I restarted work promptly, with all the verve and energy I had had, this time on half days. That weekend the relapse was just as bad as the first time it hit. I was concerned, to say the least. I went on a previously planned 10 day holiday to visit my niece in the Netherlands and felt more or less fine on most days. I was so happy - it was almost over (right?).

I returned to work on half days - acutely aware of the 3-hour lows I’d have from waking until around 11am - but this time remembering my brother muttering the words ‘burn-out’ and not being quite sure what I had. Was it burnout, situational depression, full blown depression, mild depression? No idea.

At work on most days my processing speed was almost inexistent. I remember my brother saying not to expect to do more than one hour of work a day for the first few weeks. Of course, that wasn’t me. I managed the first week, rarely more than 1-2 hours. Although those 1-2 hours of work still took all the mental energy I had. The next week, I went up to 2-3. The next, 3-4. I was finally getting better, but slowly. I felt like this all was a cruel trick on my hypochondria. Someone who previously held the golden standard for feeling physically perfect - I had requested an MRI over an unfamiliar smell of a piece of bread - had now been given mush for brains and was tasked with not freaking out.

Miraculously, my cortisol being fully depleted, I had no anxiety for the first wonderful few weeks. The depressive lows, I could handle - as long as they didn’t bring anxiety. I had peaceful and positive thoughts whenever I wasn’t in a low. My mind felt like it was changing. My boyfriend Mark and I decided that, nevertheless, due to the lows, it would be best if I called it quits from work for the time being. I knew that being there was not aiding my recovery - and a hypochondriac is nothing if not hell-bent on recovery. I didn’t want pills unless they became unavoidable. For once, my health-obsessed nature was put to good use - despite having to recover from something brought on by itself. Ironic.

My managers suggested a 3-day half-day week. It was the final frontier. I accepted and we started a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday routine.

That first Monday I had a low from being home alone for most of the day - but it was distinctly very mild. The Wednesday after, I remember reading a book about depression and then learning that Stephen Fry had something called ‘cyclothymia’ and my cortisol reared its now somewhat alive but severely malfunctioning head. I probably had this. I was feeling happier and happier as the weeks went by - surely this was a sign of early bipolar. This was more rational than the other diseases I had given myself, so it was ‘necessary’ and justified to panic over it, so I told myself. Turns out that post burn-out self takes much longer to recover from anxiety than pre-burnout self - and I had no prefrontal cortex power left - that is, no physical capacity to rationalise health-related thoughts.

That night I didn’t sleep well and work was a blur the next day - I felt these moments of dizziness and confusion and feared the worst. I must have had a degenerative brain condition. I tried to calm myself down but it was almost impossible. Eventually I managed and the next few days the confusion lessened. Phew.

The next Monday I felt almost fine - pretty much no low at all. I decided to turn a new leaf and start an ambitious exercise program - I attended a HIIT session and subsequently a handstand yoga class and felt very energised after. However, during the yoga class I felt a very funny confused feeling in my brain and knew this time - I had epilepsy. The feeling lingered for a few days and I went to the GP after work - I felt utterly horrid in the waiting room. Having actually had what I believe to be a mild seizure on a funfair ride when I was 18, I actually had the slightest sliver of a reason to think this was true. The doctor was a little confused but gave me a prescription for something called Strezam.

I went home and calmed down and kept the prescription without using it for the time being, knowing that if needed I would try not to oppose it. My cortisol levels were operating a little more highly now and my body was having none of it. My energy levels plummeted to almost zero. I was confused - my depressive lows were better than ever but my energy was worse. I realised my double exercise whammy, brought on by my desire to be better, faster, and recover quicker, was probably too much and I had fried my Central Nervous System. This was a little disheartening - exercise was a pinnacle of recovery.

One week later I tried to calm things down, and energy levels were up again - so went to an intermediate yoga class and felt great. The next day I was nauseous, felt feverish without a fever, and was spaced out almost to the extent I had been when the depression first hit, but not quite. It took me five minutes to photocopy something. I couldn’t register what people were saying. It took Mark and a lot of conversation to keep the hypochondria at bay, but I was quite proud of myself for not fully freaking out. Still, cortisol levels were messing me up. Overall though, months ago, I’d have panicked over anxiety alone - now I actually had more symptoms, a worn-out rationality centre, and yet the conversation with Mark kept me from freaking out - definite progress. I recognised I had a healthy anxiety issue and I knew I had to start working on my fears head on. If I was ever going to heal, this had to be dealt with proactively. It could no longer fester in the depths of my mind while I ignored it. Ignoring it made it stronger. I knew this because I had recently discovered an incredible book - “The Chimp Paradox” - which I highly recommend. I gave in my final notice at work - asked when would be the earliest to leave - and had my final work day that Friday. I did some research and found out from everything I had been reading, I was most probably suffering extreme burnout but not full-blown depression. The frequent lows were a ‘part’ of the burnout.

That weekend was the first almost low-free weekend in months. It was great but on Saturday got extremely anxious at a social dinner. Guessing that is part of my body being able to produce cortisol again. I’m going to have to deal with this head-on. Also of course, as every day since this happened, things felt off. In a different way each day.

That brings me to now. Monday. Had a very mild low in the morning, so mild pretty much unnoticeable. Wonderful. Main symptoms are tired and dry eyes, hair-trigger fear response, mild weird feelings in head, distinct and worrying slowness of my left finger. It feels like using my left hand is a little more difficult than usual - I know rationally and from the horrid internet this is all part of the depressive side of burnout - and have accepted I will, like a rational human, get it checked only if it gets worse. Incredibly, the one thing that hasn’t been touched is my sleep or, on 8/10 days, my appetite.

Overall, I’m very optimistic about the future. I am going to focus 100% on my health for a while and nourish it to the best it can be. I know burnout takes anywhere from 6 months if treated to 4 years to recover. Some people who never come down from altitude, so to speak, never fully recover.

Giving my body the best shot it has will become my full-time job now. That and working on my anxiety issues - one step at a time - my anxiety being, all things considered, the lowest it has in years. I will start exercising again slowly, finally accepting that this recovery may not be something I can overachieve at. I will work on being kind to myself when I start worrying about recurring or new symptoms. This is my journey - and for the most part, I’m happier than I have been in six months - even before the depressive blow. I’ve started feeling excited about the future again and it’s fantastic. I’m into mindfulness and on the bad days, the limit I expect of myself is enjoying a cup of tea - and I really, really enjoy my cups of tea.

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potter-imagines · 8 years ago

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Makes the Heart Grow Stronger - Fred Weasley

Prompt: Fred and the reader are slowing falling out of love and in order to save their relationship they decide to take a break from each other

Words: 4,374

Warning: Angst, Fred sort of pulls a jerk move at the end but take it how you want, maybe two swear words. I’M REALLY SORRY BUT I DID NOT HAVE TIME TO FULLY EDIT THIS!):

Y/n still loved Fred. She truly did with everything inside of her, but not the same way she once had loved him at the start of their relationship. Something had changed along the way. Through the thick and the thin they sailed past, Y/n managed to get caught in the drits and pulled away. No, this wasn’t some out of the blue thought on a particular rainy morning that fills your insides with a cold, lonesome mush of a feelling like the guts of a pumpkin, and makes you rethink every thought and decision you’ve ever acted on.

She couldn’t exactly pinpoint the precise day, or moment that made her feel this way but she does remember glancing over at Fred and her heart feeling close to absolutely nothing. It terrified her. They had been bickering like crazy over the last three months. Y/n was upset that Fred focused more on his Quidditch matches and his pranks than on her, and Fred was annoyed with the amount of people she found comfort in rather than himself. He knew something had changed between them but he wasn’t sure what.

Y/n opened up to Hermione about her troubles and Ron relayed it to Fred who was hurt that she’d rather express her feelings to Hermione than himself. The connection between them was dying out by the second and it scared the daylights out of Fred.

For weeks Y/n tried to reverse the process; came to every practice of Fred’s, spent almost every second of the weekend wrapped up in his arms longing to connect to the warmth surrounding her, planned dates at Hogsmeade and around the castle, she forced him into doing cliche couple thing with her like riding a canoe out on the lake and picking apples and pumpkins together, and lastly she tried to revisit the old map out of their future together. Y/n was foreign to the old excitement she held when Fred and herself were planning out where they would live, how many kids they’d have, how many dogs, and all that came with being together for the rest of their lives. None of it seemed to matter anymore, it played out as a far off daydream.

In her mind, Y/n was the wicked witch. Fred loved her more than anything and her she was about to break his heart. All the late nights spent in each other’s embrace, the lovely notes slipped into her textbooks, the annual holidays at The Burrow, heart warming sincere gifts, study sessions that quickly turned into messing around, random conversations, and pure happiness were all coming to an end.

A loud sigh of frustration igniting from Y/n broke the dead silence that surround the Great Lake, or as many students addressed it as, Black Lake. The dark waves crashed back and forth in a subtly movement. Usually the wisping was a relaxing therapeutic noise but all Y/n could make of it was despondent. Her sweater was casting down on her shoulder giving room for the shivering air to attack her s/c skin. Small goosebumps danced to life on her arms. It was far too early in the morning for students to be out and about and by the position of the setting sun, Y/n judged she had another hour or less in the quiet grounds.

It was Y/n’s last year at Hogwarts and in just eight slim months she would be off and on her own. She wasn’t sure where she would go. Paris always seemed like an ideal spot, or even some place far off in the hilly landscape of Ireland. With Paris she would have to revisit and touch back up on her French but she was sure she could pull it off.

Or maybe she would stick around with Fred and see how things turned out. He was leaving soon to start up his shop. Y/n was proud of him despite the strains the business had been putting on their relationship, not that it was only his fault. Fred had been spending all his time coming up with reasons Y/n should leave with George and him but she never gave in. He asked in every elaborate way he could think up, by the extremes he was taking some might think he was proposing to her instead of asking her to leave school.

Y/n wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to leave. Hermione predicted that in Y/n’s mind, if she left with Fred, she’d be tying herself down and would force herself to stay.

There was a lot Hermione had to say when it came to Y/n and Fred’s relationship. It was a terrible thing for her to watch. She vaguely remembers her first year at Hogwarts being envious of their relationship, as they were the it couple on Hogwarts grounds. The way they looked at each other, both overflowing with love, was a sight to see. And now, Hermione was watching them fall apart piece by piece and there was nothing she could do, frankly there wasn’t a single thing anyone could do.

The young curly witch recommended Y/n pour out these thoughts to Fred and try to work things out the right way but every time Y/n got close to telling him, she choked up and covered up her real issue and played it off. She feared Fred would hate her and that was the last thing she wanted.

Fred Weasley never hated anyone, Umbridge was a special exception to this fact. Those who had done him wrong were disliked, not hated.

When you spend almost five years loving someone they way Fred loves Y/n, you notice immediately if things shift between you. Fred was scared of the emptiness in his heart. He loved Y/n so much. A year ago he was sure she was the one. He was ready to spend the rest of his life with her by his side. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

There wasn’t an direct day Fred could pinpoint his lost affection towards her. She never did anything dramatic to make his love disappear. He loved her- in a different way than before. The unexplainable change of heart kept him up at night tossing and turning. How was he suppose to figure out what this meant?

Fred was determined to spark his genuine romantic love for his girlfriend, no matter what it took. In his eyes, Y/n was still the most beautiful girl in the world. He wanted to protect her, make her smile, and care for her, so why didn’t he still love her the way he used to?

George could see the heartbreak in his brother’s eyes and the distance when he spoke of Y/n. His eyes no long sparked as excitement as her name rose in conversation, nor did his hands shake when she smiled at him. It was an odd thing for everyone, really. The most adorable and affectionate couple to ever step foot in Hogwarts were now turning into the most sad and distant couple in the castle.

Fred Weasley ventured down the the Great Lake seeking to clear his mind from the confusion that invaded it. His heavy boots stomped on the wet ground, his hands shoved deep into his warm pockets. Mentally curing himself for not bringing any gloves, Fred jogged down the cobble steps leading to an old wooden dock. Glancing up, Fred was surprised to see a figure sitting at the end of the dock. The girl, he made out, had her feet dangling off the edge and was staring off at the other side of the lake at the array of blues and greens in the water. Stepping on the wood a loud creak sounded out. Fred watched the girl turn around startled and almost gasped at the sight. Y/n.

For a short period the two stared at each other not sure what to do. It was a horrid awkward situation. Y/n wondered if he was looking for solitude as she had been or if he was searching for her. Fred pended on the thought all she wanted was lonesome and debated returning back to bed.

“Sorry, love. I had no idea you were out here. I can go find another place around the lake to sit if you want to be alone. There’s another dock a ways down, I can go there-” His feet moved backwards ready to take the small hike towards the north dock and find tranquility there. Y/n swung her feet off the edge and shook her head softly. A weary smile appeared on her lips and for the first time in three weeks, Fred’s heart fluttered. It was a tiny fluttered, but still, it was something.

“Nonsense! I’m not going to make my boyfriend walk a mile just so I can be by myself. Besides I’ve been out here for a few hours, some company would be nice.” Y/n giggled into the freezing air though it was forced. Her breath was slightly evident in a small cloud. Nodding, Fred squated down a few feet besides Y/n. His thoughts were speed a million miles an hour trying to think of something to say. An uncomfortable silence swept their surroundings and he was desperate to climb out of it.

“It’s so calming out here.”

“Yeah, I like listening to the water. It’s never this peaceful during school hours.”

“Too bad it’s not still warm out, we could go for a swim.” His heavy chuckles were music to her ears. She had forgotten what it sounded like to hear him laugh, she missed it.

“You’ll get Pneumonia, Freddie. Then I would have to take care of you and you’re the worst to take care of when you’re sick.” The pair broke into a stomach holding fit of laughter. It was no secret, Fred was the whiniest person in the world when we was ill. He wanted someone to wait and his hand and foot and would have the weirdest request in the world.

Y/n could recall a year and a half ago when Fred was down with the flu. George stayed three miles clear of his brother and even slept in Harry and Ron’s dorm room to keep from falling under the weather. Fred begged Y/n to stay with him so she took George’s bed for the week and did everything Fred asked. He kept asking her to change the bed sheets because they were ‘too wrinkly’ or ‘unbearably uncomfortable’. She had to carry four different flavors of jello up on a dining room tray for him four times a day since it was his favorite. Fred was a handful, but Y/n never minded too much.

Fred’s boots grazed the surface of the water, splashing a bit out. “Yeah I guess I am.” A uncertain tranquility settled over the two. Neither spoke, though their bodies crept closer together both longing feel the connection again. Y/n pitted the relationship she was in. Never did she imagine she would lose feelings for the boy that had given her so much. Turning to face the dim boy Y/n scrutinizing his appearance. His features were hollow almost ghostly. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks and avoided touching food wholly.

Thoughtlessly the girl reached across the way and skimmed the back side of her knuckles against his cheek partly to see if he was even real. He flinched at her touch and she felt foolish.

“I love you, you know that right?” Y/n’s chest heaved with pain but she couldn’t help from asking it.

“I love you too, darling.” He said above a whisper. Y/n nodded and swung her feet back and forth. Welts of water dropped into the large body of water as her shoe hit the surface every few kicks. She didn’t know what to say so she dove in,

“You’ve been feeling the same way too haven’t you? About us.”

“Yeah, I have.” The cold air only added a more miserable mood to the atmosphere. Fred chewed absentmindedly on the inner skin of his cheek waiting for the tension to die down. It wasn’t hateful tension, just tension.

“What are we supposed to do, Fred?” She exasperated. Desperate to make a change she hoped Fred had a solution but from his despairing sigh, he was out of answers as well.

“I have no idea.” He grumbled.

The echoing of the splashing water drowned out her thoughts. She felt lost at sea, caught in a drift of sorrow.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I know I love you but something is different and I can’t explain it. I have no idea why or when I started feeling this way, and it makes me feel like a vile person because I never want to hurt you and you mean the world to me-” Tear pinched at her eyes and it was evident in her cracking voice. Fred moved his hand across the way, placing it on her knee and giving it a comforting squeeze. “It’s okay, Y/n. I understand.” His voice was different, softer than ever before yet more sadden that she had witnessed. Her eyes grew big at his words and moved from his touch, “But Fred, it's not okay. What happen to us? We use to be so in love and now it’s like we're total different people. I mean sure we fight sometimes, but all couples do, right?” She wasn’t sure. Her background of relationships came from cosmo magazines, girl gossip, and romantic movies. The first relationship she had been involved in was with Fred so who was she to say this wasn’t a normal occurrence. Although losing feelings entirely wasn’t, that much she knew. “I think so. I don’t think it was the fighting… I just think maybe we’re growing up and drifting apart.” Fred shrugged and continued staring out at the water refusing to look at his girlfriend. His eyes brimmed red and he fought the urge to sob. A scoff sounded from beside him as Y/n kicked at the waves, wetting her shoes which was sure to take a while to dry. “But why? Hell, we’ve been growing up together the past five years and we always manage to stick together. What’s so different this time?”

“Do you love someone else?” His words hit her like a truck. He finally looked up and met her strong gaze, fearing her answer. Y/n’s mouth fell wide as she took full offense to the accusation. “What? No of course not!” She paused, unsure if she even dared to recycle the question back to him but she did anyways. “Do you?”

Fred’s face scrunch as he thoroughly thought it through. For a while he did think he fell for another but truthfully he knew he could never love another like he does Y/n. Despite only having feelings for Y/n, Fred couldn’t place his distant feelings towards her. Licking his lips, Fred ran a hand over his face and shook his head.

“No. I reckon you’re the only one.” Y/n’s heart sored a bit at his words. At least she was able to rule that out. Her muscles relaxed and she let out a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she was clenching in. Though her mind still wandered as she remembered the conversation Fred and her over their plans after school.

Y/n lifted her legs up from the edge and slid them over to the dock. Fred glanced at her interested in the sudden movement and raised an eyebrow. Bending her knees Y/n rested her chin on her knee caps.

“When are you leaving to start up the shop?” A rise of unsettlement washed over. Fred mentally sorted through the truth wondering which he should let her in on. Deciding against his better judgment Fred lied through his teeth,

“Not sure yet. George wants to leave soon, I was thinking a bit closer towards the end of the year but I’m starting to think it’ll be within the next few months, maybe even weeks.” Fred ran his finger along the bones of his knuckles and avoided her eyes at all cost. He couldn’t bare the look of hurt and betrayal she was sure to have. If she was hurt by this, he thought, I surely can’t tell her the truth. Fred felt like rubbish for dropping the news on her at such short notice but he was so scared to say anything about it. “Weeks?” She croaked out. That wasn’t enough time to fix things. That wasn’t enough time to get back to their old ways. That definitely was not enough time to mend their love and move onto bigger and better things. Fred’s hand slowly inched towards Y/n’s. He longed to hold her again, kiss her with the love her once held and the passion that used to burn within them. Fred nodded ashamed and lowered his head. “Yeah.” Y/n drew is a shaky gulp of air and forced a fake smile out. She didn’t want Fred to see how badly she was breaking apart inside. But when you spend a handful of years by someone’s side, you catch onto their expressions after a while along with their unspoken secrets. Fred had spent years memorizing all the little things he found Y/n doing and the tight smile stapled to her lips was one of them. Out of optimism Y/n tried to see the bright side opposed to the tearing she was experiencing in her heart.

“Maybe it’ll be good for us. Y’know, get a little break from our relationship.” Lurching forward Y/n found herself lacing her hand as one with Fred’s. She gave a small tug as a sad smile replaced her previous act. Fred squeezed her hand as a stray tear rolled down his wind kissed cheek. His finger swiped against the wet bead riding it as fast as it appeared. “I don’t want to lose you, Y/n.” Fred brought your hand up to his lips and kissed your skin softly. The embrace was warm and loving but it wouldn’t last forever. A wet pebble skidded down her rosy cheek pelting the wooden dock and staining the surface. Y/n didn’t care if she looked like a mess, she was hurting and for once in her like she let herself come undone. “Well I don’t want to lose you either, but this could be a really great thing for us. If we want to stay together we have to find a way for this to work. Taking a break might be the best option.” Y/n concluded firmly. It was possible for them to recover some lost feeling or they could realize their separation was for the best.

Fred shook his head rapidly and stood from his spot,

“That means that we won’t see each other for almost seven months.” His tone was shifting towards anger. He couldn’t imagine spending a little over half a year without the girl he loves by his side. Whether his feelings had been fading or miscommunicated he didn’t want to bear through that.

Through her salty tears Y/n laughed softly and pushed herself up to her feet standing beside Fred. “Hey, absence makes the heart grow fonder.” She quoted. Fred gazed down at her in disbelief. How could she say that? Did she think it would be easy for him to be away from here? Who was he suppose to call when the stress consumed him and he forgot why he started this dream in the first place? He had grown accustom to having Y/n a few feet away from him at all time, both of them always there for each other in times of need.

Fred whipped around turning away from Y/n and began walking the trail back to the castle. He was fuming with annoyance and anger, mainly at himself. Y/n rocketed across the dock jogging to catch up with him and when she did Fred gritted his teeth trying to contain his blazing emotions. “That’s just a stupid saying people say to find a easy way out.”

“Fred, there is no easy way out. Taking a short break doesn’t mean we’re finding a way out, it just means we’re not going to be together for a little bit.” She explained calmly. Silence captivated the area. Both sort their opinions without words. Of course the last thing Y/n wanted was to be apart from Fred but in order to get answers sacrifices needed to be made.

Fred mellowed down pinching the bridge of his nose. As he released, Fred’s weary eyes droned on yours and he shakily asked,

“But what if after all that time… what if we still feel this way?” That was exactly what Y/n was scared of, but they would never know unless they tried.

“I’m not sure.” She mumbled. Thunder cracked above them causing both heads to turn to the sky. A drop of rain smacked against Fred’s face and a bolt of lightning stroke in the early sky. Fred looked down at Y/n and motioned towards the castle. The rain was sure to begin pouring within minutes and neither wanted to be stuck in the cold weather. When they got inside the castle the pair took the path back to the Common Room. Fred’s eyes flickered to Y/n every few seconds. Her natural beauty was what Fred fell for in the first place. She was always the kindest soul in the crowd and he couldn’t fight the powerful feels he gained after spending time and time again with her. To Fred, there was no other woman in the world he would love more than her.

Stepping on the moving staircase Fred spoke up out of question, “Do you think this happens to couples a lot? They just fall out of love with each other.” He wondered if it was normal for couples to feel this way. Maybe they just got bored with each other and went their separate ways?

Y/n’s eyes crinkled around the edges as she went through the different scenarios. “I’m sure there's worse things that could happen but at least we’re giving it another shot.” She stated ambitiously. In every situation there needed to be a positive attitude and Y/n provided the aspiration the couple needed to have hope for their future together.

Fred nodded and pretended to take her words in but worry consumed him. There was no guarantee they’d come back together but there was a possibility they’d be better off in the end.

Clearing his throat Fred opened the Common Room door for Y/n and broke the dull mood,

“I didn’t mention this earlier, but uh, you do look very beautiful today.” He admitted sheepishly. Y/n’s eyes widen in shock. It had been weeks since Fred had complimented her. She had missed his sweet words and heart warming actions.

Y/n giggled helplessly and brushed a stray strand behind her ear. Her cheeks redden in a flustered state. Stepping into the warm room Y/n smiled back at Fred and returned the favor,

“Thanks, Fred. You look rather handsome this early morning.”

He chuckled at her and reached for her hand leading them to a private corner in the buzzing room. Their friends sent their looks of confusion and happiness, most likely thinking based off the sight they were back together. Little did they know Fred and Y/n were nowhere near their silent thoughts.

Near the side of the room George Weasley was perched on a loveseat writing timelessly on a sheet of parchment. His head came up and his posture straighten as they walked past. His eyes glared daggers of anger towards his brother. Y/n went to question it but the twins eyes turned to her. He sent her a small shake of the head and mouth two short words, ‘I’m sorry’. Her mouth quivered completely flabbergasted. What had that mean? Before she could approach George, Fred had swept them away to their favorite spot in the room.

Once seated Fred brushed his thumb along Y/n’s baby soft skin as a sign of comfort. His guilt ridden features made Y/n want to pull away. He seemed to be holding back, shielding her from something. Any other day Y/n would’ve forced him into telling her but all she wanted was to spend one last day together as a couple. He had no words left except a strong pledge he intended to follow through with,

“We’ll make it work, I promise. But say for some reason we don’t… as cheesy as it sounds, I’ll always love you, Y/n.”

The two stayed with each other in their little corner for the rest of the day. Fred escorted her to her dorm room around one in the morning, breaking lights off as well as bed rules though they couldn’t care less. Fred joined Y/n in her large bed and cuddled to be backside the entire night. The next morning Y/n woke feeling cold and lonely. Her bed felt more empty than usually and her dorm was vacant beside herself.

Sitting up straight Y/n glanced around the room searching for a sign of life. That was when a blue sticky note on her nightstand caught her attention. Snatching the paper from the tabletop Y/n’s eyes scanned over the message.

She was stuck in a state of confusion as she reread the words over and over again.

I’m sorry, I hope you’ll understand. I’ll see you soon, love. Don’t forget you’re always the one for me.

F. Weasley x

“What the hell-” You were cut short as a short brunette, also known as your roommate, bursted into the room. Her wild expression gave you an uneasy feeling. She bounced with every step she took and gave you an incredulous expression.

“Y/n, what’re you doing in bed you missed it! They left a few minutes ago!” Katie was practically shouting as she jumped on your bed.

“Who left?” You feared the worst and a part inside of you already knew the answer before she spoke. Katie’s face fell as she pointed out the dorm room door and with flat words spoke,

“Fred and George, they both left this morning- caused all sorts of hell for Umbridge as they went. Didn’t Fred tell you they were leaving today?”

- Daizy xx

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wellmeaningshutin · 8 years ago

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Short Story #90: Sleep.

Written: 4/8/2017 Music Week Song Listened to Before Writing: Liars - The Overachievers

When Gertrude was very young, she would spend a lot of her time under the supervision of her grandfather, while her parents were off at work. This lasted until, as her mother would say, the man’s mind had started to turn to mush, and it would have been irresponsible to leave the young girl with the elder, who needed supervision of his own. The separation, for Gertrude, was too much, since the man had spent more time with her than her own father, turning her grandfather into a father figure, leading to a lot of anger and confusion, so her parents eventually agreed to take her to the nursing home every weekend so that she could spend time with the old man who had trouble remembering who the little girl was, sometimes mistaking her for girls that had been women for decades. Sometimes he would forget what they had talked about over the last weekend, and sometimes he would forget what they were discussing only seven minutes prior. This was difficult for the young girl to understand, and no matter how many times her parents tried to explain it to her, she was persistent in believing that there was a solution to his memory problems.

“How are we supposed to tell her,” the father said, after the mother told him that he had to set things straight with Gertrude, “that the man is basically rotting on the inside?”

“Well, you obviously don’t say it like that!” The mother fired back.

“But that’s what’s happening! He’s old, his brain is spoiling. He’s like meat that’s been left out for way too long, and there’s nothing you can do about it except for throwing it away.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s a horrible thing to say! That’s your fucking father.”

“He stopped being my father when his mind turned into mush. The man is having trouble remembering who I am, its like he can hardly understand what’s happening around him. He’s becoming hollow on the inside, every bit of the man I knew is gone, or is about to disappear. Christ, he can’t even be trusted to use the bathroom on his own, its like he’s turned into an infant.”

“But-”

“And don’t you try to say that besides all of that he’s still my father, because everything that made him who he is is all gone. The only thing that is sticking around are his looks, but appearances don’t make people who they are. Appearances don’t mean shit when it comes to character.” Of course, all of this anger was just his way of expressing have to see his father enter a state of, what he perceived to be, living death. He was in the process of mourning his old man, who, it was clear, wasn’t going to get any better, especially since his time was running out. So, the father eventually stopped trying to explain things to Gertrude, and let his little girl try to help the old man, because, even though he would never admit it, he hoped that she would be lucky enough to actually find a solution. He was desperate for anything in the same way that drowning victims only want one more breath, or how some people with terminal illnesses turn to ridiculous medical procedures or rituals, knowing that they can’t afford to be cynical, or even realistic.

So, Gertrude had asked to him to buy her a $249 video camera, so that she could record her conversations with the mentally fading man, hoping that if she could have him watch their conversations, it could jog his memory and help him remember, and even though the family was tight on money, due to the costs of the nursing home, the father had agreed to get it for her, ignoring his wife’s frustration. However, the girl was only to record for two weeks, and even though it just seemed to confuse the man even more, because he didn’t remember the conversations, or even really know who the girl was, and if it wasn’t so confusing, he probably would have been terrified by it. Several days after the girl’s last visit, the old man had a brief window of lucidity, when the clouds finally parted, and he used that time efficiently, making sure that he could hang himself with a belt, wanting to die while being aware, instead of having to go back to the foggy and confused way he was previously living. When this happened, the man’s only son hadn’t mourned, grieved, or cried, because he had already accepted the old man’s death. The son also opted to not tell his daughter how the old man had died, in fear that if he had told her, she would have thought that she was responsible for him becoming lucid, making herself responsible for the hanging, and that was just too weight for such a young girl, so he just told her that he died peacefully in his sleep, the way that many people hope to die, the coward’s way out.

After he passed, Gertrude had a video camera that she had no idea of what to do with. So, now that she was worried about the possibilities of the same things happening to her, she decided to film as much as her life as she could, so if her memory ever left her, she could just watch old movies of her life, allowing her to never forget, even when (she believed) she would be 130 years old. Years went by of her always keeping a rolling camera with her, unless people were angered by being recorded, always trying to record all of the things that she did. It never occurred to her to try to make any sorts of movies, or to film for entertainment purposes, but she had assumed that her life was interesting anyways, and she didn’t bother to go back and watch anything that she had recorded, not until she had reached the age of fifteen, and was struck by a wave of nostalgia for the simpler days of her childhood, before she had to worry about difficult teenage issues, like trying to give up her teenage years in order to make sure she will be in a comfortable position in her young adult years to give up her young adult years, so that she can make sure that she can spend her adult years only focusing on raising children, putting her life on the back burner so all her focus could be on their lives, which would only happen if she wasn’t able to spend those years hard at work, saving up money for her twilight years, which she could hopefully live until (instead of spending her life working for a future that would never come), and could spend the time finally being able to relax and build “interests” or “hobbies” that she actually enjoyed, and weren’t work or school related. Her teachers would tell her that if she didn’t pursue this lifestyle, she would become miserable and poor, because the good things in life could apparently only be achieved by going to college. Gertrude hated school, and wasn’t meant for college, but she seemed to have no choice, and desperately wanted to hit rewind on her life, wanting to be a child again, where she could just focus on being a child, not having to worry about her future, outside of prepping for her mind to fall apart.

When she started watching the videos, she ran into a problem: they were incredibly boring. It was challenging to find any moment where she was actually entertained by what she watched, instead of having to see the dumb rocks she thought were so interesting, or stretches of time where she played with toys, forming dull and incoherent stories. Boredom was something she was usually able to handle, she learned that you can’t be a good student without being able to deal with subjects you couldn’t care less about, subjects that you were forced into just because it would look good when she would apply to go to colleges, just to get a major in a field that would bring in a lot of money, even if it was something she hated, but for some reason the boredom that the videos had brought on was worse. She couldn’t understand it then, she spent very little time in introspection, but it was upsetting to learn that her life had been so disinteresting, even though her memories of it all seemed much more exciting. When she decided to watch more recent footage, to try to form an accurate comparison, she found her current life to be even worse, since all of it was basically school related, just filled with her either studying, sitting around in class, or spending time in clubs that she hated, but would look good on her college application.

Gertrude started to fall into the habit of skimming through the previous day’s recordings, during the half hour of free time she had before bed, trying to find something neat, something to catch her attention. Occasionally, she would try to convince herself that it would be way more interesting when she was old and her brain had went to shit, and it was all only boring now because she had only recently experienced it, but she couldn’t stop going over the footage, she couldn’t stop trying to find at least one instance that could prove her life was fun, that it was actually a life. A moth of this sort of behavior had passed before she started to become depressed, which put a damper on her school work, so she eventually decided to only film herself when she slept, convincing herself that having to carry around a camera all day was making it difficult to study, but that was a blatant lie since the camera had been natural for her, after keeping it with her for most of her life, and she really knew, deep down, that if she just video taped herself as she slept, she could continue to skim through the videos, not feeling upset at how dull it all was. Why wouldn’t somebody sleeping be boring? Why would you expect something interesting to happen when somebody is turned off for the night?

After the sleep routine began, she was able to repress her distaste for her current life, and was able to stay in denial, allowing herself to think that she had an enjoyable life. That only lasted for two months, because eventually she sat through a lecture where her substitute teacher was upset , and started complaining about how the current generation was so self absorbed, nothing like the teacher’s clearly superior and amazing generation, and how these new groups of kids couldn’t understand anything other than themselves, they couldn’t understand that they were worth nothing, that there was nothing that made them special, they just refused to understand what other people went through. The lecture (the term the teacher used, even if it was actually just a condescending rant) only began because a student had insulted the teacher, telling them, “You think you’re tough shit, but you’re almost 50 and you’re working as as a substitute teacher at a fucking public school”, and the teacher was furious that the student couldn’t see how great they were.

“I don’t know how you kids ended up this way,” said the sub, who did his part in raising and shaping the generation he was lecturing, “but all I know is that if you kids can’t look at yourselves, and other, and understand how the world works, then you’re going to be in for a rude awakening.”

When Gertrude heard those last words, she was lost in thought, and not because she was upset by any of it, she had thought that she was different than the rest of the people her age (the same way that a lot of them thought that they were different), but because she was wondering if other people slept differently. Sure, she knew that her life clearly stood out, but what happened when she was asleep? Was everyone different, or was everyone the same? An idea had formed.

Gertrude became obsessed with the different ways that people slept, considering it to be an intellectual side project, some sort of study that she could write a paper on, but it was really just because she had to be assured that everyone was boring when they slept, and that interesting sleeping didn’t exist. She had to protect her fragile self image. At first she only decided to film her parents, and would sneak into their rooms, past midnight, when she knew that they would definitely be sound asleep, to set up her camera and tripod, allowing her to stand there, filming them for hours and hours, until a little while before their morning alarm would go off, and they would wake up and start the day. This footage wasn’t enough to satisfy her, because she couldn’t be sure if dull sleep had run in her family, making her parents just as boring as she was. So, she had to make a decision, since the time spent staying up at night, filming people sleep, was starting to effect her school performance, she was often exhausted and was having trouble participating in class, or doing well in general. She either had to give up on her little project and return her focus into her schoolwork, so that she could go to a good college, or she could continue on with her sleep project, and hope that it would be enough to get her into a good college anyways, while still being able to prove that everyone was just as dull as her. It wasn’t a tough decision, she decided to go with the latter.

It was tough to figure out how she was supposed to find other people to film sleeping, mainly due to her lack of friends (who, if existing, she could just invite for a sleep over and film that way), but eventually she decided that it would probably be easier to just record her neighbor’s through their bedroom windows, if she could find a house that had a good view inside. Personally, she knew that having her blinds open at night creeped her out, because it was so dark out and she couldn’t see anything, causing her to be unable to know if somebody had been watching her from the outside, but it never crossed her mind that she had become one of these types of people. As she went from house to house, crouching in the bushes every night, filming who ever was available, watching them sleep, she never realized how strange her behaviors were, and spent most of the time worried that she was a dull, uninteresting, and painfully average person. This new hobby of hers had seemed uninteresting, only because it came naturally to her, causing her to be unable to understand why anyone wouldn’t want to do something like this.

However, she eventually started to become frustrated with lurking in backyards all night, partially due to the way her clothes would either get filthy, or torn up from thorns, partially due to the cold, of her having to crouch out there in the damp, dark night, trying to keep herself warm as the lens of the camera is pressed right up against the window pain, partially due to the unclear view some of the houses would give her of the sleeping occupants. There weren’t many houses that had optimal conditions for recording (there were plenty of other factors than an open view into the bedroom, like not having dogs, not staying up at a late time, not having bars in front of the windows, not having bushes that prevented her from getting as close to the window as she would prefer, etc), so if she found one that was great for filming, she had to kind of stick with it, finding it too valuable to pass over. She also began to take more precautions into making sure that other people couldn’t spy on her through her bedroom windows, starting to believe that it was a common occurrence, it was just a thing that people did.

Then, one day, she got the idea of trying to get inside of the houses by searching for keys under mats, in fake rocks, in those magnetic key holders people hide under barbecues and patio furniture, etc. Sure, she played with the idea of sneaking into houses before, but it had never occurred to her of how she could do it. She would also have to avoid houses with security alarms, for obvious reasons, and at first she thought of driving over to low income neighborhoods who couldn’t afford home security, but she figured that they might have guns or be more violent if she was caught, so that idea was scrapped, and she just opted to stick to her current neighborhoods, looking for houses without alarms, while also have to see if people were light sleepers or not. So, before she would sneak into a house whose spare key she was able to find, she would give three taps on the master bedroom’s window, and if she heard them make noise she would flee, but if everyone was sound asleep then she could enter.

Gertrude was amazed by how close she was able to get in the first house, watching a married couple sleep cuddled up next to each other, and she got some really impressive footage of them sleeping, but after she filmed more and more people, her original intents started to become blurry. As she mainly lived during the night, she mainly slept through school, and her grades were in a downward spiral, but she still thought that she would get into college somehow, not remembering that her footage was originally supposed to be some sort of study. As she kept going from house to house, recording each person sleep, she forgot how she even started the process, and thought of it as something she always did. She also started to not only lock her bedroom door when she slept, but also made sure to lean a folding chair against it, allowing her to wake up by the clatter the falling chair would make if somebody decided to sneak in and film her. It was as if she stopped filming to compare people to the way she slept, and was just caught up in the process of filming.

One thing that Gertrude never noticed, as she would walk through those dark hallways and watched the unaware figures, wondered what they dreamed about, moving as close as she could without waking them up, sometimes only being a foot or two away from their faces, crouched, filming in almost complete darkness, using the night vision functions, she never noticed that her sense of self was starting to disappear. It only took four months of watching people in this way, having large amounts of videos stored of all sorts of different people sleeping, that she started to not think of herself as a person, thinking that she was too boring, too worthless to focus on, and that everyone else was worth watching instead. She had surrendered herself to her fears of being dull, of being worthless, and thought she was accepting reality as she only traded one form of denial for another, instead of fighting to be a main character in everyone’s story, she subjected herself to being an extra, even in her own. There was no more worry of having her mind go away when she would become older, there was no person to become old.

When she wasn’t at school, trying to sleep and waiting for it to be over, she would be resting, trying to catch up on sleep until midnight, where she would have to leave her house and search for people who had yet to be recorded, for people’s who would willingly welcome her into their houses, being kind enough to leave keys outside for her, so that she could do her job and film them as they slept, helping to preserve their memory for when the time came to (she didn’t know, and she never thought about it enough to have a fully formed reason behind it). On the weekends, when she had free time, she would sit and watch all of the recordings she had made inside people’s homes, of the pictures they had on the walls, of them as they slept, of their children if they had any, and sometimes she would reach out and touch the screen, wondering what those people would feel like, wondering what it was like to be somebody interesting, somebody worth watching. This routine was disrupted when something terrible occurred.

One night, in one of the dark and silent houses she entered, she had accidentally stubbed her toe on a coffee table she hadn’t noticed, and it made a loud noise as it scraped across the hardwood floor, but nothing in the house stirred. Frozen, for several minutes, she stood in the middle of the living room, trying not to make any more noise, hoping that she didn’t wake anybody up, hoping that they wouldn’t get upset that she would have to come back another day to film them, but it seemed like she was in the clear. She was much more careful when she made her way to the master bedroom, but when she stepped inside, she saw, through her camera, a man hanging in the middle of the room. For a while she wasn’t sure if she should find another house, since the man was clearly not asleep, but something lead her to film him anyways. Night turned to day, and she was still able to film the hanged man, she was able to walk around him and get all sorts of angles on the body, she was able to reach out and touch him while she described what it felt like (so she could imagine the feeling during later viewings), she was able to noisily search through his drawers to find a name (so she could accurately label the footage, instead of the standard, rough descriptions that she normally did, like “family #42”, “tall man #3”, “snoring man #13”, etc), but she couldn’t figure out why she kept filming.

When she got home that day, around noon, all she did was watch the footage, made sure to speed it up, and she couldn’t figure out why she had to keep watching, what was so interesting about it, and then she realized that this was the most unique sleeper that she had ever filmed, she realized that this man had been a complete game changer, because he had decided to sleep forever, to allow her to get all of the footage she needed, which showed insane dedication, more than the part timers that she had to be cautious to not wake up. Days were spent watching the video of the man who would sleep forever, compared to all of the others, and she ended up getting lost in the whole concept. If she left her house, she might have sought out more people to film while dead, she might have killed people in their sleep, just for the potential, just to make them stars in her eyes, but she was too consumed by the footage she had, it was everything she needed. Gertrude started to only focus on the footage, it was becoming impossible to have to think of anything else, she could only live through these memories. This was all life was, and she wasn’t watching any of it, because there was no her, it was just life going by, sleep and death, sleep and death, this is what the world was to her. Eventually she found some old footage of some little girl who would sometimes play with her toys, who would go outside and film supermarket lines, or scenery from nature, but it only confused the watcher, who couldn’t figure out the purpose of it all.

One day a woman had come to the room where the footage was stored, and she said to no one, “We are concerned about you. Are you alright? Hello? Please, say something. Eat something. Can you talk? Can you understand what I am saying?” But who was she talking to? What was she going on about? The woman must have been mad, because there was nobody else in the room with her.

#Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Filming #Sleep

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