It sounds like screaming.

 

HHHHHHHHHHH

 

—

 

-

 U

 

UUU 

 

WJS

 

N\

y

 

Y’know, careening through your own broken memories at the speed of a bullet train gets pretty tiring after a while. Ping-ponging between decades he hasn’t seen in decades, all the while entangled in threads that can’t be seen — tripping in skates with the audacity to call it — is kind of stressful. Not to mention traumatic, considering he has no control over any of them, the happy moments slipping between his fingers time and time again. Moments where he was whole, where he made sense and his thoughts obeyed him, where he was happy and — oh he’s so numb he can barely feel the hands over his eyes, holding him fast in place as his thoughts spill out into the sea of void, ripping, tearing. Abstractions twist and writhe at the edges, snapping their teeth and sniffing at the tracklines as trains of thought go careening by, their eyes watching him — bundles of plastic flowers — but they never get close. They never get close, because all the while, the threads he feels snap like whips, dragging him in and out of memory after memory, like a hand on his collar yanking out of danger time and time again.

Somewhere deep down, as he flashes through the moments — in the snow with his scarf around her neck, and she was — he knows who it is that’s protecting him. He knows, now especially, the vows they took, and she’s doing her duty in following them — a truth that hurts in its kindness. She could easily let him slip from her grip, let him fall into the gaping chasm below, and have him here forever. But she doesn’t, and kinger can only love her more for that. One more impossibility, to join the hunting packs of them still snapping at his heels. It’s the one thing he has, the one thing he holds onto, and it is the one constant through every memory he has — he has always, and will always, love her.

That, at least, can never change.

He can feel the vice grip on his consciousness, every dip and ebb at the memories they pass through. Sometimes he finds flickers, catches snatches of thought, tidbits of desperation that hit him in the face like seafoam — words, oftentimes. Amar, ayudar, mantener, encontrar, amar, amar, proteger, enfurer, proteger, mantener, amar — She’s straining with everything she is to keep them moving, outrunning the glitching that chases them this way and that through the passages of his mind — fell to abstraction, strangers replacing weathered faces — how funny it must seem from an outside perspective, looking in. How stock-still he must be, to feel nothing the inner blows. 

He feels different parts of himself crash through the mediums, ripping through the

  P

 

    ag e

 

s

A n

 

d

 

T earing apart the words, giving our poor authors the task of piecing them back together again. They themselves are scrabbling at the edges to piece the story together, arms packed with bundles of shattered plot — How long has he been here, even? Ten minutes, or a thousand years? He can’t really tell anymore, he’s been falling through chaos for what feels like hours now, and reality keeps changing . Most times it’s simply a change from one style to another, on flavor of being to something else — ink to pixels, pixels to page, brick and mortar and then back around to flesh again, but this time—

— when the shards of broken medium settle for yet another round, he is held in the grip of something altogether, unequivocally, else.

It feels uncomfortably like being choked to death, the concrete-hard grasp that suddenly rips him away — he’s not in a place to panic, he’s not in a place to be feeling much of anything at all. The only instinct he has is hold on, and so he tries to, but the paper thin hands go limp in his with a distant scream of fear. Her mind reaches out for his with a desperion he knows very well, but he has no time to process this, flattened by the clamor of voices. The abstractions jumble and writhe, overtaken by some sudden confusion— where is queen?Where is ruler?AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA — and Kinger has no answers for them (not that he’d give one) as he’s torn harshly away. The marbles of his mind scatter like racing mice, trains of thought blowing their horns in alarm-bell screams as suddenly, overwhelmingly, terribly— 

He can’t breathe. Literally, he quite literally cannot breathe. He has no lungs, no eyes, no flesh or bone or even wood splinters in their place — nothing but an outline of what should be, and that blurs with every passing memory, every uncontrollable wrenching of his thoughts from one time to another. More memories accost him, time after time after time hitting him harder, sledgehammer blows. Down he spirals, crashing through layer after layer of memory and history — things that happened forty years ago are mixed together with last month, stewing together and sticking like glue — his mothers voice, Jax stealing his eye and hiding it away — He flickers between different versions of his own mind, from twenty eight to fourteen, from fourteen to forty, from forty all the way back to when he was just eight years old — can he be sick, when he doesn’t have a stomach? Can his eyes hurt from the blur of sights and sounds when in reality there is nothing there to see?

He is eighteen, he is forty two, he is twenty, he is thirty — everything blurs, everything hurts — It was cold, it was late at night. Ants march through blades of wet grass, his pencil scratching on the page as he notes down what they carry. The rumble of the city hums behind him. He is about to meet her. — he is himself, he is holding a headset. He is about to make the worst mistake of his life. — a snail crawls across his hand, rolly pollies tumbling across the pavement like marbles from his brothers hands — he is seven, climbing through the shattered remains of a church window, mary staring up at him from one shard. The edge slices through soft palm without his consent, his blood streaking down her stained glass face, and — he is wooden, alone in the corner of an empty room, and she is gone. — he is wooden, and she is gone. — he is here, and she is gone. — she is gone. — she is gone. — gone. — gone — gone gone gone gone —

He has no mouth, and he must scream.

But that doesn’t stop him trying.

She dances in and out of the memories, her laughter echoing far away. Her face blurred and shadowed, yet her eyes bright and clear — why can’t he remember? Why can’t he see her? Why won’t she stay? With hands that are not there and continue to flicker between sizes and scars, he reaches out through the sea of places and faces, dribbling like watercolor. He reaches out and he pleads, “I can’t lose you, not again.” But all she does is laugh, light and happy, and step through a door, into a car, onto a balcony, through the trees, across the water — her reflection smiles at him as it melts away, and the chaos marches on, not like the ticking of a clock, but like the gasps between screams. He can’t see her anymore. His hands are cold. 

The chaos rises, falls, crashes, crushes, breaks, shatters — a million parts of himself shoot out then regather, and his mind screws itself up into a ball, thoughts looping back into eachother. What is going on? He can't know. It’s okay. Where is he? He can’t know. It’s okay. Should he look? She told him not to. Queenie, his Queenie told him not to and he wont. He can trust. Trust her. It’s okay. She has him. She won’t let him die. She won’t even though he did, even though he couldn’t, wasn’t by her side and it happened alone and why couldn’t he why didn’t he — There is no fortress, there is no hideyhole, he is himself and he remembers and he can’t hide from that, he failed her, he failed her and she died and she suffered and he could’ve stopped it, if he’d been there more, if he’d stayed by her side more, if he didn’t go on that stupid adventure— he let her die. He let her die, he let her die he let her —

A spiral, a loop, well worn grooves. The same as end is never the, same as lines already spoken. His mind has slowly, steadily been rebuilding itself, and with that repair comes the capacity to break. 

He is falling, spiraling down, and his hands are cold.

She isn’t there anymore.

He couldn’t save her.

The chaos rises to a head, roaring back like a snake about to strike — and it is then that he feels the eyes lock onto him, all the hundreds of thousands of them, narrowing and widening in glee and fear and madness all the same. The cacophony rises, and every version of him, every memory, every iteration of himself he’s ever been, looks up in fear. He feels parts of him shatter, memories, emotions, versions, years of his life clotting together— just as chromatic aberration separates the hues, so his mind is peeled apart now, unraveling like a particularly terrified onion.

Reason finally decides to go die in a hole somewhere, and as a billion dripping maws snarl in his ear, Kinger is suddenly aware of his mind shooting out shards of itself again. His thoughts rattle like they have been every .2 seconds since he fell into this madness, but this time the shards do not shoot back to him.

This time, one flickering outline of himself falls out of line, collapsing into the darkness with a disgruntled yelp. Then another, then another — even the abstractions rearing above him, even they seem confused, sniffing and cycling around like bewildered sharks. Voices begin to ring out through the chaos, his own voices rising in yet another cacophony. It’s dizzying — he exists everywhere they are and where they are is nowhere, this is his mind — but it never obeyed him anyway, and Kinger suddenly finds that his imagination has decided to throw its hat (or more rather an anvil) into the ring, the impact jarring him so much kinger feels his sense of gravity do cartwheels. 

Shockwaves run throughout his consciousness, abstracted eyes watching his every movement — waiting, hunting, drooling, then…confused. In instant, where there once was one mind — his own — now there’s hundreds of writhing variations, piled on top of him, flickering impressions of places and opinions forming into conglomerate masses of thought — one of which decides to grab him by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth like Ragatha on a bad day. 

Multiple him’s are screaming, one of them in his ear, there are suddenly way too many voices in his head — so many Kinger cant even hear his own — and that isn’t even including all the many abstractions bobbing around the corners of his consciousness, literally trying to eat him. Some of them are successfully hunting down the runaway memories and eating them, literally eating them, because for some unfathomable reason, he, and all the other he’s, seem to physically exist now, to a point where one of them is shaking him.

It is at this point, Kinger realizes that none of this is ever going to make sense. 

Good for him.

“-DOSOMETHINGDOSOMETHINGDOSOMETHING—“

He — whatever versions of him this is — shrieks at pitches only dogs should be able to hear, and Kinger can only trip over his own words as abstractions begin to crash down against his mind — ah, that’s where I am! He realizes in a brief moment of tranquility and reflection, I’m standing inside my own mind. These are just manifestations of my consciousness, so that means the abstractions are probably just tearing bits out of me! He nods studiously, putting a hand on his chin as his ten year old self gets eaten in the background. 

With a jumble of perfectly identical startled yelps, Kinger catches himself— literally, one of them just tripped into him— and shrieks, stumbling backwards and knocking into yet another version of himself. The memory cries out among the cacophony, nearly dropping a bouquet of flowers — Somebody yelps an apology, another is screeching like a parrot, a third (this one in pajamas) has just been eaten by a particularly bold abstraction, and Kinger watches in horror as, with every second that passes, another fracture forms. His mind is quite literally spreading its own innards everywhere, in the form of hundreds of terrified Kingers of various ages running around like headless chickens. Tripping clumsily out of his subconscious ness, old perspectives and opinions begin to roll over the floor like marbles — in fact, the brief flash of stability he’d had is already dissolving, dissipating like smoke and mirrors. This has been chaos, he knows that. This will continue to be chaos as long as he lets it be.

Pezzo di re Pezzo di re lo mangia fedele reale? È reale? Voglio reale lasciami essere 

Chitter, chatter — The abstractions are growing bolder. More and more oil-slick minds cycle towards him, their thoughts rambling incoherency. They are hunting, and Kinger, our Kinger, stands amidst a crowd of his own overlapping memories, silently staring up into the sea of eyes. They blink and smile and squint, teeth lining their edges and polygons sharpening their gaze. He wonders if any of them are hers. He wonders where she went. He prays she is okay. With every flickering memory that’s consumed he feels a second of his life disappear — like moths gnawing at clothes, the damage is imperceptible at first, but Kinger gets the sinking feeling that if he lets this go on too long he’s going to fall apart. But — what can he do? What could possibly —?

La nostra mente si sta spezzando, il nostro respiro si frantuma da qualche parte molto più in basso. La nostra gabbia toracica si divide e schizza sul pavimento. Il vuoto sta urlando, abbiamo troppe bocche, e nessuna di loro può parlare. Nessuno di loro può chiedere pietà. Aiutaci, danneggiaci, rendici reali - se sanguiniamo, saremo reali? Se consumiamo, guariremo? Non possiamo respirare, cosa sarebbe? Teschio martellante, artigli arricciati, stiamo morendo. Stiamo morendo, marcendo, cancerogendo, modellando, morendo frantumando gonfiando gonfiando - siamo uno. Ci dispiace amico-nemico-straniero-cibo, vogliamo solo fermare l'agonia, fermare l'agonia fermare l'agonia che non possiamo sentire noi stessi siamo reali siamo reali siamo noi — Kaufmo? — Kaufmo smettila di spingere — KINGER?! HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET DOWN HERE?! WHY ARE YOU HUMAN!? AND WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT TO EAT YOU!? 

  A beacon of light through the cacophony, a blessed semblance of sense. 

Kingers head snaps up, his thoughts tangling into another’s. Red, red yellow blue green everything — a smile, a frown, bad jokes — he knows this mind! He latches onto it like a drowning man, and with the motion something knocks back into place.

Kinger jerks backwards, back into his body, and nearly chokes on the huge rush of air he breathes in. His lungs are screaming at him, quickly silenced by the deep heaves of cellar air he drags into them — Its pitch-black, but he can feel the vibrations of hundreds of thousands of writhing shapes moving in the darkness, one of which seems to be curled over him with only a foot or two of breathing space. He tries to sit up, but his head knocks onto something that jabs him hard enough to make him flop back down again, utterly exhausted. Nothing presses against him but the hard floor against his spine, and that at least is a relief after the horrid claustrophobia of the ladybugs, but he’s not out of it yet. He’s shaking like a leaf, and Kinger has to battle to pay attention to himself — the inner onslaught has not ceased, his focus split unevenly down the middle as Kinger continues to breathe like it’s about to kill him. His hands are on brick, he’s sitting on a vaguely brick-textured something — focus, focus focus focus — 

KINGER DAMMIT WHATS GOING ON 

Ringing out through the world of thought, the words cut through a tangle of abstracted mouths. Kinger feels a bolt of ice grow up his spine and come back down, but distantly, he sighs in relief. He knows that voice, that’s — it’s like a foghorn in his head, and Kinger only barely manages to direct his stumbling thoughts in its vague direction, still too disoriented from being yanked back into his body. Which, judging from the ache in his…everything, has not been having a very fun time! 

 

WhathuhwhereowOWlohdbadwaktknowthatclownclownkaufmosis Kaufmo!? Kaufmo is that you what’s thefu 

 

Kinger eventually manages to stumble out, fingers digging into the grooves of the brickwork as a dreadful humming permeates above him, as if he’s pressed his ear to an analog television. Everything is hot and cold and loud. So terribly loud —

NO, SHARLENE — YEAH ITS KAUFMO, WHO ELSE!? 

The familiar voice shreiks back, incredulous, as always. Kinger does not have the energy to answer, considering random parts of his psychological architecture are actively being gnawed upon, but some part of him sighs in relief anyway. Yeah, that’s Kaufmo. Definitely Kaufmo — he’s never met anyone else with such a… unique way of speaking!

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE, MAN!? YOU AINT ABSTRACTED! KINDA THE OPPOSITE ACTUALLY — HOW’S THAT WORK ANYWAY? 

 

“Wh-Why would I know-?”

 

Kinger manages to cough out, wincing as another abstracted path of thought slams into his mind — ough, it’s like being in two places at once! And not in a good, productive way! In a very bad way! His throat feels raw, and Kinger grimaces as he swallows — okay, that’s not happening again.

I DUNNO I GUESS I — OW, DAMMIT SOCKS DON'T BITE ME, YOU RAT BAS—!

Kaufmo shrieks, and something suddenly smashes into Kingers chest. The impact is hard enough to knock the wind out of him — not that there was much in there to begin with, but he still doesn’t like it very much considering he actually needs air these days. The burning of lost oxygen is getting a little old. In fact, all of this is getting a little old, in his opinion — Kinger scrabbles to push the whatever-it-is off him, his hand smacking into an unsettlingly large claw, currently an inch from his ribs. If he’d been even an inch or two to the left…Kinger opts not to think about it. He won’t think about it. He's spent the past hour falling through chaos, and by this point, he has a very foggy idea of how to deal with it. That being: curl into a ball and hope nothing bad happens! Unfortunately, the (now discovered to be two) large claws pinning him to the brick floor are rather keeping him from curling into a ball and hoping nothing bad happens, which is, as one might expect, slightly distressing.

Kaufmo? what is going on!? I don’t understand—

Kinger manages to struggle out, his teeth grit too hard to speak properly. Thinking at someone is a lot like trying to hold water in your hands — possible, but very frustrating from a practical perspective. It’s a very lucky thing he’s the exact opposite of practical! There’s a lurching shift from the darkness above him (he still can’t see anything; too dark) and Kinger feels two minds butt heads among the greater whirlwind of thought that is the cellar, his own mental blockades slowly growing stronger as abstractions persistently probe at every weak points. Fewer of his memories are jumbled now, most of them re-swallowed by that everpresent fog, a slickening loss of control he knows too well to be hindered by.

YOU N’ ME BOTH — THEY’RE TRYNA’ EAT YOU OBVIOUSLY! MY GLORIOUS SELF IS THE ONE THING HOLDIN’ EM OFF, SO YOU'RE FRIGGIN WELCOME — SOCKS, F’N GET OFF, YOU MASSIVE BLOCKHEAD!  

Kaufmo audibly grunts, shifting as something slams into him. Kinger feels the claws pinning him to the floor move and grind, leaning back and forth as if their owner is being thrown around. He’s distantly impressed by the dedication, though this is drowned by a surge of gratitude towards Kaufmo — he really did like the poor clown back when he was sane, and here he is, back to (sort of?) normal! As in, yelling at people!! And protecting him, which is a very sweet gesture considering Kinger never really understood any of his jokes…though that’s not exactly a new thing. Kinger reaches up and manages to clumsily pat some of the writhing polygones above him in a silent, strained thank you — 

KINGER NO DON'T DO THAT I MEAN I APPRECIATE IT MATE BUT —   

Too late. Kinger winces as what’s left of a gossamer-thin rigging cable lashes over his palm, a white-hot line of pain following it — the feeling burns from residual glitches, showering over the wound like salt, shards of broken polygones sticking to it like digital flies. He snatches his hand back with a wince, balling it into a first and pressing it close to his chest.

He can feel a few drops of blood seep in through his shirt — well, that answers that question. He can bleed here. A small part of his mind is comforted by that, while the rest of him yells at it that no , that’s not a good thing, he is bleeding! He does not need more things to add to his list of things to be traumatized over! Kinger grits his teeth, and tries to distract himself, — at least before the massive paw(?) clamped over him presses down hard enough he almost chokes. Oh, that’s going to hurt in the morning—!

 — stop ELBOWING me, you low-poly centipede! You’re gonna make me crush him! 

A higher voice screeches, spiking in pitch, the paw pressing down harder. Kinger feels like his eyes might pop out his head from the pressure, wildly smacking at the nearest claw with his free hand, his lungs burning, unable to draw a breath— tapouttapouttapout— and gasps as it immediately eases off him. He wheezes, coughing hard — Air, sweet beautiful air! Very humid, sort of glitchy air, but air!! He can’t exactly sit up without impaling himself on one of kaufmos wildly-convulsing polygons, but if he could he’d probably jump for joy. Metaphorically. If his life weren’t in danger.

WATCH IT, KID!  Kaufmo cries, far too loud for Kingers liking, Y’NEARLY SQUASHED HIM! 

it wasn’t my fault, the other voice replies, high and shrill and weirdly defensive, you were the one who — DONT GIVE ME THAT, KITTYWINKS, ILL SMASH YOUR HEAD INTO THE BRICK! — come and try, you soggy wet bread crust! — WHAT KIND OF AN INSULT IS THAT!? — a good one! — NO IT WASNT?? YOU'RE CALLING ME BREAD WHEN I CAN JUST CALL YOU A WH— Don’t you dare!!! 

Kinger blinks into the darkness, shaking. Bickering. Very petty, very familiar bickering. He knows that bickering. He can only barely make out the muddled shape of his own hand in front of his face, but the voices are pounding In his head like a headache, his shoulderblades beginning to ache where they grind against the brick. Kinger squints wearily up into the black, ignoring the clamoring of the other abstractions, ignoring the aching in his ribs (there’s a lot of it) and ignoring the fact his hand is bleeding. In fact, he’d very much like to pay attention to literally anything else, diverting his focus to the voices above. That voice sounds familiar — before Kaufmo, after Hex, when Pawlifer…he knows this person, doesn’t he? Didn’t she bite him once or something? 

Yes. A cat. A small, bean-filled, potatosack toy cat…she arrived with Ragatha, like —  like part of a set…Kinger screws up his face in concentration, trying to think through the soup of other minds weighing on his. What was her name? Oh, he's beans at names… come on, remember! You knew her, come on!

 

“I… Socks?” 

 

He croaks incredulously, and there’s a notably delighted squeal in response. His head hurts from it, but a brief flash of relief runs through him — another friend, another ally. Someone else who, at least, doesn’t want him dead! He rests his head back on the brick, closing his eyes for a moment — okay. Okay. Maybe he won’t die after all. He reaches out, trying to feel for the two allies above him — there, there they are. Kaufmo is all jagged edges, blunted in his direction, bristling towards socks. Socks mind is like holding a warm beanbag, tinged with something…coppery. Else. 

— PLEASE TELL HER TO GO AWAY SHES SO DISTRACTING — Yeah! Yeah it’s me, hey Kinger!! Whatcha doing down here anyway? You good? — OH YEAH, HES ABSOLUTELY DANDY HES IN THE CELLAR SOCKS OF COURSE HE AINT “GO—-

Please, get me out of here 

Kinger interrupts, his thoughts so cramped by the clamor of the other abstractions— Non posso sentire, non posso vedere, lasciaci uscire pezzo di re lasciaci uscire lasciaci uscire per favore ti pregiamo di ascoltare — that he can barely think them, all his phasing memories effectively squashed back into place. He’s pleading, his hands digging into the half-melted slab of fur that still pins him to the ground, he’s desperate — if he doesn’t get out of this hell soon he’s going to abstract and then…then he’ll be…oh, he doesn’t want to lose what memories he has, he can’t — he can’t let himself forget her, he can’t risk that. Maybe…maybe that’s the only reason he hasn’t already —

Kinger waits, his chest rising and falling in short huffs. His lungs ache. His everything aches…There’s a nearly imperceptible pause, before a blinding neon light swivels into his vision, Kingers face screwing up as he winces. For a moment Kinger thinks it’s some doorway into the circus, but it’s just one of kaufmos epilepsy-warning-on-crack eyeballs, staring him dead in the eyes. He gives it a weak smile, twitching his hand in a half-wave. It squints at him, the pinks and yellows twitching and jittering into each other in a way that makes him feel sick to his stomach.

Well, how is he? Socks demands suddenly, C’mon, tell me — ! 

YEAH HE AINT DOING SO GOOD — What do you mean not so good!? — HELL I DUNNO, TRAUMATIZED? — Kaufmo, we’re all traumatized! Be more descriptive! — OKAY DOUBLE TRAUMATIZED THEN, WHAT DO WANT FROM ME!? HE LOOKS BAD OK? — that’s not descriptive!! — OKAY YOU WANT DESCRIPTIVE?! HIS HANDS BLEEDING, HIS RIBSR’E PROLLY BLACKN’BLUE BY NOW, HE'S MOST LIKELY GOT A CONCUSSION, AND HE'S STUCK HERE!!! HOWS THAT? — Wait he’s bleeding? He can do that? —

Kingers head is pounding. His thoughts stutter out another weak plea — this time it’s nearly incomprehensible, a wordless waving of a white flag. He needs to leave, and soon, or the static curling in his bones is going to overwhelm him. The argument hitches, and Socks suddenly makes a sound like a whistling kettle, the claws pinning him into the brick extending slightly. Uh oh.

Oh gosh Kaufmo we have to get him out NOW — SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO, BE QUIET KID! — CANT I CARRY HIM TO THE SURFACE OR SOMETHING!? — ARE YOU INSANE!?? HOLY SHI—

Her voice is suddenly piercingly shrill, and Kinger winces, muscles winding tense as he somehow presses himself further into the rock. The eye is no longer looking at him, it’s glow washing him in an odd neon light — he uses the opportunity to check his hand, which is shaking, but not actively bleeding anymore. At least that’s one very weak positive. Kinger lets his hand flop back down, a full-on argument warring above him, and just tries to focus on breathing. In, out. In, out. Survive for as long as possible. “ It’s just like one of Caines adventures, ” Kinger mumbles to himself, closing his eyes. “ Just…keep alive, y-you got it… ”

— N’LESS YOU’RE PLANNING ON SWALLOWING HIM HE’LL BE CRUSHED, YOU KNOW THERE AINT SUCH THING AS PERSONAL SPACE HERE — I HAVE TO TRY!! — SOCKS YOU’LL FLATTEN HIM LIKE A PANCAKE — WHAT IF WE JUST!? STICK HIM IN THE HOLE!?!? — WHAT DO YOU MEAN HOLE WHAT HOLE — THE HOLE!! YOU KNOW WHAT HOLE THE —

The voices begin to blur together. 

Kinger takes this as an opportunity to try and take stock of himself. He wearily manages to work his non-injured hand up to his head, running shaky fingers through his hair — the cacophony is deafening, so much so he almost wants to scream at them both to shut up, but he doesn’t have it in him right now. They are trying to help him, after all, he…he shouldn’t be rude. They’re doing their best. For the first time, Kinger is aware of just how much he’s shaking, his teeth chattering together as he absentmindedly checks himself for any actual injuries. 

The argument blurs together into a mass of sound as he tentatively tries to move each joint, one by one. He seems fine-ish from the waist-down, but his ribs ache with every breath — ouch. He tries to move his shoulder, and a sharp starburst of pain quickly cuts off that idea — that's…not good. Kinger sighs, letting his head fall back onto the brick with a dull thud. Shivers run up his spine, his focus directed purely into drawing one more breath. One, two, three, out. One, two, three, in… His heart is beating faster than it probably should at his age, and Kinger winces, resting a hand over it. What age would that be… he wonders blankly, his emotions mostly drained. … I was…forties? Pretty late forties, when I came here, so…probably in my fifties by now. Maybe sixties. Kingers pauses, registering the fact he doesn’t feel sixty. Yet.  Maybe I don’t…age here. I haven’t been living in this body for any of it, anyway… 

Hey, at least he’s alive. There’s nothing like the fear of death to remind you of that fun little factoid. 

Kinger listens absently to the screaming outside, breathing slowly. Kinger…is aware of quite a few things. Like how terrified he is, and how tired he is of being terrified. He’s aware of the exhaustion permeating every inch of him, the slow slog of nonessential parts of his brain being shut down to conserve energy, the adrenaline that’s probably the only thing keeping him conscious right now. He’s aware of how much he wants to collapse in a pile of pillows and not come out for seven years. How much he wants to go home. Oh, how it hurts to remember home.  

 

—THE HOLE QUEENIE FELL THROUGH YOU UNEDUCATED POOL NOODLE, WE CAN THROW HIM IN THERE! —

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