It was black. It was red. He saw it before, and he knew what it was, but now, when he looked, the bright stains on the grass were pitch black. Then he blinked and the color hadn’t changed at all, it was red. His eyes felt weird, oddly numb and watery, and he could taste the blood in his mouth even now- but it was like chocolate too, except not really. The chocolate wasn’t on his lips, it was in his brain. That was the thought that brought his analytical half back. He was tasting things that weren’t there, seeing colors that weren’t there, more signs of being very very sick.

He looked up, the woman at his side, purple burgeoning on pink- and yellow - no, just purple. Lilac, like- oh, not that color either. Almond instead, and hazel, but mostly skin; it was Stormy- did he know her name? He must do, he knew it now… How did he know it now? She wasn’t purple, never had been, and she didn’t taste like whips, that didn’t even make sense, where did that thought even come from? He rubbed his eyes, accidentally smearing some of his bloody nose on his cheeks, leading to a solid minute of scrubbing at his face to get it off. He ignored the way his sleeves felt like jelly.

Someone was laughing, or crying… She tasted like stars. No. she didn’t taste like anything. He hadn’t even breathed in her direction, why was his brain so convinced he could taste people without touching them? She should’ve tasted like lemons anyway, with how yellow she was, or maybe a lime- no, no, no. No. People were people colored, they tasted like people, he was not tasting them, and no, that kid probably didn’t actually have wings.

Probably. No matter how he blinked at that one only the bleeding orange faded, and the taste of screams. Sound of screams it should be, but he hadn’t heard them, how do you taste a scream? His tongue watered, and he looked away uncomfortably.

Who was shouting? The Ghost Girl seemed a stalwart concrete wall, and she tasted like iron. Like blood. Funny, his own blood tasted like chocolate, her… presence, if that was what he was sensing, tasted like blood. Bizarre.

He was going insane wasn’t he? Alice down the rabbit hole, welcome to Wonderland.

Welp, there was only one course of action now.

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stood. He wiped his jaw one last time, just to make sure it was clean, though his bloody nose didn’t seem eager to stop, though it paused a moment or so every few beats. He turned to face the others, taking in the… awkward affects the others seemed to be experiencing from their masks- Semblances. He was smoking, throwing up, bleeding; Ascot was sprouting wings and making moves; Tabitha was… he couldn’t say what she was doing, his eyes said one things, his… new senses told him differently. By far the most unsettling was Koda’s hazy view of Tristan being- well he wanted to say molested, because that was what it looked like, but the word transformed sprang to mind - transformed by a machine, into a machine? It was mildly terrifying, potentially more unsettling if he’d actually been able to focus on it, but his mind kept straying. There were whispers on the edge, telling him secrets he knew, but what they were he couldn’t hear, or understand; he caught words, or he thought he did, but they weren’t English, they were… tastes. Flavors maybe. Flavors hissing like snakes, and tugging like squids, and winking like stars.

That didn’t make any sense. He frowned, and focused, trying to press this new perception into something resembling reasonable, but reasonable was flying down the tracks like the train that’d killed him. He flinched at the thought, emotions all over the place and unprepared for the sudden blow of realizing that yes, this was happening, and no, nothing made any sense at all, and yes, he’s probably dead and loony forever now, ‘kay thanks, bye.

So much for progressive risk taking, this was why he worked in a comfy lab on Earth and not in a screaming void like space.

He realized he’d clutched onto Stormy for support, though he rapidly released her arm when he felt her purple over his brown- his tan? He was dark, but the dark wasn’t him, not really, it was Nofec-

He nearly lost his balance, at the emotion that rolled through him at the name. Grief. The Self was Torn. The Self was Empty. The Self was Broken

.[color=#d5c7b1]”Sorry,”[/color] he whispered weakly, at first directed to Stormy for touching her, and then belatedly towards… himself? [color=#d5c7b1]”I’m so sorry.”[/color]

...but he didn’t feel sorry, just hungry.