CorviDoggo

Afterimages: The Mirrored World

A horror. A horror. I am a horror. I am a horror in a dream that’s not a dream that’s a dream and this isn’t my body and—

Tohato’s thoughts halted. The living doll broke away.

The living doll proceeded to throw up. Oh no. Was this his fault? He just crashed in. He didn’t mean to fall in here. His body ached. The body that wasn’t his. The many eyes shifted to stare at the bunny marionette or whatever he was. Many eyes. Many red eyes. They all blinked on their own, too. Tohato sure felt like he was giving a worried expression, but… well.

How does a void show emotion?

His many pairs of wings flapped and tried to settle themselves across his wax form. He almost chirped, chittered. Pain shot up from his feet. Feet..? Could he call them feet? His form shifted again. He chose to set himself on the ground, as much as he could with all his strange feathers and… body parts? Were they really his? No time to figure that out. Uh…

Tohato simply started to pick at the glass shards imbedded in the wax layer, pulling that strange fabric draped over him aside. It hurt, yes, but he needed to walk. What if there was something else coming? Let’s see— the marionette bunny is throwing up, the deer guy— well. He actually woke up? Opened his eyes? What kind of dream happened? And there was the wolf lady.

“I-I know I entered this place… I think… I-I crashed through.. the ceiling? The… the sky? I d… don’t know about you guys…?” Damn, he was stammering so much… no doubt because of what just happened. And the fact he was in the process of digging glass out of his already bad feet. “If we enter, then we can come out. There’s definitely a way out, even if… if reality right now doesn’t have those rules. I’m sure all of you guys came from somewhere, too. I came f-from…”

He had to pause. It was wax. He was wax! He wasn’t even bleeding, really! Just light. Just. A lot of light that fissured out and then got sucked back up and continued on and on. It hurt, though. Wax wasn’t supposed to have those funky little receptors! What were they called? Neurons? Nerves? Nervous system? Something like that.

“I came from… my dad’s cafe. The outside. I was… checkin’ the girls. Chickens…” Tohato still decided to continue after he got some more pieces out and bore with the pain. It wasn’t like he never experienced pain before! He felt it all the time!! His leg always hurt, his body and especially his back creaked when he moved, his mind was in pain so often.

Another piece came out. He didn’t feel anything else in the wax. Maybe dust? Shards? But those were in the wax. The wax… Why was his skin wax?

Archaic Circuitry: Old Code, Young Blood

That gash was worth it for Cambrian. Look at all that red! That beautiful red flowing like liquid satin in all this chaos. Like red velvet! Red velvet…. That’s a cake, right? Red velvet, it should’ve been named after blood, should’ve been named… oh. Cambrian shook his head and stared at the black oozing out of his leg. He liked that pain! It was fun! But now he couldn’t exactly walk. Times like these are when he wished he had proper bones, but he didn’t. Alas.

He spent only a few minutes crudely forcing his flesh back together, just enough so he could stand and run. It was nowhere near as elegant or fast as the way he could make flesh bubble out red with just a touch. And, oh, how deeply he wanted to make that beast bubble out red! Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, too. And there was more blood as the damned lizard continued to swirl its stupid bloodless stones everywhere. Cambrian wasn’t looking for the stones. He was looking for blood! The lizard’s blood! How inconsiderate that gross beast was, not to let him end its early life right then and there amongst all the chaos.

It was then that Cambrian had an idea. A great idea!! He let himself flatten on the ground, taking a moment to savor the pain of his crudely mended wound, and he started to take the color and texture of the mud. That lizard was swinging aimlessly around with the junk it collected on its flesh, and as long as it would swing aimlessly, Cambrian could get in there and make a beautiful mess. He was already in his own mind, seeing how that dragon would bleed, seeing the glorious red and the black, how it would bubble and squelch, how the rocks would break and turn the very soil into a deep, bloody slurry— how the rocks would drop when that lizard bled out too much. Of course, his loose shirt and pants didn’t meld to the ground with him, but it was fine! The beast couldn’t see his head or his limbs and he could simply stretch where he needed. He could be like the wind. He was already on the ground. All he had to do was get close and strike!

He took a slow, careful look around, and began his way towards the monster, moving with the ground in a strange, slug-like crawl.

Cambrian had no sense of time. The seconds felt like days. The days felt like seconds. But the seconds and the days were filled with so much fun! It was such a great time! Oh, there would be so much blood! The poor people around him would get covered, but it was fine! They all had the same objective as him, right? Killing that stone-horn beast? He didn't need to be so careful! The people would get splattered, but who cared?! The lizard would be dead. And that was all that mattered. The blood was all that mattered to him at that moment.

Archaic Circuitry: Old Code, Young Blood

The best part of being underwater, Cambrian reckoned, was that the rain didn’t bother and the gnats couldn’t go underwater. Hell, he’d welcome the rain, an opinion many in these scrappy, forsaken settlements rejected— after all, it was fresh water, easy to breathe, clearing up the built up dirt and gunk from the old water, cleaning the sewer systems and canals… it made his stomping ground far easier to, well, stomp around. Swim around, actually…

It was the light that woke him up. The light that filtered absolutely everywhere and refused to let his sensitive eyes rest. As far as Cambrian knew, he descended from lots of weird deep-sea creatures… so he let himself have that excuse for his eerie preference for darkness. Unlike most days, though, he didn’t dread this one. This was the day he might be able to eke out some semblance of freedom. Maybe he’d no longer hide away in a crevice and camouflage once he solidified a space in the V.E.T. He gave a loud hiss.. this damn mafia he’d been working for his whole life. It was scary, was it not? The squid swam out of his crevice and let himself become his normal self. Reds, whites, and blacks suddenly reflected off the rusted surfaces and danced with the light— his colors, broken up only by his tanned humanoid skin and the pale sweatshirt and pants he still wore that billowed with the water. He looked up from the water— so much, it was so much. The gnats made the sky look clouded. Disgusting. The worst part about these wretched bugs was that standard issue gas masks didn’t fit over him properly, leaving the slits he actually breathed through exposed. He opted for a large neck gaiter, instead, and tucked the lower part under his sweatshirt while the upper half sat snugly over his ears and the bump on his face that vaguely imitated a nose. It had to be good enough.

Finally, he surfaced. He met the sun. He met the gnats. He met the rain. He met the day. Cambrian thanked his past self for preparing— for meeting his quota early so the higher ups won’t go looking for him today. He had the day to himself today, to “rest,” he mentioned to his slavers, but he knew it was to run off. To be free.

————————————

The lobby didn’t have any gnats in it, so Cambrian promptly pulled the gaiter down to reveal his gentle face. He proceeded to bite at his hand until it started to bleed an inky black substance. It calmed him. The pain helped overcome his anxiousness. The pain helped tune out that captain that assumed he was just there for… a warm body? That wasn’t right, at least not for him. He’d sooner stab her and rend her flesh to ribbons before sitting on her lap. Then again, he’d sooner do that to anyone— he found that idea fascinating! Flesh ribbons. What would he do with those…—

His thought process was cut off by that sound of the beast. Perfect timing! The bastard didn’t even choose to wait for the captain to finish, he just kept to his feet when he was told to take that damned stone-horn creature on. After all, he so deeply wanted to turn one thing into ribbons at that moment. Oh, it would be great, just one touch of his fingers against that skin… first, though, he had to break open the damn rocks and gunk that the stupid lizard built up. Or, he had to find an opening. A weak spot. Counting the guards acting like useless buffoons with their dumb pointy sticks, there were… five..? People. Five and a half, counting the non-wastefolk rat.

The hide wasn’t entirely uniformly stone, just stones cobbled together like a pathway, fused with the flesh instead of making a solid armor piece— resistant to normal attacks, of course, but not to what he was planning. The tail couldn’t swing up to the neck. The neck couldn’t bend unless there was a gap in the stones. On top of all that, this meddlesome, godforsaken creature was being bombarded by the five other people there. The lizard thing couldn’t reach for Cambrian with its teeth on its neck… that was when Cambrian knew where to strike, where to make beautiful crimson spill like paint.

He decided, then and there, to climb up wherever he could, leap for the beast’s neck, and make blood spray from a gash wound as big and deep he could muster. This was going to be fun.

Archaic Circuitry: Old Code, Young Blood

Name: Cambrian Hadal
Age:22
Species: Wasteman (cephalofolk)
Height/Weight: technically, his height is variable due to his biology. If stretched to his maximum, he can reach a “height” of maybe 13 feet, though he wouldn’t be able to support himself standing if he did that. At rest, he stays roughly at 5’9. His weight is another story— simply put, he weighs 85 pounds. He may weigh more if he stored water in himself, but his pure mass is 85 pounds.
Sex/Gender: Masculine
Appearance:

Appearance

Cambrian is a Cephalofolk man with tanned skin and a sweet, gentle face. While he has a mostly humanoid appearance, standing tall with two legs and holding two hands close to himself, he has no hair— in fact, his eyebrows are just bumps, and his “hair” is made up of ten cream-colored tentacles with black and red spotting. He usually keeps his tentacles out of his way by taking his two longer tentacles and using them to tie the rest behind his head. Cambrian’s face is fairly flat, with no proper nose and just a flat bump, but it has a beautiful set of markings like a large, red circle on his forehead, dark stripes under his eyes with red fading into his normal skin tone, and a single mole on his lower left cheek. Along with his unique facial features, he has four teeth sticking out from his black and red two-toned lips— two small fangs and two small tusks. He breathes through slits hidden behind his pointed ears that look similar to gills and function both in air and water. His eyes are a bright red similar to that large dot on his forehead, with white cuttlefish pupils that are usually partially obscured by his angled eyelids. Despite the way he carries himself, he has no bones and can technically bend and fit through anything he likes, as long as it’s bigger than his mouth. His teeth are hard and sharp in a kind of internal beak-jaw formation, but the only thing close to bone in his body is a single chitinous “spine” as flexible as plastic, the rest of his limbs being held and controlled through pressure, biological pistons, and hydraulic action. While Cambrian can fit into anything, he greatly prefers looser, softer clothing that doesn’t easily absorb water, such as ELS cotton, mesh, and softer polyester. He has various scars on his body that reveal a white-colored flesh similar to the underside of his tentacles, but he mostly tries to hide them with his clothing.
Personality: Cambrian is a character defined by intriguing contrasts and complexities, making him both enigmatic and unsettling to those who encounter him. His initial impression of being shy and socially inept masks a profound intelligence that sets him apart. While others might underestimate him due to his social awkwardness and inability to grasp social nuances like sarcasm, beneath the surface lies a keen mind capable of strategic thinking and rapid problem-solving. He operates on a different level, often thinking several steps ahead like a chess master in a world of checkers players. However, Cambrian's brilliance is overshadowed by his profound mental instability. There is a dark undercurrent to his personality, manifested in a disturbing fascination with gore, blood, and pain. This morbid interest extends to both self-infliction and a troubling desire to cause harm to others. It's as if he is drawn to the darker aspects of human experience, finding some form of solace or meaning in the visceral and the brutal. His emotional instability is evident but somewhat masked by his asocial behavior. Cambrian struggles to connect with others on an emotional level, preferring the solitude that shields him from the complexities of social interaction. This isolation only serves to deepen the tumult within him, creating a stark contrast between his outwardly quiet demeanor and the swirling chaos within his psyche. Metaphorically, Cambrian's soul is likened to a swirling inkblot, obscured by turbulent waters at the surface. Cambrian is a young man whose intelligence and social ineptitude create a paradoxical blend of fascination and fear, deeply troubling and compelling to everyone who tries to understand him.

What Are You Looking For?: Cambrian… wants freedom. He wants a way to control his life, a way out of the crime syndicate that raised him and used him like a slave. Even if he died out there, he’d at least be controlling his death instead of having his life hang in the balance of people who don’t see him as a person.
Capabilities:

• JOB: Cambrian’s forced to work for a crime syndicate specializing in black market trades of various valuables and illicit substances. He’s been used mostly to dive into deep rivers and complex waterway systems to find sunken treasures and rare materials.
• FIGHTING STYLE: Cambrian is a glass-canon who focuses most on dodging and using his blood magic for stealth, as he literally has no bones and thus can’t take many blows to the face. He’d use his wounding spell for fast and easy damage, as well. If he can’t use his magic, he’d strongly prefer a sharp weapon like a knife, and if he’s fighting something that doesn’t bleed then he may resort to simple blunt force with something like a pipe or stone.
• MAGIC: Cambrian was born with Blood Magic.

Magic Form(s): Hemokinesis

• Basic Kinesis ability: Shapeshifting. He was born with the ability to change the colors on his skin through blood magic.
  
  • Magic Stain: Oh Fuck, He’s Crazy
    Chances are, if Cambrian wasn’t born with his blood magic abilities, he wouldn’t be as emotionally unstable and morbid as he is.
• First Spell: Wounding and Healing. When Cambrian uses this aspect of his abilities, he can create large and deep gashes that look like they were dealt by a sword or knife, with just the touch of his fingers. He can, to a lesser extent, also heal wounds, though it takes him more time than inflicting them— mostly because he hurts more than heals.
  
  • Magic Stain: SNAP!
    Cambrian… enjoys pain and blood. The more he sees it, is around it, messes with it, the more excited and unstable he becomes. If he does too much, goes too far, he may end up in a frenzy.

Archaic Circuitry: Old Code, Young Blood

Name: Cambrian Hadal
Age:22
Species: Wasteman (cephalofolk)
Height/Weight: technically, his height is variable due to his biology. If stretched to his maximum, he can reach a “height” of maybe 13 feet, though he wouldn’t be able to support himself standing if he did that. At rest, he stays roughly at 5’9. His weight is another story— simply put, he weighs 85 pounds. He may weigh more if he stored water in himself, but his pure mass is 85 pounds.
Sex/Gender: Masculine
Appearance:

Appearance

Cambrian is a Cephalofolk man with tanned skin and a sweet, gentle face. While he has a mostly humanoid appearance, standing tall with two legs and holding two hands close to himself, he has no hair— in fact, his eyebrows are just bumps, and his “hair” is made up of ten cream-colored tentacles with black and red spotting. He usually keeps his tentacles out of his way by taking his two longer tentacles and using them to tie the rest behind his head. Cambrian’s face is fairly flat, with no proper nose and just a flat bump, but it has a beautiful set of markings like a large, red circle on his forehead, dark stripes under his eyes with red fading into his normal skin tone, and a single mole on his lower left cheek. Along with his unique facial features, he has four teeth sticking out from his black and red two-toned lips— two small fangs and two small tusks. He breathes through slits hidden behind his pointed ears that look similar to gills and function both in air and water. His eyes are a bright red similar to that large dot on his forehead, with white cuttlefish pupils that are usually partially obscured by his angled eyelids. Despite the way he carries himself, he has no bones and can technically bend and fit through anything he likes, as long as it’s bigger than his mouth. His teeth are hard and sharp in a kind of internal beak-jaw formation, but the only thing close to bone in his body is a single chitinous “spine” as flexible as plastic, the rest of his limbs being held and controlled through pressure, biological pistons, and hydraulic action. While Cambrian can fit into anything, he greatly prefers looser, softer clothing that doesn’t easily absorb water, such as ELS cotton, mesh, and softer polyester. He has various scars on his body that reveal a white-colored flesh similar to the underside of his tentacles, but he mostly tries to hide them with his clothing.
Personality: Cambrian is a character defined by intriguing contrasts and complexities, making him both enigmatic and unsettling to those who encounter him. His initial impression of being shy and socially inept masks a profound intelligence that sets him apart. While others might underestimate him due to his social awkwardness and inability to grasp social nuances like sarcasm, beneath the surface lies a keen mind capable of strategic thinking and rapid problem-solving. He operates on a different level, often thinking several steps ahead like a chess master in a world of checkers players. However, Cambrian's brilliance is overshadowed by his profound mental instability. There is a dark undercurrent to his personality, manifested in a disturbing fascination with gore, blood, and pain. This morbid interest extends to both self-infliction and a troubling desire to cause harm to others. It's as if he is drawn to the darker aspects of human experience, finding some form of solace or meaning in the visceral and the brutal. His emotional instability is evident but somewhat masked by his asocial behavior. Cambrian struggles to connect with others on an emotional level, preferring the solitude that shields him from the complexities of social interaction. This isolation only serves to deepen the tumult within him, creating a stark contrast between his outwardly quiet demeanor and the swirling chaos within his psyche. Metaphorically, Cambrian's soul is likened to a swirling inkblot, obscured by turbulent waters at the surface. Cambrian is a young man whose intelligence and social ineptitude create a paradoxical blend of fascination and fear, deeply troubling and compelling to everyone who tries to understand him.

What Are You Looking For?: Cambrian… wants freedom. He wants a way to control his life, a way out of the crime candidate that raised him and used him like a slave. Even if he died out there, he’d at least be controlling his death instead of having his life hang in the balance of people who don’t see him as a person.
Capabilities:

• JOB: Cambrian’s forced to work for a crime syndicate specializing in black market trades of various valuables and illicit substances. He’s been used mostly to dive into deep rivers and complex waterway systems to find sunken treasures and rare materials.
• FIGHTING STYLE: Cambrian is a glass-canon who focuses most on dodging and using his blood magic for stealth, as he literally has no bones and thus can’t take many blows to the face. He’d use his wounding spell for fast and easy damage, as well.
• MAGIC: Cambrian was born with Blood Magic.

Magic Form(s): Hemokinesis

• Basic Kinesis ability: Shapeshifting. He was born with the ability to change the colors on his skin through blood magic.
  
  • Magic Stain: Oh Fuck, He’s Crazy
    Chances are, if Cambrian wasn’t born with his blood magic abilities, he wouldn’t be as emotionally unstable and morbid as he is.
• First Spell: Wounding and Healing. When Cambrian uses this aspect of his abilities, he can create large and deep gashes that look like they were dealt by a sword or knife, with just the touch of his fingers. He can, to a lesser extent, also heal wounds, though it takes him more time than inflicting them— mostly because he hurts more than heals.
  
  • Magic Stain: SNAP!
    Cambrian… enjoys pain and blood. The more he sees it, is around it, messes with it, the more excited and unstable he becomes. If he does too much, goes too far, he may end up in a frenzy.

Afterimages: The Mirrored World

Ohh no. It seems, in whatever atrocious nightmare Tohato had fallen into, he’d found the worst reality possible. Apparently, he was a winged monstrosity. Apparently, he landed on a beast. Apparently, there were 3 other…. People..? There, and they… probably saw him as a threat. And, apparently, that thing he’d landed on was reforming itself.

Wonderful. Just… wonderful. Tohato looked down at his… hands…? Talons? At the void that he became, and the red light that somehow still emitted from him. The red eyes around him, his strange halo, spun as he tried to register everything. But… wait. He could register the rabbit puppet and the strange humanoid deer, the two that had fallen in that hallway right as he landed in this new form, were… people. They both spoke, aware. And, on top of that, the one still standing— a girl, with some more… wolf-like..? Features? Definitely the most human out of the whole group. Her first instinct was to ask him if he was going to harm them.

“What?! No— n-no, I don’t— uh—“ Tohato shifted his weight and felt that glass dig into his strange void skin, that dark candle wax. That was…. painful to say the least— wait. Why was he experiencing pain? This was a dream! This had to be a dream— this absolutely wasn’t his body, this absolutely isn’t the real world.

Fuck, there was no time to think right now! They had to get out of there! He promptly ran to the nearby hallway where everyone that wasn’t a glass abomination was. Out of the many arms and wings, Tohato reached out a pair to the strange collapsed doll.

Then, he looked over to the woman that still stood, and spoke— somehow, he spoke, despite… not exactly feeling where his mouth is. “Hey— Ms. Wolf, we— we need to leave, right now, so please help me drag the other person out of here!”

And with that, the cosmic horror that had landed just moments ago sped off with a stranger in his arms, instinct taking over the fear of how… this wasn’t actually just a dream.

𖤐 Hell's Renegades 𖤐

Bezaliel just glared at Roy with all nine of their eyes.

Roy, the elder of this stupid excuse of a pack, announcing something so stupid? What? The Angel made a squawking noise that almost sounded like a scoff, flicking their tail around in quick annoyance until the whip-thin end made a whirring sound across the air. That was the importance of the announcement? That was why he told everyone to gather around? That’s why they were perched awkwardly on the couch?

What use did Bezaliel even have for money? What use was this announcement? Bezzy had absolutely nothing when they first got thrown into a concrete box, not even clothing— the bird frankly had more in prison than out of prison. What would these people even return to them? A slab of concrete? The destroyed remains of the Seam-Ripper they tried so hard to make? The rotten meat of long-since-hunted prey? Back to the money— what use would they have for human earth money? Why not quality metals? Why not rods and sheets of good writing glass? Why not crystals that have been polished up? Bezaliel saw the pitiful pieces of paper in the past, and the tiny coins made out of entirely useless and common metals. What value was in that shit? To sum it up, not only did Bezaliel have nothing to be given in the form of possessions left behind, they literally had nothing to gain being here— why not reward them by just sending them home?

The Angel hissed as they jumped off their perch on the couch and onto the open space in front of said couch, and they started angrily pacing, the talons on their zygodactyl feet furiously clacking on the linoleum.

“WhAT? WHAT??”

English was too hard to express their anger. What other option did they have but to rant? Surely at least one person would understand Kaleidos— they already knew Gate understood it perfectly, and they also assumed Roy had at least a basic grasp of it.

“ꌩꂦꀎ ꂵꍏꀸꍟ ꀎꌗ ꁅꍏ꓄ꃅꍟꋪ ꃅꍟꋪꍟ ꓄ꂦ ꀭꀎꌗ꓄ ꓄ꍟ꒒꒒ ꀎꌗ ꓄ꃅꍏ꓄?? ꅏꃅꍏ꓄ ꀎꌗꍟ ꀤꌗ ꓄ꃅꍏ꓄ ꓄ꂦ ꂵꍟ? ꀤ ꃅꍏꃴꍟ ꈤꂦ꓄ꃅꀤꈤꁅ ꀤꈤ ꓄ꃅꀤꌗ ꌗ꓄ꀎꉣꀤꀸ ꉣ꒒ꍏꈤꍟ꓄! ꍏꈤꀸ ꅏꃅꍏ꓄ ꀎꌗꍟ ꀤꌗ ꌩꂦꀎꋪ ꅏꍏꌗ꓄ꍟꎇꀎ꒒ ꒒ꀤ꓄꓄꒒ꍟ ꌗ꒒ꀤꉣꌗ ꂦꎇ ꁅꋪꍟꍟꈤꀤꌗꃅ ꎇꍏꌃꋪꀤꉓ ꓄ꂦ ꂵꍟ?! ꓄ꃅꀤꌗ ꀤꌗ ꀎꌗꍟ꒒ꍟꌗꌗ! ꌩꂦꀎ ꌗꃅꂦꀎ꒒ꀸ’ꃴꍟ ꒒ꍟ꓄ ꂵꍟ ꁅꂦ ꌃꍏꉓꀘ ꓄ꂦ ꂵꌩ ꈤꍟꌗ꓄ ꒒ꀤꀘꍟ ꃅꍏꋪꉣꍟꋪ ꀸꀤꀸ! ꓄ꃅꍟꋪꍟ’ꌗ ꍟꎇꎇꍟꉓ꓄ꀤꃴꍟ꒒ꌩ ꈤꂦ ꋪꍟꍏꌗꂦꈤ ꅏꃅꌩ ꀤ ꅏꍏꌗ ꓄ꂦ꒒ꀸ ꓄ꂦ ꌗꀤ꓄ ꃅꍟꋪꍟ! “ (You made us gather here to just tell us that?? What use is that to me? I have nothing in this stupid planet! And what use is your wasteful little slips of greenish fabric to me?! This is useless! You should’ve let me go back to my nest like Harper did! There’s effectively no reason why I was told to sit here!)

With that, the angry flashes of light painting Bezaliel’s face faded. They gave one last angry hiss before jumping back up to their cozy support beams.

𓆣 ☢ Middle Man ☢ 𓆣

The alarm went off for 8 am on the dot.

Frankly, Sorrel was already awake. He couldn’t stay asleep, even after he drifted off a few times. Maybe it was the pain on his shoulder. Maybe it was the anxious fluttering of his heart. Maybe it was just his chronic illness, yet again! He felt like he could just attribute everything to his stupid specific version of Kaori Syndrome at this point— so fucking rare that that damn Dr. Schmidt joked about calling it “Sorrel’s syndrome.” He didn’t really like that joke, anyways. And, because of this chronic illness, Sorrel also felt like absolute shit as he rolled out the bed. He felt nauseous, but nothing was in his stomach— what would he will himself to have for breakfast? Just some toast? Would it be rude if I ate something before the date?

Sorrel ended up lying to himself and reasoned himself something along the lines of Yes, surely it’d be rude if I just make myself something, even if it’s like 8 in the morning… He didn’t really want to open that box of thought at the back of his head also saying he didn’t really want to throw up in the morning and pretend everything was okay at lunch. Maybe it was best if he showed up super hungry, so he’d actually eat something instead of absently pick at it despite the fact he made it himself. Maybe..l he was straight-up overthinking everything. He probably was. This was his first time, after all, going out on a date— hell, this was his first time meeting up with someone because said someone wanted to see him, not because of debate teams or studies or activism.

The outfit Sorrel ended up on was made by himself, at least the fabric parts— he was a good seamster, he knew, and he made many good garments with his specific fashion sense. It was getting pretty hot, given how the spring’s slowly transitioning to summer, and he felt it appropriate to wear a pretty light green floral lace top with a flowy poet-sleeve kind of design to it, some brown pants with large light-brown patches sown onto them, and, of course, a healthy amount of jewelry. Two pretty chains acting as a belt, a pearl necklace, a jadeite pendant, and some large golden moon earrings. He even decided to wear his dreads down and let them flow in their own pretty way, taking care to clip on some loc jewelry he seldom wore that matched the pretty gold of all the chains.

He looked in the mirror for a bit— it seemed he took… a significant amount of time trying to get ready, and procrastinating on getting ready, and doing chores, and… everything else. It was 11 am, and he finished the housework, and he fed the slugcat, and he checked on the bees and moths, and he told everyone that needed to know he’d be out for a few days at a motel, just in case. The white splotches on his neck and face still felt strange to look at— Sorrel still remembered when his eyes were a normal color and when his skin was an even tone. On the other hand, he felt absolutely beautiful at that moment— he rarely got to dress out like this! It’d be so much fun, even if he came looking a little too cute…

The large (and equally fashionable) satchel was first filled with a few changes of casual clothes, and then hidden by a checkered cotton mat. He made sure to put in all his medications, for obvious reasons. Then went in the food, the drinks, the forks, the knives, the plates, and…. A lot of silk thread, bundled up neatly and wrapped in a neat-looking bag— a little present for Elijah.

Sorrel finally put his sling on, taking care to keep the bandages hidden under his shirt, and looped his satchel over his neck so it’d rest on the opposite side of the bandages— right where he had his sling. It was awkward, maybe, but at least it didn’t feel excruciatingly painful!

And, finally, Sorrel set off, looking pretty for his first date in the downtown park by the chipotle. He pointedly ignored a very familiar pink-haired goat guy, giving him a wide berth from that chipotle… why was he cursed to run into this dude again and again? What kind of expedition was that news guy on?

It was 11:45 ish, by the time sorrel arrived. Where should he go..? Should he start wandering around by the picnic benches? Should he send a text? Should he just… start looking around for a large pock-marked cutie?

He swore he didn’t think of the last part.

𓆣 ☢ Middle Man ☢ 𓆣

Sorrel was lucky that he managed to get out— he knew that already. He knew that since he woke up and saw Dr. Schmidt breathe a sigh of relief, rambling on about how blood loss could’ve done him in and how his immune system is already shot and this and that— Sorrel couldn’t exactly remember what Dr. Schmidt was saying, actually, now that he looked back on it. He must’ve been far too out of it, even if he woke up just a few hours later.

… oh.

Oh fuck— he was lucky that his little feline(?) friend woke him up in the early morning. He had been too drowsy to stay awake through the evening after he was allowed to go home. Frankly, he still felt drowsy— his head felt clouded, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the injury, from the stress he just faced, or from plain old chronic illness. That gnarly wound on his shoulder apparently had to be stitched up, and he didn’t exactly know what to say to his date when he came with a hand in a sling and bandages wrapped all over his shoulder just in case.

But then, how would he have cooked the meal..? He already had it cooked, prepared since the morning before— he was anxious to get it just right, did meal prep and the likes just in case, and now all he had to do was reheat it. But, wouldn’t anyone think it’s weird that for a first date he was trying so hard on a meal that he went out of his way to cook it a day before? That he spent so much time on a stupid lunch dish for a stranger he’d been texting that was super sweet with a cute smile and— Jesus Christ, why am I thinking like this? Bee luckily didn’t ask for any midnight snacks, and Sorrel felt a bit too anxious and clouded up to eat, so he just sat there. When is lunch time..? What would be a good lunch time? We just agreed to meet up on Saturday for lunch in the park, what time is lunch?? It could be anywhere near 11 am to 3 pm— what if Elijah thought it was like 12 pm and I come at 2 pm and Elijah thinks I ghosted him??

The spindly man groaned and essentially let himself faceplant on the counter of his little kitchen bar setup. And what the fuck am I going to say about this whole injury— should I just say it was a workplace accident? What if he asks about the workplace accident? What if he asks about what I do? Did I tell him what I did beforehand? I don’t remember— and that’s not good because if I lie I have to keep stories consistent or else I get caught and I might end up suspicious and I really really don’t want a big buff guy stalking me because he thought I’m suspicious—

The slugcat gently bumped into Sorrel’s leg and started weaving around his feet and the thin metal chair legs. A comforting gesture, Sorrel felt— maybe the fun little creature was trying to tell him something, like… trying to tell him to just take a breath and text the man. It didn’t matter that it was… what, midnight, or something like that?

’Hey Elijah! Sorry for texting u really late, just wanted to confirm the time we should expect each other at the park
Is 1 pm ok? Also, just so u kno, I got in an accident at work so my left arm’s in a sling so I might not be able to do things like climbing or running around n stuff if u planned that
Looking forward to seeing u!!`

That was the text Sorrel managed to conjure up while sitting around instead of sleeping. That absolute masterpiece of shittily-slapped-together sentences that made him want to reverse time by a few seconds and reread and rewrite. What the fuck was he thinking, abbreviating so many things? God, he sounded desperate in that text. He groaned, slouched in his bar seat, and pushed his phone away from himself with a single finger.

Eventually, the man managed to peel himself off the counter and go back to sleep, with a timer set at 8 am— just in case 8 am was definitely breakfast time and no living being would be okay eating lunch at 8 am, so 8 am was safe to wake up and check messages and plan accordingly... it was totally that logic, and not the fact Sorrel wanted to make sure he looked as nice as he could despite the fact he was in a sling looking half dead.

Bee curled up at the base of his feet as he drifted off to sleep, and his phone ended up laying right next to his cheek as he finally managed to close his odd eyes. Tomorrow was going to be fun— hopefully in the nice kind of way, not the sarcastic and disastrous kind of way.

𓆣 ☢ Middle Man ☢ 𓆣

Sorrel made it out.

He made it out alive.

He got to talk to his doctor again. He got to see his cat again. He got to see his moths again. He got to see the bees again. He got to see his garden again. He got to go to his date tomorrow— how… would he explain his wounds to his date? Well— now that he escaped alive, he got to think that dilemma through, in his own time.

The food was already in the fridge, already prepared. His outfit was already planned. His weird cat’s meals are already covered by a friendly neighbor. He finished all his chores in the morning. It was fine- he could rest now.

Sorrel, the man dressed as the infamous Gamma-Burn, passed out on a raft in the expansive sewer systems, one of many belonging to the network of Ground Zero. He was lucky that, even though none of these people were exactly his close friends, these people cared for him as he cared for them, like any good society. It was much later when he woke up in a hospital bed, all bandaged up and with a bunch of machines monitoring him.

At least he was alive. At least he made it out alive. And, now, he could go back to his two shipping containers worth of private space, feed his slugcat friend, and go the fuck to sleep.