⇝002 // voice

[patchworkdoctor]

..Hello?

_{I'm not sure where I am. Where have I come to...?}


I think...


I'm lost.

Comments

[madscientits]

[There's a barely audible irritated sigh, and she sounds tired. So tired...] Where did you wander off to this time? [She's somewhere between angry and just wanting to break down and sob hysterically. And try as she might, it still shows in her voice.]

[patchworkdoctor]

Dunno. It's different here.

_{It's not like the hallway at all.}

[madscientits]

Tell me what's around you, then. Books? Flowers? I need more of a description than "different".

[patchworkdoctor]

Right... now...

<sub>[he starts talking, low and fast, under his breath; she'll have to strain to hear him, but if she does:]

Planets, planets surrounded by planets, and stars, everywhere. Kind of like looking at the sky but I feel like I'm in the sky, floating and watching and- oh. Oh no. It's happening again. I don't know why it happens or why it won't stop happening but it keeps going, it keeps- everything flexes and vibrates and dies, and all those people, all those places, they all just disappear--

[he starts to giggle, and it gets loud and high-pitched before cutting off. his frantic breathing can be heard for a second, and a loud swallow.]</sub>

They never really had a chance. They never really do. I keep watching them all die, over and over again. All those pretty planets and stars. Gone. All gone.

[madscientits]

[She thinks, trying to overlay what she knew about the tower from exploring - and searching for him. Or tailing him to make sure he didn't get hurt or hurt someone else - with what she could hear him rambling about. She knew the floor he was probably talking about, unless the ranting about astronomy was just a hallucination, in which case, she'd just need to search the entire tower top to bottom.]

Don't move, I'll be right there.

[patchworkdoctor]

I... can't. I can't move.

_{[a little giggle.]}

Can't move. Can't do it. Won't. Scared.

<sub>What if I fall into all those stars. What if I die with everyone else?

[snicker.]

I don't think it'd be all that bad.</sub>

[madscientits]

[She knows, logically, that won't happen. She knows, logically, that he's not going to go anywhere. When he gets too lost, he always waits around for her to guide him back home. But she still feels her heartbeat quicken and the panic rise in her soul, and she starts running up flights of stairs, skipping over steps, two, three at a time.

And somewhere behind all that, a desire to laugh, to giggle, to just... Give up and let it infect her as badly as it has done to him.

She pushes past it, she always does, and makes it up to the twelfth floor. Slowly, she walks towards him, like she was approaching an injured animal (she was, maybe, in a way) and gently puts a hand on his shoulder.]

It's okay, I'm here now.