wolfishsurvivalist | ✖ anxiety attack: 002 ✖ Quickly progressing to Stage 3 ✖

✖ anxiety attack: 002 ✖ Quickly progressing to Stage 3 ✖

[Phone]

[With much less screaming this time!]

So, I just wanted to say sorry about the other day, and could anyone tell me where the hospital is? Apparently I actually do have a job, but I'm not sure how to get there. Also is it just me, or does the air smell different? I'm a little concerned, lavender always gave me horrible headaches.

Also seriously? What the hell is with this Red Scare? I knew this was supposed to be a 1950's knockoff, but this is just insane!

[339 Brady Lane]

Okay, guys? I don't know when I'll be back but there's a platter of pancakes on the kitchen counter and a plate of cookies next to it. You are not allowed to eat the whole plate of cookies before I get back, I didn't get to have any yet because they were too hot. I'll bite you if they're all gone when I get home.

[Where she found the ingredients for either of those is a mystery~!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well of course, we're up against brainwashed drones after all. Pod people, not quite as funny when they're not on TV anymore.

Oh thank God. The last thing anyone needs is me fainting or losing it over the gurney somehow.

[She shakes her head, looking sheepish.]

It's a bad combination of blood-related anxiety and the compulsion to eat a wounded prey animal. Never really something you want people to know, and it's nothing but a problem. Bad enough I used to get teased for it, too.

[Siiigh.]

Sorry, that's...probably really weird to hear.

... a bit. But you're a wolf, that's understandable.

If you don't mind my asking, why don't you give in to the instinct? [It's a scientific question, not at all loaded. She's honestly curious.]

I'm glad you think so.

[Even in the human body, the stare Mika turns on Ema isn't quite human.]

I don't like my food talking back to me. It's weird.

Yeah, I can imagine that being... awkward.

Well, in the interest of saving you a lot of grief--there's a doctor in the hospital, goes by Black Mage. Avoid him. He tends to just kill everyone in his path, which means lots of blood and gore everywhere. He stabbed me to get to the coffee.

Tell me about it.

Black Mage? Are you serious? Like, Dungeons and Dragons or what? Sounds like someone needs an attitude readjustment.

I don't know. But that's the name he goes by.

And yes, he does. He's completely psychopathic, no sense of social considerations or the value of human life at all.

This will be all kinds of fun, I can tell.

Well, if he's really the kind of Black Mage I'm thinking of, it'll make at least a little sense for him to be unhinged. Drawing the power of your magic off of all the dark energies of the cosmos would probably do all kinds of wonders for the brain.

... yeah, that sounds unhealthy. [And kind of impossible. But Ema reserves judgment; she's talking to a wolf, after all.]

I don't know any other people you should avoid off the top of your head. I kind of keep to myself at work, for the most part.

Yeah, it probably would be. Black magic and necromancy are always the worst classes to pick if you want a sane character in most role playing games. Useful to have, but generally creepy.

Well, knowing my luck, I'll probably stumble over them all at some point. That's just how things happen with me.

So you're into games, then? [Small talk! Yay!]

I hope you're wrong about that, for your own sake.

Yeah, I used to play all the time, before the ghost town mess happened. Then with the whole assassination thing, I spent too much time in the hospital and they didn't want me doing too much. So I haven't really gotten the chance to enjoy it much lately.

I hope so too, but if I ever return to normal, I think you'll probably see why I said what I did. I kind of look like a trainwreck happened around me. I wonder if the gunshot wounds will be healed or if I have to recover from them all over again...?

Ghost town mess? Assassination? Gunshot wounds?

...what have you been through?

Well...okay, it's really kind of a long story. See, my friends and I were all a bunch of nerds, and we all liked different kinds of games and stuff, right? Well, a bunch of us liked horror stuff, and one of my friends heard about a local haunted house. We thought it'd be okay to just drive over and take a few pictures, check it out for ourselves and laugh a little because seriously, most of that stuff is just hoaxes or urban legends, so we didn't see any harm in it.

Well, usually anyway. I picked up a weird smell and started to follow it once we were actually in the house. The whole house felt a little off to me so I didn't really think much of it until my hackles stood on end while I was going down the basement stairs. They think I tripped and knocked my head on one of the low beams and fell all the way down. I don't remember any of it because when I woke up, I was in this spooky little town that was practically either ripped straight out of Stephen King's The Mist or a Japanese horror movie. Probably a bit of both. I had no sense of time while I was there, I mean, days passed and stuff but everything turned into one huge blur after a while. The whole town was haunted, all the locals were dead, and any attempt out of the town itself was completely futile. Kinda the same way it is here. Just when you think you're out you find yourself running right back in where you started from.

I...I think I actually died a couple times while I was there. Usually because a ghost got me or one of the local eldritch abominations caught me before I could escape. I just remember either being scared out of my mind or in unbearable amounts of pain, then I'd black out and wake up later somewhere completely different and my watch would be a couple days ahead. There was one time I woke up in a pool of my own blood, which scared me half to death and I really don't remember much about that, but I guess I managed to find some gauze or something since I didn't lose it completely.

Anyway, one day I came to back in the dingy basement with my friends standing over me shaking me awake. My head was throbbing like I'd knocked it on something, and I had a huge welt on my forehead. Apparently I'd only been unconscious for a few moments, and my watch was set to the right time. Everyone was looking at me funny though, and I was freaking out because I couldn't tell where I was and thought I was still in the town. They all thought I was crazy, but suddenly half my hair was white and I was thirty pounds lighter and my clothes were trashed. No one knew what to think, but we all figured we'd better leave that house right away. We were on our way back to the car when we found my notebook out in front of the house.

I'd been using it to stay sane in the ghost town, sort of like a diary. I wrote notes about how many days I'd thought had passed, which ghosts I'd run into, what was safe, what places weren't. All my notes, they filled the whole notebook and a couple pieces of loose paper I'd stuffed in as well. My notebook was a wreck, about as much as I was. I grabbed it and we high-tailed it out of there as fast as the car could drive. None of us really wanted to talk about it. My heath's been weird ever since, but there's nothing I can really do about it, you know? This isn't the kind of stuff you can tell a psychologist or a doctor.

Anyway, I moved in with a friend a little while back. She's in the special forces, does stuff that you can't really talk about or they have to shoot you kind of thing, right? Anyway, I was at home by myself when two guys break down the front door. I freaked out, started shouting. There was a fight, but they figured I was too much of a bother so they shot me. Three shots, but I was moving too much so they didn't kill me right away. One of them hit me in the throat, and I could've sworn I was going to die there for real, right in the front hall.

I think the neighbors heard the noise and called it in for once. I spent weeks in the hospital, and I'd just been released and was on my first day home when I woke up here.

[She droops with a sigh, scuffing her feet.]

I don't even know why I said all that, it sounds really stupid, I'm sorry.

[Ema just listens quietly, her frown growing over the course of the story. It's bizarre, but at the same time she can't dismiss it out of hand. After all, they're both here.]

I... wow. Don't apologize. That's traumatic. And that kind of trauma takes time to work through--I'm impressed that you're not completely catatonic.

I spend a lot of time trying not to scream, if that helps at all.

[Her smile shows too many teeth and seems incredibly wobbly.]

Which is why I probably started screaming as soon as I arrived. I don't think anyone was really happy about it.

Whatever coping mechanisms you need to use. I can understand it.

[Ema pats Mika's shoulder as they keep walking.]

I'm sorry I asked, if it's still so traumatic for you. You didn't have to elaborate.

No, it's fine, it's just for some reason I started talking and I couldn't stop. Then again, I haven't actually been able to talk about this to anybody. Nobody that was at that house ever talks about it, I can't take it to a professional, and everyone else thinks I'm crazy if I even mention it.

So I guess in a way, it's kind of a relief? I mean, what else can I do about it? What is there that I could do?

... That's fair enough.

For what it's worth, there are a couple of licensed people you can talk to in town. Harley Quinn and Dr. Crane both have degrees and a great deal of experience in the field. I don't know about Dr. Crane, but Harley's a surprisingly good ear.

Just... she's kind of weird. Word of warning.

[Mika's expression is slightly disturbed at the names she's offered, but she holds her tongue, despite looking like she wants to say something.

After a while she finally sighs, looking worried again.]

Are you sure they won't go all weird on me? The last thing I want is to end up drugged out of my mind or on shock therapy.

Well... Harley won't? For what that's worth. I talked to her about some things that were getting me down here, and she was a surprising amount of help. She's bored and has the degree, so it's worth a try.

Well, maybe, but even if I started opening up and babbling on and on at you for I don't even know what reasons, I'm actually terrified of other people. I've been scared of new people ever since I got back from the ghost town, and the assassination really only made it worse.

I know you mean well, but I'm too scared to talk to people about this on my own. I don't know why I'm just spewing it out today, it's a little unsettling.

Okay. But since I already know, you can talk to me if you need to. It's not healthy to keep stuff bottled up like that.

I know, I just didn't know who I could go to. So...Thanks, Ema. I mean that.

You're welcome.

We need to stick together. Here more than anywhere.

[Mika looks strangely moved!

T-tailwags!]

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YOU DID NOT SEE THE FAIL.

TOTALLY DID.

NUH-UH.

Yuh-huh! >T

;_;

....hugs? (\;; 3 ;;/)

<3

~ ♥