It's the thought flickering on and off through Hugh's head as he wanders blindly from place to place as prompted by Proto-Gen staff. Things were different at first - an initiation or something, the little robot had said, because it immediately noted his oncoming panic attack at waking up under strange, vaguely medical circumstances, interrupted its chuffed little greeting as he vaulted off the bed to grab it and--
Well. The second time he comes around, his head hurts from the fall and he's just a bit more cooperative. Hard not to be when you feel so remarkably, unabatedly dogshit and don't have that little extra bit of push from animal panic. He feels like he's stumbling over his own feet on the walk to orientation, like his tongue is too big for his mouth. Fighting a combination of the flu and the world's worst hangover wrapped all in one, body just radiating malaise.
It's so quiet now. Not in the room - in his head.
He'd known (known without knowing, something inherent, a number he could spit out on the spot and not have any idea where it came from) that there were just under seven hundred of them linked to him now. Some had died, lessened the burden - but he'd still had six hundred and eighty-seven thrumming behind his eyes at all times, and the constant dull roar of their existences hadn't left him alone for even a moment. Lives that weren't his, dreams that came from someone else. Sometimes it had been hard to figure out which ones were his own anymore.
Not until now. The connection is cut. He's alone again.
(He's not. But when you've spent so long being so many people in bits and pieces, another soul doesn't feel like so much, does it? Probably softens the emptiness a bit. Lulls him easy out of the hivemind, keeps him company in ways he isn't even conscious of.)
So, yeah. It could very well be worse. Has been worse all this time. He's probably one of the few that comes out of orientation just a bit brighter, his steps a bit easier - who presses his palm over the stitches and finds some measure of wonder, not horror, in the sting. Picks up his things and sets out immediately, nevermind the warnings, because he needs - he's planetside again, he has to--
Has to see the sky. Right now. Sunlight hits his face and he has to fight to keep his composure, eyes shut, chest pulling deep into air that smells like city and people and outside and life, not some hyper-filtered dead oxygen only meant to keep him alive. Has to hear birds and breeze and the soft drift of distant conversation, and absolutely, positively nothing else.
It's probably a good thing he takes six or seven steps and immediately passes out in the street. He'd hate for anyone to see him this misty-eyed.
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introspection
It's the thought flickering on and off through Hugh's head as he wanders blindly from place to place as prompted by Proto-Gen staff. Things were different at first - an initiation or something, the little robot had said, because it immediately noted his oncoming panic attack at waking up under strange, vaguely medical circumstances, interrupted its chuffed little greeting as he vaulted off the bed to grab it and--
Well. The second time he comes around, his head hurts from the fall and he's just a bit more cooperative. Hard not to be when you feel so remarkably, unabatedly dogshit and don't have that little extra bit of push from animal panic. He feels like he's stumbling over his own feet on the walk to orientation, like his tongue is too big for his mouth. Fighting a combination of the flu and the world's worst hangover wrapped all in one, body just radiating malaise.
It's so quiet now. Not in the room - in his head.
He'd known (known without knowing, something inherent, a number he could spit out on the spot and not have any idea where it came from) that there were just under seven hundred of them linked to him now. Some had died, lessened the burden - but he'd still had six hundred and eighty-seven thrumming behind his eyes at all times, and the constant dull roar of their existences hadn't left him alone for even a moment. Lives that weren't his, dreams that came from someone else. Sometimes it had been hard to figure out which ones were his own anymore.
Not until now. The connection is cut. He's alone again.
(He's not. But when you've spent so long being so many people in bits and pieces, another soul doesn't feel like so much, does it? Probably softens the emptiness a bit. Lulls him easy out of the hivemind, keeps him company in ways he isn't even conscious of.)
So, yeah. It could very well be worse. Has been worse all this time. He's probably one of the few that comes out of orientation just a bit brighter, his steps a bit easier - who presses his palm over the stitches and finds some measure of wonder, not horror, in the sting. Picks up his things and sets out immediately, nevermind the warnings, because he needs - he's planetside again, he has to--
Has to see the sky. Right now. Sunlight hits his face and he has to fight to keep his composure, eyes shut, chest pulling deep into air that smells like city and people and outside and life, not some hyper-filtered dead oxygen only meant to keep him alive. Has to hear birds and breeze and the soft drift of distant conversation, and absolutely, positively nothing else.
It's probably a good thing he takes six or seven steps and immediately passes out in the street. He'd hate for anyone to see him this misty-eyed.
(It could be so, so, so much worse.)