In the background, a tesseract danced over the piles of thoughts like a fourth-dimensional tumbleweed.
Dustin had adopted the lotus position, hands folded on his knees and eyes closed, balancing with an air and posture that, oddly enough, managed to make him look far lighter than usual, as if floating on the blank floor rather than falling into it. His steel gray overcoat had found its place as a pillow upon which he was sitting, revealing frail, relaxed shoulders; his mass of dark brown hair, normally ragged and heavy in the hallway lighting, had a certain weightlessness to it here, a softness and translucence uncanny. He was completely absorbed in himself and his task of mental sorting.
Thus, Alice went unnoticed for the time. As did Alex-the shrill whisper fell on ears currently listening to memories and thoughts, which played through the air in grainy strips of compact words and numbers and symbols, black in parallel, glowing like colored lenses at the right angles, wherein they fell into the designated piles upon the white floor and folded themselves neatly together.
Behind closed lids, Dustin's eyes were swimming as if in a dream.
Alex caught up to Alice and scooped her up into his arms. She didn't seemed too thrilled to be taken away from the person she had so wanted to investigate, but she obediently resigned herself to roam across Alex's shoulders.
Alex then stared around the sensorium in wonderment. His mind wasn't entirely sure what to do with all of these thoughts flowing around him, folding themselves neatly into piles.
Was he meditating?
Alex felt that he should probably leave, but he found himself rooted to the ground in awe.
It took a moment--and several curious thoughts, impeded by the faint heat radiating from the two small bodies nearby, subtle but present regardless of quantity--for the scenery to change. It was a sudden change, yet not immediately recognizable to the inattentive observer:
Someone was here. Scenarios of who it could be played out in stray tangents that flickered over the landscape, leaving shadows of their constructed scripts for Alex to watch should he catch them whilst they faded. In this corner there were the distant memories of a childhood long forgotten, an embrace he would never again experience yet always remember in whatever warped sense it became, the specters of his youth. And in that corner there were the other familiar ghosts, the textured rub of a small creature against his calf, the brilliant laugh displayed not in sound but in splashes of orange and gold and green that suggested the sound all on their own, a cold, trusting sort of reliance that could apply to any number of people both familiar to this location and to the one where he originated. And in that corner just opposite, like a tumor rising from the turmoil, smoke bubbled and crept in icy fingers towards the infinite ceiling, creating quick outlines of glowing, beady eyes that, however brief they showed themselves, remained imprinted along with a strong heat like a gust of hellish wind.
But all were abandoned in favor of a curious flash of indefinable nonsense, which, for the brevity of its stay, nonetheless managed to imprint what Alex may or may not recognize as his own semblance of being, coupled eerily with the notion that he was being watched.
Dustin had turned his head slightly and was looking up. His pupils were still in the process of acclimating; previously they had been nonexistent, leaving only the glassy circles of emerald green blankly staring into the whiteness that stared right back.
Alex spun, trying to catch all that was changing about him, but it was impossible. Alex noticed the eyes and focused on it. They chilled him to his very core, though he knew that it was just an illusion. He was enraptured by the gaze until a flash of... he could tell in an odd way that it was himself, even though there were no words or images that really defined him in there. It was a sense of being that he actually was rather accustomed to viewing parts of the world in. If they weren't numbers and code strings, they were even more abstract, making them rather non-communicable. That way of thinking had always been a part of why he had trouble speaking with other people. That communication gap where he just couldn't express himself.
Then Dustin's voice cut through his thoughts. Alex looked down at him, rather frightened. No, he didn't need anything, though he had wanted to apologize for the other day. Still he wasn't quite capable of getting the words together in his head to express exactly what it was that he wanted to say.
"I-I... er, n-no, but..." Well, if Dustin could project that sort of thought into the sensorium, why couldn't he? He gave it a shot, and a sort of weak sense fluttered around him, the very thought was unsure of itself and it's own ability to form, but it expressed through a sort of sixth sense with the aid of colours and flashes of various images and scents that might not have meant exactly the same thing to Dustin as it did to Alex.
He frowned, sure that he had failed to communicate his regret for his attitude when they had first met, and that he was sensitive about the only thing he knew himself to be capable of, and that he really had just wanted to help that whole time, but he had a hard time being able to communicate well with other people, and that it tended to make him just feel worse about himself, and to feel angry, and that he really shouldn't have acted as he did, and that he should have just listened and not taken offence so easily. He, in his own form of thinking had actually done a perfectly fine job of projecting those thoughts, but that didn't mean that Dustin thought in the same matter as he did, even if his manner of thought was off from the average person's.
To try to make up for the perceived failure in communication, Alex stuttered, "I jus'... I suppose I wanted ta apologize for the way I acted the other day, there was lots wrong with it, and I really, well, s-sorry."
Dustin had adopted the lotus position, hands folded on his knees and eyes closed, balancing with an air and posture that, oddly enough, managed to make him look far lighter than usual, as if floating on the blank floor rather than falling into it. His steel gray overcoat had found its place as a pillow upon which he was sitting, revealing frail, relaxed shoulders; his mass of dark brown hair, normally ragged and heavy in the hallway lighting, had a certain weightlessness to it here, a softness and translucence uncanny. He was completely absorbed in himself and his task of mental sorting.
Thus, Alice went unnoticed for the time. As did Alex-the shrill whisper fell on ears currently listening to memories and thoughts, which played through the air in grainy strips of compact words and numbers and symbols, black in parallel, glowing like colored lenses at the right angles, wherein they fell into the designated piles upon the white floor and folded themselves neatly together.
Behind closed lids, Dustin's eyes were swimming as if in a dream.
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Alex then stared around the sensorium in wonderment. His mind wasn't entirely sure what to do with all of these thoughts flowing around him, folding themselves neatly into piles.
Was he meditating?
Alex felt that he should probably leave, but he found himself rooted to the ground in awe.
Reply
Someone was here. Scenarios of who it could be played out in stray tangents that flickered over the landscape, leaving shadows of their constructed scripts for Alex to watch should he catch them whilst they faded. In this corner there were the distant memories of a childhood long forgotten, an embrace he would never again experience yet always remember in whatever warped sense it became, the specters of his youth. And in that corner there were the other familiar ghosts, the textured rub of a small creature against his calf, the brilliant laugh displayed not in sound but in splashes of orange and gold and green that suggested the sound all on their own, a cold, trusting sort of reliance that could apply to any number of people both familiar to this location and to the one where he originated. And in that corner just opposite, like a tumor rising from the turmoil, smoke bubbled and crept in icy fingers towards the infinite ceiling, creating quick outlines of glowing, beady eyes that, however brief they showed themselves, remained imprinted along with a strong heat like a gust of hellish wind.
But all were abandoned in favor of a curious flash of indefinable nonsense, which, for the brevity of its stay, nonetheless managed to imprint what Alex may or may not recognize as his own semblance of being, coupled eerily with the notion that he was being watched.
Dustin had turned his head slightly and was looking up. His pupils were still in the process of acclimating; previously they had been nonexistent, leaving only the glassy circles of emerald green blankly staring into the whiteness that stared right back.
"Do you need something?"
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Then Dustin's voice cut through his thoughts. Alex looked down at him, rather frightened. No, he didn't need anything, though he had wanted to apologize for the other day. Still he wasn't quite capable of getting the words together in his head to express exactly what it was that he wanted to say.
"I-I... er, n-no, but..." Well, if Dustin could project that sort of thought into the sensorium, why couldn't he? He gave it a shot, and a sort of weak sense fluttered around him, the very thought was unsure of itself and it's own ability to form, but it expressed through a sort of sixth sense with the aid of colours and flashes of various images and scents that might not have meant exactly the same thing to Dustin as it did to Alex.
He frowned, sure that he had failed to communicate his regret for his attitude when they had first met, and that he was sensitive about the only thing he knew himself to be capable of, and that he really had just wanted to help that whole time, but he had a hard time being able to communicate well with other people, and that it tended to make him just feel worse about himself, and to feel angry, and that he really shouldn't have acted as he did, and that he should have just listened and not taken offence so easily. He, in his own form of thinking had actually done a perfectly fine job of projecting those thoughts, but that didn't mean that Dustin thought in the same matter as he did, even if his manner of thought was off from the average person's.
To try to make up for the perceived failure in communication, Alex stuttered, "I jus'... I suppose I wanted ta apologize for the way I acted the other day, there was lots wrong with it, and I really, well, s-sorry."
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