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[skinandbone]

Metody has reached a breaking point.

This delusion is not fading. If anything, it is becoming stronger and more elaborate. There are more people now, not just the disturbingly hordes of empty people that Metody can write off as the repetition of a hallucinating mind, but real people. They have histories and motivations and they interact in strange ways, and they are so intricately real that he cannot explain them as echoes in his mind.

And there is detail. Every rock, every tree, every dried autumn leaf he can find - they're all different. Even things that are manufactured to be similar, like bricks, even those have tiny variations. A flick of lighter brick here, a different pattern of sooty inclusions, a little scrawl of dirt there - all different. And it all leads him to conclusions that make him feel overwhelmed and reckless, and massively self destructive. In another person, this might translate to wandering through traffic or climbing on ledges, but Metody has a more indirect form of risky behavior:

Somewhere in the city, there is a quiet flurry of clicks. Something scrapes at the mouth of a storm drain, and then a waving spine extends to quiver on the air. A moment later, the creature pours out after, tapping along on a multitude of skittering rib-legs, bold and open in the sunlight.

There are other creatures, elsewhere. In the library, a delicate mouse-thing darts along the tops of the shelves, peeking down at people with a multitude of eyes it doesn't have. In the forest, octopus-like things made of ringed pelvises and far too many spines writhe over rocks and trees. And in the sewers, the heavy dog-like skulls splash down the tunnels, lurching on their too-many legs. All of them spread out, dragging or darting, ranging through Taxon in a dizzied search for the repeated patterns or hidden symbols that would prove it's all just a crazy dream.

Comments

[skinandbone]

Maybe with extremely old cheese? The little mouse-like thing continues along the shelf, then perks up, sensing Long. It turns and dances down the sheer cliff of the front of the vertical supports, pausing at roughly face height to study him.

[imperial_long]

Long's brows cliiiiiimb up to somewhere near his hairline, but he doesn't pull away, just eyes the little inquisitive thing.

After thinking it over, he raises one hand, knuckles out, as if expecting a cat to sniff at it.

"....hello."

[skinandbone]

The dome of its skull lifts up, branching into a feathery multitude of hinged jaws. They twitch over his hand, light as air, then fold down again. It considers whatever it learned from the brief investigation, then attempts to climb onto the proffered hand.

[imperial_long]

Long clears his throat. It's a slightly uncertain sound. Wary, but not fearful. Still, he doesn't move his hand; he holds still at the dry clattery insectoid bone legs clamber onto his own somewhat-bony hand. The white of ossified matter is very pale against Long's dark skin.

He draws his hand closer to better inspect the clicking little bone horror, brows knit together. His other hand hunts in the desk for his tablet.

[skinandbone]

It settles on his hand, allowing for mutual observation.

It only looks like a mouse at first glance. The head has far too many eye sockets, ringed all the way around the false brain case. It has a relatively normal spine and rib cage, but the ribs are curved to accommodate three sets of legs. What look like feet are actually miniscule skulls that grip the surface beneath them with open jaws, and there is either a tassel at the end of the creature's tail, or a tiny hand.

It settles down on the back four legs then lifts one of the front to energetically wave at Long. Long! Hi, Long! You're so great, actually letting Metody touch you! Hooray!

[Visual]

[imperial_long]

"Curioser and curioser, as Alice might have said," Mayland says with a little thoughtful hum.

He lifts his tablet with his free hand and uses it to take a few still photographs of the critter, and then he-- somewhat awkwardly, with the use of only one hand, as he is keeping the other still-- opens up a broadcast to the city.

"Excuse me," says Long's voice, background to the visual of his strange hand surmounted by the stranger bone 'mouse' atop it, "but does anyone know what this is?"