Scrap City: Duel Days

[King-Clod]

You wake up with a jolt. You’re hyperventilating, drenched in sweat. Your vision is all out of focus.

Frick.

You squeeze your eyes shut and press your palms against your forehead. You try to concentrate on slowing your breathing. 

It’s alright. You’re alright. It was only a nightmare. You deal with those all the time. Usually better than you are right now, you’d add. 

You slowly open your eyes.

Get it together. 

You pull the blanket and sheets off of yourself. You’re overheated enough as it is.

This nightmare was different from the usual, though. Same plot, same awful sinking feeling, sure, but the meat of it was all wrong. The perspective? The monologue? The separation from your body? The colorless, endless, hopeless void the dream took place in? It was eerily similar to your usual, but ever so, ever so slightly different. Which was almost more terrifying than the dream itself.

You sit up.

Was it about moving? Was it because this was your first night away from home in a while? Big changes can take a bit to adjust to, and while you were never one to get homesick, it wouldn’t be too out of line to have a bad dream because of it. Yeah. That could be it. You aren’t…
You aren’t really sure sure what else it could be.

You grab your phone off of the side table next to your bed. The time at the top reads 12:00 PM, and you have a few unread texts from your mom. 

{What do you do next?}

[cosmo]

ignore texts from mom for now, look up pictures of something cute and cuddly to help you calm down more. once you feel calmer you can read your moms texts and text her back.

[seppawku]

is this when you usually get up? ^ though, don’t stress about answering asap. take a minute to breathe

[knux400]

Webdings 1, translation in spoilers.

Show ContentSpoiler:

But you just can't help but make the same mistakes over and over again, can you? You're quite a creature of habit.

Let's take a moment to calm down. Just breathe for a few moments before we look at the texts.

[King-Clod]

ignore texts from mom for now, look up pictures of something cute and cuddly to help you calm down more. once you feel calmer you can read your moms texts and text her back.

 

is this when you usually get up? ^ though, don’t stress about answering asap. take a minute to breathe

 

Let's take a moment to calm down. Just breathe for a few moments before we look at the texts.

...Yeah, yeah. You should probably give yourself a moment before reading those. You’re not in any state to write up a response at the moment, and you know that you’ll only worry your mom if you read it but don’t reply. She’s probably worried enough as it is, seeing as you didn’t reply when you got here last night like you had promised to.

 What time is it, anyway? You check the time in the corner of your phone and - dang, is it 12:00 PM already? You know you got to bed late last night, but that’s like 11...no, 12 hours of sleep. You don’t even feel rested. You swear you set an alarm…

 You unlock the phone and swipe to your clock app. It’s... ah. It was set at 9:00 PM instead of AM. That’d do it. You exit the app and stare at your homepage for a moment.

Your eyes drift to your dream journal app. You should probably get around to uninstalling it, you never use it. Of course, that was because you had the same dream every night. Should you…


 Nonono you don’t like think about it let’s not think about it think about something else think of anything else anything anything anything anything gosh, frick you don’t want to fricking think about this anymore. You shut your eyes as tight as you can and focus on your breathing. 



 You let your eyelids and shoulders relax. 




 You swallow the lump in your throat and imagine cat type TCPs and try to repeat words of confirmation to yourself. All of the words sound hollow to you, if you were being completely honest, but it does well enough to get your mind off of the fr ? icking thing you aren’t. G ? ing. T ? o. Think. Abou ? t. 
 O?H COME ON.

It’s always something new! It’s always always something new! Like your brain knows you’re trying to avoid thinking of something, so it throws you right back into it!

You open up your eyes and swipe straight to your gallery. You’ll ask Junelle for the wifi password when you get downstairs, but for now old videos are going to have to do. Usually deep breathing helps, but you just can’t take being alone with your thoughts anymore. Not right now. You really hope this doesn’t become a pattern. 

You swipe through old selfies (cringing a bit at the half smirk you used for them) old pictures of the family pet, pictures from the Lionheart family reunion last year, and other useless photos of random junk at weird angles. (You had tried being a photographer for a little while. It didn’t stick.) You finally find a video after a great deal of scrolling, from about… 8 years ago, goodness. You click play.
 
“Heya Gamers and Goo-Heads! Welcome to my 3rd video!!! Today we’re going to be unboxing 3 box sets of Personality Chess cards, pulling pranks on my little brother (not clickbait!), and hang-gliding off the ROOF! Trust me guys, it’s gonna be SIIIIIIIICCC-”

You pause the video. Thank goodness you never posted this one. The minute your dad saw you climbing up a ladder to the roof with his old busted up hang glider he revoked your phone for a month. You were crushed - taking month long breaks is a death sentence for channels like yours, especially early on...though in all honesty your channel wasn’t ever good enough for that to matter. It’s odd, looking at the still image of yourself (trying to do a backflip) and knowing that was you at one point. You barely have the nerve to step outside now, let alone nearly break your leg attempting to hang glide off the roof. You wonder what happened to her. Sometimes you wonder if your family misses her. Heck, you certainly miss having two eyes.

You close the app and turn off your phone. Nothing’s helping. You should probably take a cold shower to clear your head. 

You try your best not to look in the mirror as you pass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shower does little to clear your head. You’ll...text your mom after breakfast. You still aren’t sure you’re in a good state to reply to her text just yet.

 You remind yourself of who you are, what you can control, and what you can’t.

 What is your name?

 What are your pronouns?

 What do you want to wear today?

[Shifter55]

For clothes... maybe something light that you can put layers over to start? What's the weather like?
As for pronouns... She/This?

[BlueCrowned]

Maybe your name is Cassandra and your pronouns are she/it. You could wear something basic and easy, that you don't have to think about.

[cosmo]

cozy sweater and leggings can't go wrong

she/it pronouns?

i'm bad at names....

[Lilium Mortem]

Connie, She/it, Bomber jacket over abstract T-shirt, pleated skirt, and high heeled boots.