[Bad decisions are often cumulative, and in the bleak dawn of tomorrow, Sasuke will reflect on this with irony and discontent and a smaller, milder amount of relief that collateral damage was not fatal. Yet when he is accosted on the streets of Mirth with a sampling of goods — Grablenuts, the vendor tells him — he is complacent enough to accept. There is no reason to suspect ill intentions from many of Stygian's citiznes; many are simply trying to live their lives and better their trade with the looming presence of Oblivium's dark corruption at the persistent perimeter of their thoughts. So he cannot begrudge them the distraction of a festival celebration.
And he is hungry. The large, brown nut is foreign to him, but as he peels into the spicy center, he decides that he likes it. After he's finished — hardly noticing yet the blunted warmth of his surroundings — another vendor has offered him a glass of amber liquid. At this point, Sasuke would have turned it down, but he watches himself reach out to accept the drink as though witnessing someone else act on his behalf. The part of his mind thinking, This is a bad idea, doesn't reach the threshold where he restrains himself from doing it. The loss of control is mild, but alarming.
The streetlights are very bright, hung in crisscrossing strings of neon over Mirth's avenues, casting everything in color that occasionally flashes to an unknown rhythm. He can feel the burn in his eyes, luminous halos even behind his eyelids; he feels strange and unfocused, bleary, heart picking up a faster pace as the minutes begin to gel together.
He makes it to the corner of the road. He hears his name called in a too-familiar voice, Sasuke, and whips around — but there is no one there. No phantom of the past; that one remains locked behind the door in the Shadlows. So he leans himself against the post of a streetlight and wills the world around him to stop.]
𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 | feast
And he is hungry. The large, brown nut is foreign to him, but as he peels into the spicy center, he decides that he likes it. After he's finished — hardly noticing yet the blunted warmth of his surroundings — another vendor has offered him a glass of amber liquid. At this point, Sasuke would have turned it down, but he watches himself reach out to accept the drink as though witnessing someone else act on his behalf. The part of his mind thinking, This is a bad idea, doesn't reach the threshold where he restrains himself from doing it. The loss of control is mild, but alarming.
The streetlights are very bright, hung in crisscrossing strings of neon over Mirth's avenues, casting everything in color that occasionally flashes to an unknown rhythm. He can feel the burn in his eyes, luminous halos even behind his eyelids; he feels strange and unfocused, bleary, heart picking up a faster pace as the minutes begin to gel together.
He makes it to the corner of the road. He hears his name called in a too-familiar voice, Sasuke, and whips around — but there is no one there. No phantom of the past; that one remains locked behind the door in the Shadlows. So he leans himself against the post of a streetlight and wills the world around him to stop.]