Participants:
| Scene Title | Push Me To The Edge |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | An encounter goes awry. |
| Date | June 16, 2018 |
A Tiny Diner
New York's diners tend to attract all sorts of people in the middle of the day. Frank Witchenstein is one such person, sitting at a booth, head laying down on the table, arms lazily sprawled out as well.
His coffee is cold, and if one were to try to gain some sort of empathic read on him, his emotions would feel incredibly dull, while some sense of anger, sadness, and confusion were pushing against the very boundaries of his apparent emotional walls, ready to burst out and tear open the floodgates.
His emotional state isn't that of a normal person's, it's incredibly damaged and repressed beyond measure.
But right now, he's simply entirely shut down, like someone who is resigned to death.
The waitresses haven't said anything yet, he did order that cold coffee.
Being few and far between, those same diners do a decent business when it comes to locals; the food shortages still lingering impact them, though they stay functional- even if it means downsizing. Menus get smaller and supply prices rise, and at some points the fate of them is up in the air.
But, everyone needs to eat- the one constant.
Parking is not exactly a premium outside, so when the grumbling of a motor pulls up outside and shuts off, inspection yields the sight of a large motorbike parked alongside the diner. Its rider does not take long to get in the door, helmet hooked on her fingers. Huruma finds a booth along the wall, setting the helmet down but not content enough to shrug out of her riding jacket. The back and shoulders are stitched with some patches, one of which is the distinctive, pointed-ear emblem of Wolfhound.
While she orders a coffee from the staff, the cycling of her ability pings inward from its passive, sensory state. The wait for the drink is companion to a study from a couple of booths away, Huruma’s pale eyes on the scant menu scribbled out on paper for her to skim. Most of the other patrons are simple reads. The man wallowing around in his repressed state is not.
Frank continues to lay there until a waitress walks over to nudge him, then he finally starts to sit up, reaching for his cold coffee to quickly down the entire thing. Whatever he feels when the waitress pokes at him, it's so dull that it's almost like his feeling has a pillow smothering it. "Sorry." is all he says, then starts to stare down at his menu.
Where most patrons might have all sorts of associated feelings and complex emotions tied to the foods, he just looks through it like someone watching paint dry.
There is one thing that's increasingly present, as his emotional awareness comes to the surface with his conciousness.
He has an increasingly growing frustration, a feeling that tries to grow in strength, but even that is ultimately strangled but whatever keeps everything else down. If it's truly anything keeping them down at all, and not just some strange psychological block, or perhaps something more biological, who knows.
That one feels like a broken egg. Huruma’s hand dips into the sweeteners on the tabletop when a girl brings the coffee past. She keeps it black, sugaring it up to an acceptable level; all the while listening to the clouds around the heads of others, gaze vacant.
Tendrils wrap around the muffled feeling of a smothered reaction, tentatively prodding at the gripping mental hands that push frustration down, again and again. Her probe silently searches for indications of purpose in stilfing himself, seeking to find out if he is just wired as such, or forcing his peace.
Whatever the case may be, a singular talon hooks into the skin of his emotions and tugs lightly, a needling mental touch that pries at the feeling of control subduing the rest. Just to see what happens.
He's definitely not doing it consciously, and when he can feel his heart start to beat, sitting up, panic being the first thing to rise up, looking around. He stands up and starts to pace around around, and people are starting to stare at him.
Frank looks like someone who is starting to completely lose it, and stops in the middle of the diner to hold his stomach, staring down at it. "Something's wrong with me, I don't know what's happening!" he says to no one in particular, tears starting to stream down his face, which is something he felt before, briefly, and it was equally confusing back then.
He drops down to his knees, hunched over, and the waitresses are mumbling things among themselves, while people are trying to figure out how exactly to respond.
Once it is loose, the grip slackens. Frank reacts, and Huruma’s hook remains stuck as if a string to a lid. Her eyes move up from her coffee when she blows air over the top, the mug in her hand steaming faintly.
For a little longer, she watches. People mutter. His emotions scatter like as many marbles.
“Boy.” She is the only one in there to speak up first. The inky black of her pupils remain on the more troubled man. “Come here.”
The lid inches closed on his emotional state, but not the entire way. It stays open, just a crack.
Frank struggles to pull himself up, walking over to her booth to take a seat. He stares down at the table, then looks up at her, his feelings swirling around, one confused emotion shifting into the next as thoughts race and an entire life is re-evaluated all at once.
His breathing is still heavy, ridiculously heavy. "What's going on, what's happening? I'm… I don't know what I am, I don't know what's happening." He's afraid, but he clearly has no idea how to vocalize it.
People are finally starting to calm down, at least.
Huruma’s moodiness showed up in a spell of pettiness, and here we are. Technically he did this to himself. No, that’s something she’d have said a long time ago. Shearing responsibility off and striding out the door, leaving breakdowns and strife and chaos in her wake.
Sometimes being good is not quite as fun.
Crap.
The mug sets down against the table, the woman’s tongue tasting the sugar from the backs of her teeth.
“I think that I know what you are…” Huruma crosses her arms on the edge of the table, leaning forward, eyes still. Her breathing flares at her nose, lips pressed tight. “And it’s practically a mirror.” The maelstrom in Frank’s head begins to piece together, chunk by chunk, the mental winds cooling down as Huruma manufactures a sense of calm in him. The rest, she sorts, pushes, examines like slots of files. Compartmentalization at its best.
“Breathe slower.”
Frank tries to slow his breathing, unbuttoning his blazer, then the first few buttons of his shirt. "What's happening to me?" He sniffs the air, there's something about the smell of the air. Then he flattens a hand against the table, feeling the coldness of it. "This isn't normal, something's wrong with me. There are all of these feelings, I feel like I'm going to die…" Despite any calm, this is entirely out of his element.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” Huruma looks on, eyes lidding and mouth pursing. “That is the breath of life.” She lifts her coffee, an idle movement; the lid creeps closer once more, a slim crack in his subconscious stifling. “But there are some who never experience it. The world becomes foreign. And when they do finally take it in…”
“The world suffocates them.” Her words are not reassuring, though she never breaks eye contact. The shift of her pupils becomes more apparent with the passing time, before it stops completely. Her voice remains smooth, steady. “I have been where you are.”
Click. Huruma’s hook around his body’s emotional blockade disengages, and that invisible lid snips shut.
Frank listens to her, his… whatever he has, running quite deep, enough for his mind to still be responding even as she manipulates his emotions.
When she disengages, he slides from the booth, standing up suddenly. "I have to find Eve Mas!"
Then he just starts running, tossing five dollars to his table.
He's in for a bit of an adventure.
Huruma is left to her own devices as Frank lurches out of the booth and announces his purpose- - promptly picking up his feet and bolting out the door.
“Mmm.” She glances into her coffee, pulling her phone out of her pocket to check the reception. No luck. Looks like Eve will have an unannounced visitor.
Maybe that is fair.