Page 1607

((The 17 pages of St. Patrick's Day + Triple Saturday -- Page 11 of 20))
There was no compartmentalizing his thoughts this time. No way to disassociate himself from the confusion and agony. His mind was consumed in full, and he thought he saw all manner of things which defied comprehension or even visual cohesion.

Monsters with faces. Humanoid but distorted. Distended. Burning with light or fire or energy or some other thing that he couldn’t even conceptualize. The colors, the fury, the chaos, the madness. Raw emotion made flesh. Raw flesh made emotion.

It was too much. Far, far too much. And he was naked against it. No armor to protect him. Not even a body to contain him. Just everything--everything pouring through his mind and his soul, carving through him like a million knives, until suddenly--

Suddenly.

Suddenly, it wasn’t. Suddenly, there was nothing.

No. Not nothing. It was all still there. But it felt like it was “outside,” somehow. As if he’d found shelter. Like a little cabin in a blizzard.

And then, as if the very thought manifested itself into truth, it was a little cabin in a blizzard.

It wasn’t quite right, perhaps. Still blurry and wispy and ethereal. But a cabin, nonetheless.

“Interesting choice,” came an encompassing voice. A familiar one, too.

Hector was still trying to process everything, though. He hadn’t gone insane, he was pretty sure. “W-wh... a-ah...” The words died in his fumbling mouth.

Did he even have a mouth?

He couldn’t tell.

“How are you, Young Hector?” the voice said, all full of comfort and certainty--two things that Hector very much appreciated, at the moment.

“I... I don’t... ah...”

“It is alright. You are well. You are having a difficult moment, but you are well.”

Whose voice was that? It felt so clear and familiar to him. It felt like it should have been obvious. But he was still so confused. He’d just come in from the blizzard. He needed to warm up. To center himself.

“Take as long as you need.”

He tried to focus. To find his thoughts. To hold them.

And he did. He had no idea how long it took, but he did.

“I am glad,” the voice said.

“Who...?” As soon as the word left his thoughts, Hector realized the answer. “...Rasalased.”

“Hello.”

Hector thought he felt himself smile. “...How are we speaking like this?”

“We are not. And yet perhaps we are.”

Maybe he should have seen that response coming. “...What?”

“Does the method matter?”

“...Why wouldn’t it?”

Rasalased laughed. “I am but a shadow of myself here. In your mind. The piece of me which I placed within you in order to make up for the piece I took.”

“...Hmm.”

“You are feeling better.”

It wasn’t a question, Hector realized. It was an observation. “Yeah, I guess I am...”

“That is good.”

“Rasalased, what the hell is happening, right now?”

“I am preventing you from losing yourself to insanity.”

“...Oh. Uh. Well, thank you, in that case.”

“You are welcome.”