#I got back from a loooong walk with friends and I'm exhausted

[doctor-amazing]

Mycology

I'm getting a bit twitchy. It's night, or morning, or whatever you'd like to call it. I'd figure out what to call it, myself, except for the fact that my phone's long dead and I can't seem to keep my sense of direction about me.

It's no help that the moon's not out, or the clouds are thick, or maybe I'm just seeing things again.

I think I breathed some of it in back there. That'd explain it. That'd explain a lot, actually.

It was fun, at first— the spelunking, that is. It's one of those things that always sounds intimidating, and awful, but with the right company, anything's a great time. I had my best friend with me, and we'd parked a loooong way down the road from a famous cave that'd been cordoned off.

Supposedly, there were some sort of bioluminescent fungi that lived in the caverns, and they were being studied for some fancy glow-in-the-dark dye.

I need to sit down for a moment. Catch my breath. Telling this story is exhausting, yet I haven't said a word.

The fungi did glow well enough, in any case. We'd passed through the scientific base camp at the mouth— mostly abandoned, since apparently the company was waiting for a grant to finish their work, and that was our opportunity to get into the cave before security came back when there was more to guard.

The only signs of the occupation were two empty tents left standing, and a rack just inside the cave with a few full-body hazmat suits.

It's getting a little hard to move through the forest, now. Half of it's the wood getting thicker, but the other seems to be some sort of fatigue I can feel deep in my lungs. I'm having to huff a few raspy, staccato breaths for every one I'd have to take normally. I'd be more worried about it, but it's been a few hours of walking, so maybe it's just the dust kicking up.

The cave itself wasn't terribly hard to navigate by the light from our phones, and there weren't any crazy drops of tight turns, as luck would have it. We saw rope left haphazardly strewn around some junctions, where perhaps they had seen fit to map elsewhere, but had given up nonetheless.

Eventually, there was a sort of blue glow ahead— at my own insistence, my friend and I both snapped off our flashlights, and we let our eyes adjust to the light of the plant life ahead. Actually, can you even call a mushroom alive?

Turns out, it's not just the dust. I was right about breathing it in, after all. Do you want to know how I know I'm right?

I can feel it.

It's pulsating in my veins. Throbbing. Reaching. Waiting.

It's not patient, and it knows that it's already won the game that was afoot. The one I had no idea I was playing.

The reward for it is a sickening crack that reverberates throughout my body, and after a moment of excruciating pain, one of my arms goes entirely limp. My scream breaks the silence of the woods, but after the moment has passed, I realize my arm is completely numb except for some sort of lingering pinpricks and soreness.

A phantom pain, of sorts.

For a second, it looked like my friend had kicked up a helluva dust cloud from the stone floor, but then the coughing began.

My eyes watered, and I couldn't stop from blinking over and over and over again in a futile effort to get whatever the hell was in the air out of them. I stumbled, ran, and got a few nicks and scratches from whichever walls I got snagged on.

Eventually, enough distance had passed, and with one foot in front of another, I made it near the entrance, in one of the side passages. I looked around, called my friend's name, and then noticed something was off— a flashlight beam pointed at the ceiling, from the bottom of a drop.

I wanted to fucking vomit on the spot.

My eardrums feel like they're splitting apart, but the woods are as silent as ever. I can hear it— them, thrumming inside of me.

It's running through my bones, tearing through my flesh, making a home in my marrow and crevices.

I've scratched my arm to bloody ribbons. I can't tell if the itch is in my fingernails, or the mess it's made.

I figure I must be losing it on several fronts. The thrum of the thing inside of me is unbearable, and it makes me want to rip my ears off and grind the stumps of cartilage on my cranium into paste.

The... rot.

It's screaming at me.

The message, I still can't discern.

There's a pressure somewhere on my back, near my shoulder. It's hard to pinpoint where, but it's getting worse. Almost painful.

I'm still heading through the woods, but my prospects aren't good— I haven't seen the trail in hours, and it's not getting any lighter.

Looking over the cliff, my friend's body was splayed out like a ragdoll at the very bottom. I'd never seen that much blood in my entire life, and the stone piercing his skull glittered crimson in the light of his phone.

I stepped back.

Then took another step.

Then another.

I couldn't stop running, rushing past piles of rope, rushing past the hazmat racks, rushing past the tents, and into the brush beyond.

There wasn't an ounce of sense to my flight, and I lost track of the path immediately in the state I was in. At some point, I tripped, yelling in surprise, and slammed my outstretched hand into a stone on the forest's floor. My phone came up spiderwebbed with cracks.

Somehow, the humming has lightened up. Or maybe I'm adjusting, or maybe I'm beginning to understand it a little. There's a rhythm to it, as horrific as the wailing is, but it permeates my body, and I'm absorbing it with every second.

Exposure therapy.

I have something extra, now, to make up for this swollen, useless mess of an arm. Just above the shoulder blade, there's... something. It's new. Alien. I can't express what it's like to have something like that where it shouldn't be.

I can't tell if I'm horrified or pleased.

My other arm seems to have a mind of its own, too. A few times, it's swung at nothing, and the feeling is beginning to fade in a way that's entirely unlike the first. It's... slow, and patchy. Sometimes I can feel it, and sometimes I can't.

If I don't focus on keeping it still, it gets numb and starts to work on it's own accord. Like having your eyes pulled somewhere else every second.

I stop, breathless, and vomit something dark and red onto the forest floor. Something chunky. My breaths come ragged, and I come to the slow realization I don't know where I am.

My mind is everywhere, but I manage to keep my head up and keep moving. Any direction is better than here, so I'll start walking.

I'm twitching a lot, now. It's hard to see, but maybe it's just dark. It hurts, but it says it'll stop soon. It says we're close, that it can see the lights. Lights. Home. Food. I can hardly move by myself. The new growth is unfamiliar, so it helps me move sometimes. It says that it'd be better if I just let it lead for a little while, so I can sleep. Rest. It says that when I wake up again, it'll have found some food. That sounds nice.

I'm very hungry, after all.

I think I'll let it handle the rest.

#doctor night terrors #body horror #the thing #psychological horror #caving #spelunking #haha johnathan you are consuming my consciousness

[pocket-void]

Why don’t any of you pay attention when you always have the privilege to see?

Orange without his big toothy grin looks really off to me, though that’s just because he doesn’t drop it often in front of people.

I literally…can’t stop thinking about this guy… So I’m gonna talk about him in some more depth for fun! (And also so I can get it outta my system o///o) I drew him a couple times before this, but just to be clear, he’s a personal version of the Orange side I made. Though it’s not really a theory, since I am 100% sure I am incorrect, this is just purely for my own enjoyment because I ended up?? Really liking him as a character??? W h o o p s. >///<

So yeah, don’t mind me as I just talk about him a bit... It’s just some random scattered notes about him I really want to put down somewhere...

He does have a name, but I’m not gonna talk about it for now. 

He represents a bunch of things, but his main embodiment is that of anger, mostly in the form of blind rage. He is 100% blind most of the time and possesses dull brown-orange eyes. The only circumstance in which he can see is when he wears Logan’s glasses, and his eyes turn blue within that duration of time. Due to his disability, he tends to jokingly ask people to do him favors, but he actually kind of despises the fact that he’s blind. Not because he can’t see though, it’s because he thinks everyone else is taking their own sight for granted. His eyesight is actually scarily clear when he can actually see, and it makes him think other people are wasting it. (He’s actually more perceptive because he can’t see normally)

It’s incredibly important to remember that Orange is in fact, another aspect of Logic. He is based on the real life phenomena in which anger can sharpen one’s critical thinking and concentration in small doses. Wearing Logan’s glasses gives him the clarity he needs to rip people’s arguments apart, and he is particularly efficient at bringing up things people often overlook as evidence for his case. He’s sharp, but also incredibly blunt and straight to the point, as funny as that sounds. He’s who takes the reigns when regular logical reasoning fails, and he’s no where near as nice or understanding. If he goes too far however, Logan’s glasses will break and he’ll turn blind again and lash out. If it goes farther than that he’ll actually also start to lose hearing. Which makes him really destructive in the long term, and while Orange is fully aware of that, he can’t help but get carried away sometimes. Which is why he only ever gets to do anything if Logan is out of commission.

Now that’s him when he’s serious, but most of the time he’s actually kind of a big goof. He’s got this really blasé and laid back attitude to him, which mostly stems from the fact that he doesn’t have much to do. I describe him as a rat bastard because I love depicting him as a gremlin, and he most certainly can be. He is also 100% the type of guy to take threats seriously for fun, and will throw down with you if you suggest it. He’s awfully perceptive and knows when chaos is happening but will still be that guy who says he “can’t see” the problem and laugh. Honestly not one above causing trouble just for the fun of it. He’s sly, often coy, and acts like he doesn’t take anything seriously, which is why when he does, he really does. He tends to think that things would be much easier if he was allowed to look at the issue, but his impatience when dealing with things is probably why he’s not the one usually in the driver’s seat.

Another important thing to note that alongside anger, he actually partially represents self respect. Similar to how Janus is self preservation alongside deceit. Orange is completely focused on the self, and will argue things accordingly to benefit that. He’s that voice that tells you that you don’t deserve to be treated that way or that wanting to be treated better isn’t an unreasonable request and pushes you to actively fight for and demand it. That attitude is where his relationship with Logan kind of fits into the puzzle, and while I find their dynamic interesting I think it’d take too long to actually get into and this is already plenty self indulgent as it is fajkfbeg. Note that he’s not ego, he is very different from self esteem. He’s more like the embodiment of “Being garbage still doesn’t mean that I get to take shit from you”. 

He habitually chews things, which is why the collar of his shirt is absolutely destroyed. When he’s really antsy, he also bites his nails. He likes to call people by color because it’s the most identifiable thing about them from what he remembers during his short periods of sight. Except Patton, who he probably calls “Pops”, in a more sarcastic way if anything. Since they probably disagree a ton.

There’s a funky mafia? AU I imagined with him in it, but thaaaat’s not gonna be elaborated on any time soon. I also semi-made a playlist for him for fun.

Thanks for reading my rambles? If you’re here?? Honestly I just like him a lot for some reason, hhhh- >///< I have fun imagining stuff for him, but I can’t really say how much I’ll actually use him. I just like talking about things way too much akjfbakegt. See ya around! u///u

#I got back from a loooong walk with friends and I'm exhausted #so here's some barely coherent rambling #mockdoodles #sanders sides doodles #orange side #scars #Marcus