Mouse was no stranger to sleeping in odd locations, but he never found it particularly restful in the Lounge. There was too much going on, most days. So he had to admit, he was rather impressed by the young woman nearby, who appeared to be pretty comfortable on a chair with her knees up to her chest and her chin tucked down, quietly oblivious as she napped.
He was content to read his book by the window, but something began to swell nearby and he glanced over at her. It prickled the back of his neck and slowly worked its way through him to curl up deep in his stomach. The girl’s foot twitched, and she muttered.
Shit. Something was wrong.
As quick as he noticed it growing, it peaked. Nightmares were like that sometimes, when you weren’t the one trapped in them. What seemed like hours in a dream could actually resolve itself into coherent emotion in a few moments, and the closer someone was to waking the more palpable the feeling was for say, a nearby Empath who’d just been minding his own damn business.
The woman jerked awake, breathing heavily, and Mouse was on his feet, over to her in a split second. Her panic latched on to him. He needed to make it stop as quickly as possible or---he couldn’t think, but action was automatic. He knelt by her chair and spoke softly and firmly. He had done this so many times for his brothers, for other kids.
“Hey. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.” Is it, though? He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, but continued on. “It was a dream.”
He wouldn’t reach out or touch her to ground her, since he didn’t know her and a stranger doing that could make things much worse. But he met her wild eyes, and tried to will the tightness in his chest to let up, let him breathe again. “You’re in Colony 22. It’s three in the afternoon.” Details could help a person get their bearings, remember where they were, and he needed this as much as she did, maybe. He tried to believe it when he repeated, “Everything’s alright.”
The woman nodded, her eyes peering widely beneath a tangle of dark hair, before she pressed them shut and winced. Mouse caught the faintest of thank you’s, and she got up unsteadily, ignoring the hand he offered. Still scattered, but the panic had subsided a little for her, it seemed.
And as quickly as that, she was gone. He watched her go. His gaze cut across the room after she vanished, taking stock of what was nearby. It did look exactly as it had only moments before---a normal scene, nothing out of place. But the sounds of the room were muffled, his heart beat the only clear thing in his ears.
A pair chattered quietly to each other on one of the couches, smiling and animated, and a man he thought he’d spoken to once in the Hub entered, but didn’t look at Mouse. He watched him pick up a deck of cards from a table and sit. They look so innocent. but he felt distinctly like he was missing something, like there was someone or something watching him.
And it could hurt him, in a very real way, if he wasn’t aware of it. Yet for all intents and purposes the Lounge looked as it always did.
It was confusing, and utterly familiar. His stomach dropped, dissolved into cold bile, when he realized---he felt distant, out of place. He felt like he couldn’t reach anyone. Exactly like he had just a little while earlier, without his Infection tethering him to people. Like he was alone, and the world was coming for him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He dropped into the spot the woman had vacated. At least the high back of the armchair acted as a support, or a shield. Pushing his shoulder blades into it, Mouse pressed his palms to his eyes. This isn’t mine, he thought. It isn’t, it’ll pass. Nothing’s wrong, not really...
