Untethered.
That's the word that comes to mind when Ace thinks about the past few weeks. Not that he thinks about them too much. Or at all.
It had been a massacre. Not a fun game at all. He'd been so hungry, and they had been so mean to him, calling him names, and he'd lost himself, and Aaron—he wasn't supposed to be there, he wasn't, he wasn't, he—
Ace isn't supposed to stay alone for so long. It gets harder to Stay. To Stay Ace. To Stay and be good and be a person. He's supposed to listen to his brother, but his brother isn't speaking to him anymore. Or to anyone.
"Just a game," Ace mumbles quietly, arms wrapped around himself as he wanders. He's hungry, but there's no one to play with him. He's never gone this long without a friend. His wandering isn't supposed to take him this far. So removed from everything else.
Surrounded by mist.
A part of him knows it. The old part. Knows the mist and knows that it is its kin. But Ace doesn't like that part of him. Because it doesn't like being him. And he likes being him. The mist is foreign and familiar and it pulls at him, taking him in one direction or another. He knows (even though he shouldn't, because he's just a person) that he's not its prey. Yet he's still lost within it.
Ace could leave the town. Could go wander where it's dry, or freezing, where hunger pangs make man look at his fellow like prey. But he doesn't. Because there is a friend in this town. There has to be. So he will keep wandering, until he finds them. He can't hold on much longer.
@mistyjudgement