It’s been...a week? Two weeks? Time never seemed to move at all in the Void, only before his eyes as he watched, ever a spectator. But now he’s part of time again, and he can’t tell, really, what’s what. He knows he can count the number of times the sun sets and rises, but he still can’t look out the window during the day without cringing, the light hurting his eyes. At least it’s quiet in Addermire, and at least the doctor doesn’t ask him too many questions. She lets him be in one of the private rooms on the highest floor by her office -- the one she says used to hold a shrine to him -- with the shades drawn to let him stay in the dim light and the silence, huddled in blankets.
He hates, in a way, how weak and helpless he feels. Not too long ago he was a god, the avatar of the Void, and now...and now he is a child, cowering away from bright lights and loud noises. He was marked, thank the Void, so he didn’t feel entirely useless, but...
He starts out of his own thoughts when the door opens, and he blinks at the figure in the doorway, bewildered. Is that...he lets out a sharp, short laugh. It’s strange to see her in the light, color in her face and clothes, and he must look so very strange like this to her -- not the ethereal, eldritch being she’s used to, but a skinny teenage boy with a scar on his neck, solid and real. Even his eyes are different, still ink-black as an owl’s but no longer from edge to edge. There are whites visible, now, lessening his eeriness but not completely.
“Hello, Emily,” the Outsider says with a faint smile. “I didn’t think I‘d see you again so soon.”