Owen Corley

Owen still hadn't quite gotten into the habit of checking his phone all the time. He could have easily missed the message Nina had left him before he listened to radio, and most days, he probably would have.

But this morning he'd knocked it off his nightstand as he was getting up. He groped groggily for the device and squinted at the screen.

Hey, Owen! Um, like, I know I should probably tell you this in person, it read, before the message devolved into a bunch of periods he knew meant 'more message beyond this point', but even that phrase, well-- had there ever been a time in history anyone had used that phrase and it'd been a good thing?

He unlocked his phone.

He read the whole thing.

He sank down next to his bed slowly, until his butt hit the floor and drew a quick "umph" from him.

(Had he been too emotional around her? Maybe he should've been cheerier. This wouldn't have happened if he'd been cheerier. If he'd been better. If he'd been--)

I just don't think we're suited

(What did that even mean? She said it wasn't about the date, but that couldn't be true. He'd screwed up. He always screwed up. He was always--

less important screwing up)

He sat there for a while, until his head was empty of spiraling thoughts and the only thing rattling in there was the flight pattern of a sparrow, roaming around just outside his window.

At least he was already alone in his room anyway.

[[ door closed, post open ]]

Owen had woken up sometime early this morning to a flurry of new inputs worse than preceding weeks, by far. It had taken him a while to settle into it, to process them, even if they made no sense at all. Then he'd fallen asleep. Again.

He woke up again at 7 AM sharp and his senses were blaring again. Whatever he was picking up on, it just wasn't making any sense, besides being bad and wrong and all the other lovely extras of these past weeks.

"Why does it feel like there's a Cataclysm rattling around my head?" he muttered, sitting up, rubbing at the short stubble of his hair.

Bloody hell, some weeks, he thought he should probably be putting in a bit more effort to leave this place.

[[ open ]]

Owen hadn't moved from the floor of his room since Thursday. Not that Thursday mattered. Not that Owen mattered.

Scales ran down his body, his eyes a matted black-and-silver. His knees were knobbly and gnarled and tipped with sharp edges but he didn't notice - they were folded under him, keeping him seated. Did the claws on his feet bite into his legs, the sharp tips of his nails dig into the flesh of his arm? Maybe.

It didn't matter. It was all just input.

It was 17 degrees celsius. 17.5. A breeze across the east. A flower, dying. The poison, beautiful and sharp, crept through a hundred flows, ground water, lakes, the ocean, the onsen... A bird flew across the principal's tower while the poison burned, bearing N90W, no, 93W. A patch of grass straining against the wind. People, moving, shuffling, flying, maiming-- was that a person? Was it a deer? He was sixteen. A frog rotted in the park. 17.6 degrees celsius. North-by-northwest. A flower, dying. The poison flowed. 17.4 degrees celsius. A bird--

[[ open ]]