Maybe it's selfish, holing up in the cabin he's never used. Sitting on the comfortable bed he's never slept in. Switching off the network and filling his CommLink with everything he can remember—the Shimmer first, flowers like grasping fingers, frogs croaking out a nightly death rattle, the snake whose scales seemed a glittering mirror. His knife, and all it had split open. Robbie entombed at the center of everything.
He doesn't change his clothes. He showers to remind himself of rain, tweaking the temperature until it's just right. He recalls sterile conference rooms, grasps at facts about Florida's endangered wildlife, the rate of the Shimmer's expansion. The numbers vanish faster than anything else. Near the end, his focus starts to break—he wonders if he'd ever wanted a child in that life. Wonders where Misty had been.
After two days, he deigns to exist in the Peregrine's reality. He does a shit job of it, fighting back nausea in the mess hall. Studying his hands. But he checks the dorms and the network, and late that night knocks on his neighbor's door. He looks ghostly himself—long shadows under his eyes, clothes hanging off him—but alert.
for grace and her big dick (post-sim)
He doesn't change his clothes. He showers to remind himself of rain, tweaking the temperature until it's just right. He recalls sterile conference rooms, grasps at facts about Florida's endangered wildlife, the rate of the Shimmer's expansion. The numbers vanish faster than anything else. Near the end, his focus starts to break—he wonders if he'd ever wanted a child in that life. Wonders where Misty had been.
After two days, he deigns to exist in the Peregrine's reality. He does a shit job of it, fighting back nausea in the mess hall. Studying his hands. But he checks the dorms and the network, and late that night knocks on his neighbor's door. He looks ghostly himself—long shadows under his eyes, clothes hanging off him—but alert.