What, you forgot to pay your superhero utility bills and got the power turned off, I guess? [It's a little too mean to say to a kid but he's confused and frustrated.] And this isn't in my head, and I'm not dying, and we're really some random ass place that looks like Earth. After falling through a tunnel with sentient topiary.
Right. Sure thing. [This is really stressing him out now.] This is making my head hurt.
[He passes a hand over his face.]
I was dying. I was about to be dead. But you - you don't fit. This is too weird to be some kind of crazy death hallucination. It doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like my brain. If it was my brain having some kind of happy thoughts while it had a nuclear meltdown, there'd be way more beautiful women. [He gestures at their surroundings and the lack of hotties.] Not a half-pint with delusions of grandeur and a fanboy predilection for classical Earth lit.
[Harper's an engineer and his first instinct is to test his new reality.]
The voices, they said - they said I needed this to survive. To avoid dying the way I was gonna die. [His hand goes to the rabbit's foot on the chain at his neck, and after brushing his thumb against it for luck, he lifts it off his neck -- fingers shaking because of the dangers of this little experiment -- and drops it on the ground, trying to test his new reality.]
[Then he feels a familiar stirring in his gut, disgusting as always -- and a familiar pain -- as his bouncing bundles of joy perk up and make their presence known. He suddenly bows over with a groan, dropping to his knees.]
cw: body horror
Right. Sure thing. [This is really stressing him out now.] This is making my head hurt.
[He passes a hand over his face.]
I was dying. I was about to be dead. But you - you don't fit. This is too weird to be some kind of crazy death hallucination. It doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like my brain. If it was my brain having some kind of happy thoughts while it had a nuclear meltdown, there'd be way more beautiful women. [He gestures at their surroundings and the lack of hotties.] Not a half-pint with delusions of grandeur and a fanboy predilection for classical Earth lit.
[Harper's an engineer and his first instinct is to test his new reality.]
The voices, they said - they said I needed this to survive. To avoid dying the way I was gonna die. [His hand goes to the rabbit's foot on the chain at his neck, and after brushing his thumb against it for luck, he lifts it off his neck -- fingers shaking because of the dangers of this little experiment -- and drops it on the ground, trying to test his new reality.]
[Then he feels a familiar stirring in his gut, disgusting as always -- and a familiar pain -- as his bouncing bundles of joy perk up and make their presence known. He suddenly bows over with a groan, dropping to his knees.]