lunatic of a god or a god of a lunatic? [open]

[postictal]

Who: Tim Wright and you
Where: Nevereverland
When: October 21st - October 25th
Rating: PG-13 for dark imagery, hallucinations, kid violence, depressive thoughts, suicide ideation, aaaaaand emetophobia
Summary: Tim's about eight years old with a lot of problems and a false, Lost One memory.
The Story:

dead man's peak; i just want to be better than your head's only medicine

Miracles like this are too good for things like him. Tim already knows it for a fact. He tried drinking from the spring, the waters that are meant to be capable of healing even the most unknowable and strange of malaises, but it never worked. It still doesn't work. He's still sick, still weak, still a burden on everyone and everything else.

But sometimes it's enough to take the edge off. To keep him from losing his dinner because of an upset stomach or a poorly-timed panic attack that takes the strength from his knees and causes him to hack up blood, and then whatever meager meal he managed to force down that day. Only problem is that with the adults being...who they are, where they are, he knows they might take that opportunity to snatch him up, drag him away. Say that they know best for him, even if they don't, they really don't. He knows what he deserves, and it's this, it's all of this. Kids who call him weak, kids who say he's useless, kids who know he's nothing but a burden. But at least this way he doesn't hurt anyone else.

He just has to make sure no one sees him as he sprints inelegantly up to the spring and starts to gulp down the water greedily, eyes darting furtively about in case anyone tries to sneak up behind him.

lost one encampment; i only want what i can't have

[He just gets in the way. He knows it. He's a kid with a lot of problems, and nothing anyone does is gonna make that better. And it's bad enough that sometimes he seizes, has fits, blacks out so hard that he forgets what he's done for weeks on end. He's been here for...for years, hasn't he? Years and years. Maybe decades. But he doesn't feel or look any older.

He tries to sleep as far away from the others as he can, even if it scares him, because he knows he's not very fun to be around. He knows no one gets a good night's sleep when he's nearby. It's just that things had to change with the influx of adults, of people who might steal them away, and now he's regretting it. Because this is what happens, and it's what's happening now.

It starts with a loud, panicked cry, and it only worsens from there. Tim's yelp soon lapses into loud, hoarse coughing, a harsh and sickening sound as he coughs wetly, blood spattering across the ground and his hands. Then comes the retching. Then comes the dry heaves, the shaking, the trembling panic as his brain intones that this is it, he's reached the end, he's going to die nothing is going to save him.

That's when he starts to see It. It wisps into his vision, impossibly thin, head tilted to one side at an angle that somehow approximates scornful curiosity. It shivers on the spot, as if he's looking at it through shimmering waves of heat or through water, but it doesn't matter. It's here, and even if everyone will say It's not real, he knows It is.

Tim chokes back a sob. This is when it gets to its worst. He buries his head in his hands and waits for first of the Lost Ones to wake up and kick him out. Again.]

anywhere; what good comes of something when i'm just the ghost of nothing

Maybe you see him first. Maybe you just hear him screaming. Because he is, in fact, screaming, screaming very loudly with his hands gripping his temples, fisted into his hair. He's curled on the ground with tear tracks on his face, his shouts mostly wordless, but sometimes made up of strange and improbable litanies:

"You're not real, you're not real!"

"Why'd you bring me here?"

"Stop it, stop it, please! I'll do whatever you say, please!"

But around him, beside him, behind him, there's only - well, there's nothing. There's nothing at all. He looks about on the edge of some kind of terrible, insurmountable panic, and there's no definable trigger. But of course, that's not what the little boy is seeing.

He sees something tall and dark, blending almost imperceptibly with the jagged spikes of the tree trunks but for the white patch of its ivory-smooth face. He'd swear it's laughing at him, mocking him, taunting him. He'd swear it is. Only it must not be, because there's really nothing there.

But that won't stop him from howling in such obvious pain.

attack; a downward spiral just a pirouette

[He's no good in a fight. He knows this. But he also knows someone's been following him for the better part of an hour now, and it's definitely not the thing he's used to seeing ghosting quietly behind him. It's something more tangible, something that breaks twigs underfoot with a menacing proximity.

He's no good at this. No good at confronting the things in his dreams, let alone things in real life. But if what everyone's saying is true, then...then he's gotta try, right? He's gotta try. He's gotta try. He's gotta try, or they'll take him back.

He stops, bends down until he can claw up a suitably heavy-looking branch. He brandishes it, inelegantly, trying to muster any kind of firmness to his voice as he speaks:]

C-come out! I know you're there!

wildcard; getting worse 'till there's nothing left

[Don't see something you can work with? No problem! Hit me with whatever you want! I'll match any format. If you got any questions, hit me over at arrpee!]

Comments

[postictal]

Tim.

[Immediately, he curses himself for giving away his name. She shouldn't know him. Shouldn't know him at all. What if she tracks him down? But then - where's he supposed to hide?]

Have you...are you one of them? With the, the adults?

[naughty_nurse]

No! Of course not! I-I'd never want to leave Neverland!

[Thankfully this is not a cry of anger, but of worry. If the other Lost Ones found this out, she'd be targeted... and there's only so much the spring can heal.]

[postictal]

Oh. Um. Okay.

[He shifts his weight, mouth tightening into a thin line. Suddenly he's not sure he wants to chance another drink at the spring anymore.]

Th-that's good. Make Pan mad otherwise.

[naughty_nurse]

Th-this is a good place... I'm happy here... I'm needed here...

[She actually looks around a little, in case anyone else needed to hear that.]

[postictal]

[His brow only darkens at the expectant lift to her tone, the way she glances about. And he follows suit, uncertainly, wondering if she expects someone to spring from the shadows with a bleeding arm or something.

No such luck. The place remains empty and silent.]

Yeah. Yeah, things're...better here, [he affirms cautiously. He's not sure what else to do besides just - continuously agree with her in case he sets her off again.]