video 01 | Aortic Aneurysm

[clussy]

(You know who is not going to react to this situation decently no matter how many times it's explained to him? Eddie. You know who doesn't have a good game face against fear? Also Eddie. He's alone, he needs an adult, and he's pretty sure they don't restock on inhalers here. He knew he didn't need it, not technically, but he also knew that his lungs were contracting at a rate that lead to hyperventilating and as far as he was concerned, that was exactly what an asthma attack was all about. He was having an asthma attack. Maybe. His body was thinking about it.

By the way, he's definitely just been staring at the video for a couple of silent seconds, his jaw working back and forth as he just tried to remind himself that he was actually capable of breathing. This kid......)

My mom's going to fucking kill me.

(The words are whispered under his breath and he would think twice about swearing if he realized how many adults might be watching this video. He was enough of a loser that he could get the whole communication device thing, really, that was fine. But he wasn't quite able to wrap his mind around the full extent of it all.

After a second, he decides fuck it. He needs his inhaler. It goes up, he gives it a few shakes, and takes a deep, deep breath in with it. Holds. Holds.

Then his whole body deflates, his eyes rolling up. He closes his eyes and thinks about how he would talk to the police in Derry. Ha. If that wasn't the biggest fucking joke ever. When he speaks next, his voice is pitched higher than before, that typical 'I'm trying super hard to be polite and endearing' voice that he uses to call his mom 'mommy' when he's real apologetic. He's not even trying to be a suck up. The kid's just scared.)

Um. My name's Eddie Kaspbrak. I'm Sonia Kaspbrak's son and I definitely need to be home for dinner which is like, in an hour. So if anyone can help...I would really appreciate it.

.....God, I really hope this isn't that creep who was taking all those kids.

Comments

[clussy]

I say a lot of sensible things. You've only heard me talk for like two minutes.

(He was definitely one of the more sensible people he knew. Well. Sort of.

It is a shame and for a second, Eddie lets himself sulk over this. Dogs were really cute, after all, and there was a true tragedy in not being able to pet a dog.

Worse yet? Dogs don't even exist in this place.)

Oh I'm sure I'm still allergic to something up here. I don't know much about space bacteria yet but there's a library and I plan on reading up.

Whats a shame. Me being not small? What do you expect. I'm almost twelve.

(Will be in November, he wants to say, but that doesn't matter.)

[inconsequence]

[At present, his ratio of words they deem sensible to his general word count does not seem very high. Perhaps that's liable to change, but they're not optimistic. That's Frisk's job, in general, and - ]

[And they wrench the thought ruthlessly aside before it can take deeper root.]

You not dying. Horribly.
But I'm patient. There's lots of time for that to be the case.
People die all the time here.

[clussy]

(They shouldn't be, frankly, but Eddie has to reserve his pride. There was literally no need for him to admit that he was a shrieking headcase of a kid. Not that he really even admitted that to himself.)

I try really hard not to die horribly.
Like, I try really hard.

(That isn't a joke.

He seriously tries every day to avoid a million ways he could die.

Literally.

He goes a bit pale and for the first time since texting, sees the benefit in it.)

...Really? But people said it wasn't dangerous here.

How do they die?

[inconsequence]

[By contrast, Chara spends every day of their life trying very hard to die and being disappointed when it doesn't pay off.]

All sorts of ways, really!

Volcanic rock monsters, giant spiders, parasitic viruses...and that was just the place we left behind!
But mostly people kill each other. Humans trend toward that sort of thing, do they not?
Once we all had evil twins of ourselves, and those would kill us instead, which was really quite nice of them; it saved on clean-up costs and upped the body count tremendously.

[clussy]

(You can take Eddie's luck of near-death experiences.

Okay but real talk, he was doing just fine but this kind of thing is the exact sort of thing that gets Eddie's anxiety ramped up the wazoo. He might not actually have asthma, but no one could deny he has some serious psychological problems and he's soon hyperventilating again.

Parasitic viruses - - Jaaaysus Christ!!

Oh god, he's not crying you're crying. This place just got ten times scarier. He always tries so, so hard not to cry but he's not the strongest in that department and is scrubbing at his eyes, viciously glad for the text option.

This boy won't be texting back anytime soon. Less because of dislike of this stranger and more because he's having a lowkey (otherwise known as huge) breakdown.)

[inconsequence]

[Well, that was bracingly fun for all parties involved.]

[Having presumably sufficiently either scared or annoyed their partner in brief conversation away from engaging further, Chara can at least take satisfaction in the unknown hypothetical situation that they may have successfully scared another child.]

[May have.]

[They'll have to confirm later, it seems.]

NOT HERE;

[squadgoals]

[APOLOGIZE TO THIS BOY!!!!!!!!!]

NOT HERE;

[inconsequence]

[CAN'T MAKE ME]