Fragment

[wrecking_yard]

Not remembering anything didn't help. 

Everything being different was even more disorienting.  

I could see, for the most part, even if parts of it were washed out and overlaid and drowned out and parts of it squirmed and didn't feel like they looked like what they would if I still had eyes - not like any kind of memory of an image was holding still so soon after Whatever had gone out of control.
 
The inside of the bus looked like the inside of a bus, the solid pieces of physical material reinforced with a form it was meant to take and wanted to project, although details didn't stay in the same places and sometimes there was an errant eye or claw or maw that faded through as the being that inhabited/was the "bus" kept a bit of attention on the inside, threads and hands resting on the shoulders of the driver, a slight little form that seemed to drift apart from things, mostly turned inward except where the threads were whispering; a human life curled inward with quiet little humming potential. 

Vergilius was sitting with his back to the wall by the doors, on the floor, eyes closed pretending to be asleep and solid limbs not moving while many other red eyes were open, peeking out like garden eels from bird feeder holes and drifting bits of red mist, mostly watching me.  I don't know if he knows I can see that he's awake and watching, and I don't know if I'd want to let him know even if he could hear me. 

Things are quiet, ish, probably as quiet as they get; not everybody is in the main room of seats, and it occurs to me that while there's a door at the back that would lead outside by normal physics it doesn't and I haven't seen the Other Spaces behind it yet.  I'll get there eventually, right now I'm still trying to adjust to whatever I am now and whatever the fuck is going on, and working on matching the images and words that I could follow on the tablet of the "introduction" profiles from Nebulous Management Who Don't Want To Name Themselves to what I actually sensed and was attached to. 

Threadbare rusty tight springs and worn through watchful broken bones put back together funny long ago is fitfully asleep from exhaustion leaning against the window of his seat - Gregor.  The insect arm is shifting, solid pieces not being solid, a blur that is sometimes joints and lines and sometimes a swarm of little legs and eyes all as one contiguous thing,  definitely watching me, wary resentment of an abused animal unsure how to react and gauging what I am and how to react - I could harm them, it's almost expected, but will I?

I shift a little more toward the window on my side of the bus, giving it an acknowledging nod and trying to shift to give it space, pulling in smaller on that side and hoping it recognizes that I have no intentions of threatening it or Gregor. 

It's still thinking.  It'll take it a while to decide, and poking at it will only make things worse; best I can do right now is try to give it space and don't pay attention to.