#!invoke

There is nothing quite as frustrating as the passage of time.

It bleeds. Seconds bleed into minutes bleed into hours bleed into days, and it goes on and on until the highest measure of time standard to mankind. They say the older you get, the quicker the days seem to pass by, but it begs the question as to the concept of time to an immortal.

It's not--at least, not necessarily proven--that he is immortal, even if to him time is non-existent and immeasurable (his watch stopped a long time ago). He's fairly certain that he can die, and it is one of the few things in his pseudo-life that certainty can actually be attributed to. If he couldn't be killed, surely he wouldn't feel the base instinct to defend his body from being completely destroyed. That's the sort of logic he implies, even though lately all his head's been capable of doing is hurting and fogging up. And, Christ, he's cold as hell, though he can't for the life of him figure out any explanation as to why that's the case, either.

Every time he attempts to consider the statistics of his current mode of existence--through the haze that is the forefront of his consciousness, which is a feat to conquer in and of itself--a striking pain begins to work at his skull. A thin rod of metal breaks through the bone and goes through his brain and comes out of the other end splattered in organ matter (this is metaphorically speaking, of course. If he had a hole in his head, he would've noticed by now. He's confused most days, but he isn't stupid).

He is fatigued, but to his credit, he isn't dragging his feet yet. He doesn't know how long he's been wandering these streets, but he's got a feeling it's been a while, and surely that while must be the sort of while that tires people out. He supposes that on some level he should be proud of himself, but the concept of pride is as foreign to him as warmth is; in fact, he notes, with a tilt of his head and a direction of his gaze to the murky skies above him, he can't remember what that blazing ball of light is supposed to be called. It starts with an S, probably. If he's going to go by pattern matching, it should probably also rhyme with 'warm' (but 'swarm' sounds more menacing than life-giving, and he can't remember what a swarm is, either).

At least he isn't alone. Sometimes things come out of the shadows to beckon at him and say hello, except it's really more of a twitch of their limbs and an indiscernible noise followed by imminent disappearance. Every time this happens, he always feels some form of conflict--he wants to run, he wants to approach; he should have something in his hands, he doesn't need anything in his hands; he's afraid, he has nothing to fear; it's disgusting, it's calling him--and so every time this happens, he has to sit down and pause and try to clear his head. He never succeeds, naturally. Anonymous heroes of an imminent tragedy never really conquer anything when it all boils down to it, not even death. Static blooms and exists and breathes into his mind because it is all he is capable of thinking, most days. Words are beginning to escape him. After a long time of not needing them, they seemed to have ebbed away.

Introspection pushed aside in favour of the physical earth, it is night time. The sky may or may not be full of stars, but he can't tell from here. He walks as aimlessly as always--his shoes tap along the pavement in perfect tandem with the hissed and growled noises in the shadows that surround. He breathes through his mouth because his nose is giving him tantalising, delicious smells, and he's a little wary of being tempted to seek those out. On the bright side, the street lights are working tonight--which is a shocking thing, but--their flickering inconsistency is still more reliable than his own developed night vision.

He ambles along the paved road. His movements are a little sluggish. There's no need to rush when you don't know where you're going.

He reaches the sign, as he always seems to do in a cycle that lasts a month of walking. Sometimes, when he's lucky, he can read the letters, even if usually his brain ceases functioning a little while after he begins. Today is such an occurrence, and he looks at the wood and the paint atop it. W-E-L-C-O-M-E T-O... and then it fades out. His intelligence leaves him at the drop of a hat.

He has always looked beyond the edge of the town towards the outskirts whenever he reaches the sign. Darkness looms ahead, as it is wont to do. Unlike the darkness of his prison, however, this one is unknown darkness. Will there be creatures there to keep him company as well? Or is there that ever-fleeting S-warm word? Or could there possibly be nothing after he reaches the end of the road? He can imagine himself tumbling into an abyss for wandering too far. A punishment, perhaps, for leaving his home.

The notion of endless falling makes him sick to his stomach. He sits down, back against the post holding the sign up, and pulls his knees to his chest.

The static has gotten worse.