Welcome to Gaia! ::

It'd been a month and he'd still never bothered to add sheets to his standard issue bed. He had a set of black ones, covered in a pleasant skull pattern, but he'd chosen to camp outside on the grounds in a tent fashioned from them, a splintery broom, and some pumpkin glue.

His room stored items. His room was a storage locker. His room was not a room, it was a closet he occasionally deigned to visit.

The junkyard was a while away, if he walked, but Thezil didn't have hobbies to occupy his time, not really, so it wasn't a trouble to make the trek and back a few times a week. Sometimes, if he really felt like feeling at home, he crawled on top of a precarious stack of electronics and slept there, like his very own version of the Ghoulless and the Squash, which he only knew because the third shift junkyard caretaker told it to him one night as he shooed Thezil out the door.

But it was early evening, now, and so he nodded his boxy head at the attendant, shuffling in with a stutter in his step. Walking-- and motor skills, fine or otherwise-- were still a bit of a chore. His limbs were variegated in colour, ranging from deep violets to browns to ghostly white, and each one of them was different from the next. The perks of forming out of junk, he thought, and it wasn't a bitter one.

He had come to be out of nothing, and that was wonderful. Thezil had questions, sure, but there was some sort of novelty to his unlife he couldn't quite get over.

Thezil glanced around, the SkeeV on his head emitting a soft crackling.

Huh. Normally, it was kinda quiet here, but there was definitely someone else rummaging nearby.

"HelLO?" he asked, each syllable a different tone, scratching with the whine of mic feedback. It was a voice that didn't get used much, that was for sure. "Who iS thERe?"

Thezil tilted his heavy head, the SkeeV shifting on his neck with a low thunk, resting against his shoulder. He took in the sight of her, his television buzzing with static as he did. An image flashed across it-- a scareling collecting insects-- before cutting back to fuzziness. She did not look familiar, but then again, even the creeple that greeted him in the hallways seemed like strangers. Maybe they were. He did not know.

After some silence, he stepped closer, and put his hands into his pockets with deliberation. It took a few attempts-- his limbs moved like rusted joints, still, despite his best attempts. "YoU dO nOT need to maKE thatfACE. I do not wANt things." Another pause. "YouR things. Or AnYoNE's."

The SkeeV screen flashed to a winning smile, bright white blunt teeth, and played a popular jingle. It was his...attempt at being friendly.

Thezil didn't move from his place as the stranger inched closer. He had no concept of a personal bubble, and so did not mind when others encroached upon his. There was a spare pumpkin seed in his pocket, he knew, and fingering it, he wondered if the ghoul would be offended if he were to offer it to her.

She liked things. Perhaps it would be well received. He thought to try his luck, but her voice (so loud, so direct) boomed across the distance, her words echoing slightly between the tall stacks of junk.

His screen flashed a series of question marks in green and violet, his confusion evident.

"I haVE no NeeD. FOR thinGs. I haVE my lifE. I have a heAD." A head. Not his, and the thought of what was missing awakened a rage in him that thrummed, a comfort, a prayer, a furious hope that he could some day find it. There was no point in looking, here. He didn't feel it. It wasn't right.

If he couldn't have his head, there was very little he wanted at all. His shoulders hunched, and the SkeeV's static screeched a little, betraying his fury.

"WhY do yoU waNT? TherE is nO poINt. ThinGS aRe MEANingLesss."

Thezil didn't ask such a question without a sense of gravitas, staying solemn as she looked up at him with a serious face, her pink brows knitted in concentration, her lips down-turned. He trailed behind her, a too tall shadow that lingered in the corners of her peripheral vision, staying just close enough to observe.

"I dO nOT compREhEnD." He went up to the teapot, cradling it, holding it up to the light of the moon.

And then he flung it to the ground, his SkeeV set playing a loud record scratch to accompany the shattering of cheap ceramic.

"It eXisTs. It doES noT DefINE. My lifE is THe oNLy thIng thaT PRoveS I am HERE." He presses a hand to his chest, and the gesture is stilted and jerky. There is no pulse in his chest. Thezil knows that he has no heart that beats, but he knew that he existed. He had something that meant that he could live.

"WhaT we ExpERieNCe is Who We ARE." He looked at her, his screen flickering a dozen colours, variegated and in full dreadcolor. "WHo arE YOu?" Thezil stepped over the shards of what was once a teapot, staring down at the ghoul.

He seemed ill at ease; perhaps he was hoping her answer would put some of his own fears to rest.

Thezil was brushed aside, and he braced himself on a nearby stack of knick knacks, blunt fingernails digging into the face of some abandoned doll. He felt heavy in every one of his extremities, and he was sure that it wasn't because of his own emotional reaction.

He watched her work, and still, he did not understand.

"One DaY. It WilL bE DUSt. It wiLL fadE." Thezil tapped his SkeeV with his knuckles. "MAYbe it Is DiFFerenT. I HaVe an ObJECt WitH me. All thE tiMe. I dO nOT neEd MoRE. It IS a TooL. Not A POSSessIoN. IT iS noT PermANEnt."

It was... just until he got his head back. He would put the tool aside after its duty was complete.

And with that, he stomped on the pieces, grinding them into dust.

"NoTHiNG is PermAnEnt. Do NOt CliNg to whaT CouLD bE. LiVe nOW. We HaVe BeEN ReBoRN. YoU are onlY haLF HeRE."

Thezil wavered, his knees buckling as they hit the dirt, the shards grinding into his skin through the thin, standard issue pants.

"YeS. GoOD." He looked at her, and the screen turned to silver, to magenta, to a collection of stars falling, the picture fuzzy and unclear. "YoU ArE aLiVE. RighT nOW." Digging his fingers into the ground, Thezil felt the grit beneath his nails. This was an experience. It could be catalogued. It could be filed away.

Why did he need a trinket of observation to commemorate it?

"I wiLL remeMBer yoU," Thezil said, simply, as if it was a statement that was simpler than the moon is orange and fear powered them all. "It IS thAt EaSy. We RememBer, wE aRE, wE suRViVe."

Thezil laughed as she gave him the finger, a collection of voices strung together in a mismatched string of sound.

"Do YoU nOT trUSt youRseLF? DO yoU nOT realiSE wE arE THe oNLy tHinG ReliaABLe?" He did not move, even as she whirled away and came back, whirled away and came back. His joints did not ache but they did not want to cooperate, so he stayed there, leaning back on his heels, hands limp between his thighs.

"MeMorieS mAY cHAnge, bUt theY aRE moRE vaLUabLe thaN anY ThiNG."

What he could not qualify, however, was why. A moment was useless to him if captured. If there was a photograph, that meant someone's moment was taking it. Writing your name upon an object did not make it yours, nor did it ensure anything but the useless collection of knick knacks. What was the POINT? it didn't MATTER. Ownership meant NOTHING. Ensuring you were anchored to this world, in turn, also meant NOTHING.

Thezil's SkeeV screen began to crackle, a siren wail blaring that gave away his distress, his voice cranked up to the maximum volume.

"I. AM. NOT. STUPID." He clenched his fists, awkwardly getting to his feet, standing at full attention, his body tensed. How could he make her see that she was willingly inflicting pain upon herself, by forcing such close attachments to trinkets? There was a better way. She did not have to put her self worth into things that could not recognise it.

Thezil stared at her, expecting words in reply and received nothing but a yawning chasm of silence. She had eyes that gave away the betrayal she felt, large on her gaunt face, wreathed by floating strands of pink hair, like candy-floss at a CarnEvil. They were empty eyes with nothing behind them, eyes that held the weight of the world within them nonetheless.

"Do NOt dO thAT," he said, appalled, hands curling inwards like claws, pulled back against his chest. Thezil had no tears to weep from: displaying a crying face was simply a facsimile of reality. Copy something enough times and the original meaning is distorted or lost entirely.

The boil chose to tap his SkeeV. "To trEAsURe someTHinG, yOU do NOt nEed it FORever. EnJOYing thE riGHT nOW iS juSt as VALUable. IT is ouR chanCE to TRY aGAIn."