Welcome to Gaia! ::

"He knows...he knows what I dun," he cried into the door as though he didn't even hear what she said. "Dat b*****d knows...shoulda neva said nuthin' 'bout it." Jamal sniffled miserably as he tried to pull himself back up off the floor, grabbing at the door handle for stability. As he fumbled in the dark, his hand caught the locking mechanism and unlatched it. He knew it happened but didn't care. At least Awen got her wish, the decision for him to unlock the door being out of his hands due to his clumsiness; he wasn't going to relock the door and make things worse if she got mad.

The black man moved away from the door, drifting absently towards the table as he rubbed a hand down his face.

He looked, for lack of a better term, like s**t. His eyes were bloodshot, his face ashen...little dried trickles of blood marked one upper arm where he'd clawed at the skin with his fingernails, which were also stained a light crimson. The t-shirt he wore was faintly stained and wrinkled. Jamal was a far cry from his normally neat and groomed self.

As Awen placed her hand on his shoulder, he froze, eyes clenching shut tightly in refusal to look at her when she came around and tried to console him in his utter despair.

"It was a' accident," he repeated in a hushed whimper. "Why they gotta do dis ta me....I can't deal wit' dis. I can't be no ********' mess like Ambrose. I can't..." He couldn't see himself undergoing the gruesome transformations like everyone else. He couldn't watch his humanity fade underneath scales or feathers or whatever else it was that he'd deal with....

Then he realized he didn't even know what he was going to be and that made it all worse in his head.

When she left to go to the bathroom, he fumbled for the nearest chair and sat down in it, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his thighs and held his head in his hands. This whole thing was an entire disaster.

The daubing of the towel on his shoulder brought a flinch despite how gently she was patting and the kiss on his hand only made him give her a despondent stare. He wasn't trying to come off as ungrateful but even Awen's careful tending made him feel worse. First off, he was going to be come some mutation...secondly he had probably successfully put off a good half of the island's population over last night...and thirdly he felt like he was a burden. Maybe he should have just relocked the door and spared Awen from wasting her time, being that he was certain she was doing so in trying to get him on a steady footing out from his depression.

His hand lay prone in her grasp, having not been pulled away simply because Jamal didn't really care. His head hurt, among other things, and it was so hard to think clearly.

"I shoulda listened ta yous," he croaked finally, hiding his face in his other hand. "Shoulda believed s**t was goin' down. Dis whole island be a ********' lie....brotha be so stupid not ta see it."

He shook his head, almost violently in doing so, and passed his free hand over his hair when he stopped, letting the fingers run down the divisions of his cornrows. "You tol' me it was happenin'...I coulda just believed yous. Coulda saved dis bullshit from happenin'." Well, perhaps not all of it. Regardless, he was probably not going to take the news well if he had learned differently.

"I though' it was a joke or sum'thin'. Dat yous put them all up to it...but I'm jus' a ********' moron." He stared down at the hand that was in Awen's grasp now, as though he just realized it was there.

He looked utterly dejected amongst being positively exhausted as well, neither of which were good for his fragile grip on the present.

Jamal slumped in his chair and dropped his free hand back into his lap, a brief glimmer of challenge in his eyes. "Don't...wanna sleep. Them bastards ain't gonna get me. No ********' shot gonna get me when I ain't payin' attention..." he drawled, though the words were vaguely slurred now. "Can't get me if someone watchin."

Or so he figured, anyway.

"You ain't gotta....I ain't meanin' to give yous mo' problems," he said faintly, though the tug on his arm did make him eventually get to his feet. Progress at least.

He followed like a lost puppy, his vision starting to blur as his exhaustion started to win the fight whether or not he wanted to sleep or not. Indignant anger started to rise in his chest but he controlled it, not wanting another outburst to happen. It seemed that Jamal was mad about everything due to his circumstances and had he been better prepared, he'd probably would have handled all of this better.

Jamal lingered at the side of the bed, looking almost fearful now as opposed to anything else, though the anger was still there. They would get him in his sleep. He was sure of it.