overstrain | INBOX

[ Terry really needs a good vacuum cleaner like the Dyson brand for all the cat fur. There's really no way of skimping out on good vacuum cleaners this time around, or the people in the house are gonna start breathing in cat fur. ]

Has it...? I dunno. I think the last time I was admitted and had to stay for a while was until the beginning of August.

[ According to my thread tracker, the other times was when he got into a fight with Mondo, got his ear sliced by Kido, dumping Mondo at the hospital for eating too much butter... yeah. He's actually been skipping out on going to the hospital whenever he drinks blood and gets poisoned from that because... debt hurts. idk whether that's a good or a bad thing or Terry. ]

I wish you visited me more often.

[ Hospital visits are at least a step up from hospital admissions, though neither are very good. Normally, people have years in between their hospital visits. Aside from staying with her mom, Kido can only recall being at the hospital twice in her childhood, once to see a speech-language pathologist and the second for a check-up after dying that first time. ]

Sorry... I'm not the most comfortable with hospitals, and didn't want to impose. Besides... if you weren't in the hospital all the time before, maybe we could've hung out more outside of it.

But now we have all the time in the world, right?

[ Haha... :')

Terry picks up his pace to walk alongside Kido instead of behind her, but the four kittens get in the way, pretty much making a wall between the two people. Catblocked. Wow. ]

[ What happened to beating all the dungeons and finding a way home so Kido can ditch everybody at the first opportunity?

All Kido says is, ]

Yeah.

[ All the time in the world, but if the world's ending, that's not very long at all. It feels like that, sometimes, the sense of impending doom that she tries to ignore because what good is dwelling on that? No good at all, when she can look over and catch Terry's eye before looking down at the kittens between them, smiling at them because she's reminded again of how this world's given her so many things she's never had before. It gets hard to choose one life over another in times like these. ]

We'll take it a day at a time. Today will be your day: be good and work with the doctors to figure things out, and after that, we'll do whatever you want.

[ Yeah, what good is living forever if everyone around you is dead?

Regardless, Terry looks pretty happy about Kido's suggestion. ]

Yeah, I'll do my best. I never planned on being a hard patient with them, so...

[ Because he does think, and hope, that a therapy session will help him in some way. It may not be a cure-all, but as long as he feels like there's something that gets better, that's all he wants. He'd be satisfied. ]

[ lmfao imagine if Cetana were a perma-death game and everybody keeps dying except Terry because he can't die, and he can't escape from the world, and this place just becomes his own personal hell (':

Anyways, so many people in the game could do with therapy, so I hope Terry has a good experience in there and can encourage everybody else to go too. Maybe he can come back on Saturday for grief counseling. ]

Talking about this sort of thing is hard in general, so it's worth saying anyways. I don't want you to have to live while constantly dreading something like that. All it's going to do is eat away at you.

[ He'd rather just starve himself from blood and just die like that. Goodbye, everyone... he loved you all... But maybe. Just maybe... consider the possibility he doesn't go and just becomes guilt ridden forever.

Terry just keeps smiling. What's to say it hasn't already eaten away at him... ]

Yeah. It'll be hard, but I'll try to make it worthwhile. I've never been to therapy, but if it's anything like what Jace did for me before, then I think it'll be okay.

[ Minato will cut open a zombie's arm and force feed Terry blood to keep him alive, Minato's got his back ]

Oh, Jace was also a therapist? Or was he a psychiatrist?

[ Minato... he'd kill you once he wakes up... ]

Kinda...? He's kinda like multiple specialist doctors rolled into one along with being a surgeon. He was good with repression methods.

[ That's why he's so fucking rich. He never needed loans for all the education he racked up either. In this rare case of going to med school god knows how many times, there is actually a net positive in money. Wow. Who would have thought. ]

[ Minato's just trying to look out for his Guest... ]

That's... pretty impressive. But, "repression methods"?

[ This sounds like the opposite of what a therapist does. ]

Ah, yeah, um...

[ He rubs the back of his neck a little. ]

I wasn't... at my best state when I first met Jace and he had to handle on making me "better" as fast as possible, so he had to push back the more painful stuff first and then worked on treating me when it wasn't as bad. It took several years.

[ ...That doesn't explain anything. She can't imagine what Terry used to be like, that it took several years to work on everything that needed to be fixed, but Jace is the doctor, not her. Jace would know Terry best, especially since they were best friends.

So, the more important thing, would be: ]

Were you guys able to work through everything, in the end? Are you doing okay?

Yeah, I was doing fine back home. It was really peaceful and I didn't really have to deal with anything else. Life was fun, and I got to just spend my days in mundane routine without worrying about anything.

[ Well, except the impending war, but he can't do anything about that.

Or could he? Terry bans that thought from existence real quick. ]

It wasn't until I came here that everything started to get bad... Maybe it's because I'm in a different environment.

If you were getting used to a normal, boring life, that's kind of an understatement, don't you think?

[ gestures at bears, gestures at Vassago, gestures at basically their first month here and not a week goes by where there's any chill ]

It's enough to wear anybody down. Being here is terrifying... There's so much we don't know, and it's dangerous every night even if we're asleep, and I can't help but worry about everybody we left behind, too.

It reminds me a little before I met Jace, the kind of life where someone needs to struggle to survive... but you're right. It's a hard life here, but we're all managing okay, aren't we?

[ He... doesn't want to think about Jace, because it felt like he left him behind to die. :') ]

[ Are we managing okay? Are we really? ]

We're managing better than I would have thought, at least... I'd probably have an easier time of it if my friends were here. One of them is like you, actually. He's very fast, very strong, and always has a dumb expression on his face. I think you'd like him.

[ And then he gets corrupted and kills everyone!! He's very like Terry. ]

[ Wow. They have so much in common! Terry's the only casualty so far. Everything is fine!! ]

Haha, really? Tell me more about your friend!

[ He won't pass up a chance to learn more about Kido and her life before this from her mouth. ]

Are you really that interested?

[ She looks amused, if only because the more she thinks about it, the more similar they are. ]

We've only met recently, in the past day or so before I came here, but his name is Konoha. He's pretty quiet, can probably eat his weight in a single sitting, and is a bit taller than you are, I think... When I met him, he single-handedly stopped a terrorist attack inside a mall downtown.

[ That's the part that reminds her most of Terry, actually. ]

[ Only in the past day and Kido already considers him a friend... he must be amazing. Terry is very impressed regardless. ]

Seriously? That sounds so cool!

[ ... Wait a minute. ]

You passed by a terrorist attack?!

[ Anybody who stops a terrorist attack is a hero and is worth of friendship status, it's easy. ]

Yeah? They were going to bomb the entire mall, I think... I was there with two others from my gang, Mary and Kano.

[ She should sound more scared than she was, but Konoha had stepped in before anything happened, so there isn't really anything to be scared of. ]

I have a feeling that if I was in a similar situation, you'd just scold me and get all worked up compared to what you're doing now...

[ This isn't fair, Kido... ]

Well, yeah, because one person going up against a bunch of grown men with guns and bombs would be stupid. I care enough about you to scold you for doing something so stupid.

[ Not that she doesn't care about Konoha... But, look, he was a complete stranger and she didn't meet him until after the fact so she can't exactly get mad at him? Konoha would probably start crying if Kido yelled at him. These are two different situations, Terry. ]

[ Terry huffs a little, but he's still pretty happy anyway. It's easy to make him happy when he's like this anyway. ]

Thanks, Kido. But what was he? He doesn't sound human from what you're telling me.

He's human.

[ ...She doesn't sound so sure. The guy can jump several stories into the air, has superhuman strength and speed and appetite and all of that, but if he's not human, then what could he be? ]

[ Well... ]

Then... a human with modifications? Special power?

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