Macha sat against the wall of her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, trying to regulate her breathing. What was happening? Trying to distract herself, she pulled out a leaflet from Oxford University.
There are voices in our heads rp (Closed)
Why are you so scared of me? He tried to communicate with her.
Why are you so scared of me? Macha squeezed her eyes shut, hands shaking. Since she was old enough to understand, she’d been warned against people in her head. Her mother had been driven to insanity because people had been constantly borrowing into her head to communicate. She— she was gone now, because of them. Macha clenched and unclenched her fists, dropping the pamphlet onto the mattress that served as her bed. She did not reply to the question.
I-i'm sorry. I didn't know who or what this was.. He trailed off, feeling hopeless.
Macha shook her head, forgetting that the intruder in her mind couldn’t see her. How much of my head do you control?, she asked, not caring if she sounded harsh anymore. She probably sounded scared.
Not a lot I don't think. I only hear you. I didn't do this, I promise.
Macha inhaled shakily, mind flashing back to her mother’s mangled body on the front steps. Who are you? She had to struggle not to go slipping back into endless recitation of Pi.
I'm just…me.. He curled up on his bed, still trying to get over the events of a couple hours ago.
Macha exhaled, her wings materializing. Wrapping them around her tightly and closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate. I mean, what’s your name?
Tyler..how about you? He started feeling a little better.
Macha hesitated. Was giving her name away really a good idea? She did it anyways, a leap of faith. Macha. She pronounced the ‘ch’ like a sound between ‘kuh’ and ‘hh’, a foreign throaty noise.
Why did you run away?
Macha paused, staring at the wall opposite to her. Her room was small and dim, with a leak in one corner of the ceiling and paint peeling from the walls. Sometimes she would follow that pathways the cracks made in the paint to distract herself, but there was no distracting herself right now. It took her a long time to respond. I don't like people going through my head., she replied finally.
I-I wasn't trying to..I wan't to meet you. I want to talk in person.
Macha tensed instinctively. Weaving strands of white hair through her fingers to keep her hands busy, she bit her lip, frighteningly tempted to agree. Her wings were beginning to cramp, so she shifted onto her knees and let them drape over her shoulders. It took her another long while to reply, heart racing. This is a bad idea…, she thought to herself, what if– Macha abruptly cut the thought off, in case Tyler could hear her. Where and when?, she asked tentatively.
Tomorrow at the stone ledge by the lake. 9:00 am. He told her, this being the busiest time in the town.
Tomorrow at the stone ledge by the lake. 9:00 am., came the reply. Macha picked at the dirt beneath her thumbnail, considering this. Sure., she thought back, even as her memories warned her to be very afraid of people who could see inside her head. How much did he know about her, she wondered apprehensively.
Good.. He sighed and leaned back.
Wishing she could close off her mind to him like one could close the screen of a laptop after emailing a stranger, Macha leaned back against the wall, eyes absentmindedly roaming the walls of her cramped room. A red bucket in the corner that served to catch the drips of water that dribbled down from the leaky ceiling was the only splash of colour in her white and grey bedroom, which consisted of a hard but thick mattress with a couple sheets thrown over it shoved into the corner farthest from the door, a tiny window in the wall also farthest from the door, creaking, uneven, and greying floorboards, a small white desk crammed into the corner opposite from the mattress-bed which was overflowing with stacks of scribbled-on paper and files and manuscripts and essays and analyses and notes on random subjects, plus the complex assortment of huge maps, blueprints, and pages of writing plastered on the walls, some connected by strings tied around pegs and pins. She didn't have a bookshelf, so piles of thick, well taken-care-of books were set against the walls, many with papers and sticky notes pressed between the pages, mythologies and textbooks, architecture books, analogies, books of poetry, diagrams of the human brain, old stories and legends that she had collected over the years. A tiny built-in closet in the corner of the wall that held her desk was sparsely filled with only white and grey clothing, the occasional pair of black leggings, but mostly pale monochrome. A grimy mirror with cracked glass hung on the wall next to it.
Tyler stood up, sick of being here already. He thought a smaller room would be better. To hold himself together. He realized now that there was no more trying to stay sane. This was far past sane. It was bad enough being one of the only magic persons in the town but now there was nothing normal left about him. How will I tell people.. He thought, standing up and walking out of the room and out of the house. I won’t.
Macha felt like banging her head against the wall. Instead, she lay down on her mattress and curled up, one wing acting like a blanket as she closed her eyes and listened to the steady dripping of the water from the ceiling into her red bucket. Drip, drip, drip. Her whole body felt heavy and exhausted, even though it was still morning, probably due to the fact that she'd slept about two hours last night. That, coupled with the events concerning Tyler, made for one hell of a headache. Drip, drip… drip, drip. She was mentally struggling to control her thoughts in a way that they wouldn't be broadcasted to the stranger in her head, and it was exhausting. Sighing, she opened her eyes and let them trace over the maps on the wall opposite to her. The Acropolis, ancient Athens, Atlantis, she had it all. Mythical maps and imaginings of fabled places pinned up with maps of ancient ruins and cities. The collection had taken her years to accumulate, but it was now larger than she'd ever imagined. Macha sighed again, closing her eyes once more.
Tyler walked down to the edge of the lake and sat down on the ledge. It was getting late but he wasn’t going to stick around to watch his father come home exhausted and mad. He laid down, his back resting against the cold concrete. His eyes closed slowly and he drifted off.
(Where do you want to go from here? Do you want to skip to next morning since Tyler fell asleep, or just continue?)
(Yeah we can ts to like 8 am if that’s good)
For sure!)
Macha leaned against the wall, sitting cross legged on her bed with a university architecture textbook open in her lap. The clock read 8:00am. One more hour until her meeting with Tyler. After a few more minutes of trying to concentrate, she gave up, snapped the textbook shut, and got off her bed. She grabbed a hairbrush, dragging it through her tangled until they smoothed out, and changed out of sweatpants and a t-shirt and into a loose shouldered white top and grey leggings. Not that she’d gotten much use out of the pyjamas, she hadn’t slept a wink last night, mostly just read and wrote, plus a load of worrying about her upcoming meeting with the stranger in her head. Macha sighed and slipped out of her room, praying that her dad wasn’t awake yet.
Tyler almost dozed off again, his forehead resting on his knee. It had been about 4:30 when he woke up and his back was sore from sleeping on the ledge. You can stay awake one more hour..
Macha slipped into the hallway, cringing as the stairs creaked loudly on her way down. She made her way into the cramped kitchen… only to bump into her dad. "Mach, good morning!" Hans Rosendorfer smiled down at his daughter over a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. "Morning dad.", she managed, faking a smile. "I've got some stuff I need to do, by the lake… err, analysis of waterfowl.", she lied. "Habits and such."
Hans smiled. "Be home by noon, you've got work at 12:30."
"I know, Papa."
She hastily ate a small breakfast, and was out the door by 8:30.
Tyler scowled down at the ledge and waited for Macha, not feeling anything. He felt people looking at him and he hated it.
Macha hurried down the street and under the bridge, heading for the lake. Her nerves were buzzing and her hands were clenched, if they hadn’t been made of stone they might have been sweating from her anxiety. She checked the time. 8:50. Ohgodohgodohgod. Finally, she caught a glimpse of his blue hair.
Tyler tensed for some reason and took a deep breath. You’re here aren’t you. He thought without looking up.