This is a short chapter.
When **** appears, it means a trigger warning. Very graphic depictions of self harm through the whole paragraph. Nothing actually happens if you skip the paragraph.
The Uncanny Valley was by no means a normal place. It was weird, and contrasting between its inhabitants.
You could get in there, tho not very easily, and rumor had it you could also leave the place if so you wished.
This didn't apply to everyone tho, the mere presence of this place carried a curse within. If so decided to give up a dollop of itself to briskly conceive your existence, you would never be able to leave the place. What begins there, stays and ends there.
There were rules, of course but not any set of rules... Oh, you were expecting to hear them? No, they cannot be spoken nor written.
Various realities could be created inside the place, and the most powerful ones could create realities inside realities, but being able to even do the first to begin with was weird enough.
A shapeshifter, a reality warper with a bit too much free time on his hands. Time as a construct meant nothing, because time is free, time is manipulable if you knew how to bargain with it and in the end of the day, you only need to know how to reach an agreement with it and it'll work in your favour.
The man knew time too well, so much that it stopped being relevant for him, and he could be usually found trying to kill the excess of time he had.
This aimless behaviour tho, turned dull way too quickly. He truly felt like a walking corpse, and none of his abilities could make him feel like before, not even the least excited as they used to before.
The man wasn't one to analyse his emotions, he wouldn't stop to try and solve the tangled mess they were becoming in a healthy way, he didn't know how to and it wasn't common in that place to even try.
****
He did try many ways, however, of being able to temporarily fill the need for something new. One that he found still had some kind of effect was cutting himself. The visceral pleasure he used to feel when the cold, sharp blade slowly opened through his skin, letting his insides breathe and his thick, incarcerated blood slowly made its way through the fibrous layers of skin, deep enough to cause great bleeding but not to show the bone. The rousing feeling and ravenous way of slicing through his skin, however, was loosing effect after time. It really wasn't, but he felt like that because it didn't matter how much he would cut himself or in what way he did, it never felt as amazing as the first time. Even when there was no space left and he had to cut over healed cuts, even when the cut showed a white layer that wasn't bone, or even when the bone showed and he had to stitch himself, it never felt as good.
****
He was no stranger to "love" either, or what he thought was. He had never felt actual love, hence he had the idea that love was boring and never long lasting.
He had experimented different stuff with various people, but in the end either the other person would break it off because of how distant he was, or he would just ghost them as he wasn't good with goodbyes.
He had never felt love at first sight, yet he thought he had, mistaking it for some kind of attraction. No one teaches you how to love or how to identify the treacherous feeling, alas you have to learn through experience.
He was no stranger to adrenaline, however, and always tried to do different stuff that had his blood pumping. He loved horror, he loved the woods and he loved attraction parks amongst other things that he could find along his adrenaline seeking way.
Drugs? Of course he had tried them, but it's like going towards the ocean and pouring a pinch of salt into it to make it more salty, who the hell needed drugs when you literally lived in uncanny valley?? That place itself is on drugs.
Every day (or when he wanted to), he would go outside. Sometimes in search for thrill, other times just because he liked seeing people pass by, either way he would spend hours outside.
That fateful day was no exception. It was a normal, under what can be considered normal in that place, clear evening. He left his place early that day, same mindset as every other day.
On his way towards not-even-he-knows where, he almost tripped when he caught glimpse of a well known man around the place. He wasn't popular or anything, just very fucking odd.
"He looks thrilled..." That meant he had met a new victim. The dude was weird but knew how to lure people in. His name? Maison Talo, uncanny valley's number one realtor... Or that's how he presented himself.
He was no stranger to Maison, I'm fact he once approached him but any inhabitant of the place knew better than to have anything to do with him, hence he always found preys in new people who didn't know what was going on around the place.
No harsh feelings existed towards the man, but he preferred not to interact with him as he just walked past without even turning to look around.
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It was already afternoon, the sun was starting to go down when he found himself walking around the city. While eating wasn't incredibly necessary for him, sometimes he liked to feel the flavour in his mouth, so he was currently searching for a place to eat.
A few meters away from him, was a medium height shape, hurriedly walking towards somewhere, as if in a hurry.
Hair already messy, face a bit sweaty and make up already kind of messed up, wearing a cheap sweet perfume which fragance was already almost lost.
If you were to ask him now if he could go back to that day and stay inside, would he do it? His answer would be pretty ambiguous, but it would stop in the same conclusion, "never".
But this train of thought would appear later.
As of now, that girl with cheap perfume almost hit his shoulder but quickly dodged, not even turning to apologize, she was wayyy too deep into her mind, lost in thought. While she didn't even turned to look at him, he was quick to raise his look and focus on that girl.
And God, was that an image.
Even as the girl walked away, he couldn't stop staring at her, he almost swore he had hearts in his eyes.
The feeling both made him a bit anxious but mostly it made him feel incredible, why? Because he had never felt such delicate warm unfold from within him, it was a new emotion and he felt so excited, he finally found what he had been searching for.
But as the girl continued walking and started to fade amongst the people and distance, he grew scared. She was stealing from him, she was walking away and taking that feeling with her. He wouldn't allow it, he wouldn't let her get away. He had to follow her.
Doe had to follow her and get back that feeling she had just stolen. No matter what.
