Ataxia [OMORI]

[Cataplexy]

Sunny awoke to a knock at the door, as did Basil simultaneously. They had stayed up last night playing video games, so they slept in. Sunny squinted at the clock on the wall. A lot harder to read with only one eye.

The knock was even louder the second time. The kind of knock that reminded of when the police showed up to respond to the 911 call Hero made all those years ago.

Hero...

Sunny looked outside the window to see who was knocking on the door. Hero. It was Hero.

Immediately, Sunny went cold with fear. "Sunny, shouldn't you answer the door..?" Basil asked nervously. The volume of the knock was clearly making Basil worried about it. He had no idea how bad it could end up being.

"Y-Yeah," Sunny said breathily. He stood and tugged on the leg of his shorts. Then, on the sleeve of his shirt. Finally, after sorting out his clothes, he went to the front door and winced as another loud pound on the entrance sounded off.

As soon as Sunny opened the door. Hero addressed him. Sunny had to rub his eyes as the Headspace version of Hero was in front of him for a moment. "Sunny- why is Basil here?"

He paused for a moment, but not long enough for him to answer. "Look, whatever, I don't care what you little murderers are doing, just-"

This time, Sunny cut him off. Specifically with a hand over the mouth. "Shh! Dude, look, Basil doesn't-"

Hero shoved Sunny off of him, knocking him to the ground. "Get the fuck off of me. What do you think you're doing?"

Before Sunny could answer, Basil did. "Hey! Don't hurt Sunny!" He shouted as he approached Hero shakily. Sunny couldn't tell if the shaking was from fear or if he was just suffering from an episode of instability.

Realization struck at the same time that Sunny hit the ground. He felt that he probably was too comfortable, thinking he was off scot-free from his interaction with Aubrey. "Okay, sorry, I was being a bit too..." Sunny trailed off as Basil stood between him and Hero. "Basil, it's okay. Let me talk to Hero," He protested.

Basil didn't listen. "Don't hurt Sunny again," he demanded of Hero.

"All I wanted to do was have a respectful discussion about what you two did, and you are seriously acting like total assholes," Hero said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his hand on his hip.

"You're the asshole! Go away!" Basil demanded, pushing Hero, making him stumble backwards. Immediately, Hero slapped Basil in the face, sending him reeling back for a moment. Basil straightened himself out and rubbed the side of his face, the red mark growing along his cheek. His face bore the visage of a boy in deep reverie. Some sort of memories coming back to him.

"You don't get to make demands of me after what you did to Mari!" Hero shouted.

"He doesn't remember, Hero!" Sunny finally shouted after he had frozen in shock.

Now Hero was the one frozen in shock. As Basil shyed away, sulkily walked back to the couch with tears in his eyes. "D-Doesn't remember what..?" Hero asked, a bit skeptical.

"Anything! And he has ataxia, too. You can't just hit him! Please..."

Hero didn't let Sunny finish, "Have you told him what you did?" Sunny stayed silent. "Of course not. Of fucking course-" Hero looked so disgusted he cut himself off, kicked the outside of the house, and began to walk down the walkway, back towards the sidewalk.

Sunny looked on from his position, laying on the floor, hunched up to watch as Hero left.

The two boys sat in silence for a bit. Sunny slowly got up off of the floor and looked back at Basil.

"Sunny... who was that?" Basil asked his companion.

A short pause followed. "Hero. He was our friend in the past until something bad happened," Sunny said vaguely, hopeful that the conversation would end there.

Unfortunately for Sunny, Basil was no longer in such a fragile mental state where he would just take everything at face value.

"What happened?" Basil asked. Sunny was silent for a while, unsure of how to answer.

It took a while, but eventually, Sunny just decided to say, "I don't think I can tell you yet."

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the questioning. After another long pause, Basil asked another question. "What happened to your sister?"

"My sister..?" Sunny felt his palms get sweaty. His vision returned to that day, Mari's body staring down at him. "W-What do you mean?"

"She's not here. Where did she go?" Basil asked suspiciously. "And... what did Hero say about Mari again..?"

Sunny's face was contorted with fear as Basil began thinking. "L-Let's not think about that right now. Please. Your ataxia might get worse, after all. Let's just keep calm!"

He had a fake smile plastered on his face, crudely attempting to hide the panic on his face and failing. "What's... what's wrong, Sunny..?" Basil asked with concern.

A short silence followed as Sunny fell over and passed out, head hitting the mattress as he fell forward onto it.

Vaguely, Sunny could hear Basil panicking over him. He didn't mean to cause Basil more stress, he thought, but he couldn't really think much as he had passed out, now unconscious and unable to think any longer.