023 - Out in the darkness the whippets will cry

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She's at the batting cages, setting up one of the machines. There's something off about it, though--in the way she moves, so tense it's almost jittery. In the way she looks--pale and drawn, only her cheeks flushed with feverish color. She nearly drops the bucket of balls when she goes to fill the machine.

Swing, miss.

Swing, miss.

Swing, swing, swing. Missing every time.

Eventually the machine runs out of things to throw at her. She leans on the bat for a moment, eyes closed, and then thumps back against the side of the cage, sliding down into a sitting position. Knees to chest, arms crossed over them, head resting on her arms. She's chewing her lip now, thoughtful and still so tense she looks like a spring about to snap.]

Comments

[lamb_of_gold]

But you likely were as a child, yes?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

No, and even if I was, it wouldn't matter. There was no reason for me to react that way.

[lamb_of_gold]

An irrational fear of the unknown, and, by extension, the dark is something almost everything alive shares, even if they do not recognize it in themselves. A sudden blackout would startle me as well.

With how defensive you were being, I thought, perhaps, someone dear to you had died.

1/?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I...

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

...wasn't just scared.

[lamb_of_gold]

No?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I came here because I couldn't think. I could hardly breathe. I was...


terrified. And I have no idea why.

[lamb_of_gold]

[Finally sits nearby] Has anything happened of late?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

Nothing significant. [Well. Her guard got taken off, but since she's not told anyone about the guard to begin with, save Ianto...]

[lamb_of_gold]

Hm. No particularly bad cases or nightmares?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

No bad cases. [She tensed at the word nightmares.] Nightmares. Very, very bad nightmares. But they've slackened off since... [She frowns] Well, the Doctor gave me a machine to help me sleep. It can block dreams, too, and I usually to that, but the times I've forgotten I've still been able to sleep through the night. Which wasn't the case before... [She scratches her head] I don't know. They just stopped being as bad.

[lamb_of_gold]

Perhaps they've put you more on edge?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Shakes her head.] I feel better now than I have in weeks.

[lamb_of_gold]

Yet something about the blackout scared you this much....bizarre.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

It... would it make sense if I said the darkness hurt? It didn't, exactly, but... It felt... I can't properly explain it. It was almost as though I was laying there waiting for the pain to start.

[lamb_of_gold]

That sounds as though it were a phobia, Misaki.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

No. I'm not scared of the dark.

[lamb_of_gold]

Yet you reacted like this?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I'm not scared of the dark!!

[lamb_of_gold]

Then explain this?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I can't.

[lamb_of_gold]

It seems to me like you are afraid of the dark, or something has made you such.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I can't be... afraid of the dark.

[lamb_of_gold]

Yet you reacted thus when faced with it.