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"This is for the Crew."

Dread, realising itself as vomit rising up the back of your throat.

Block out these vicious theatrics. Don't give him the fear he wants.

No reaction. Your face gives nothing away.

End of the line, coming up fast! Soon you'll be drooling, just like PSEUDOPOD.

Your pineal gland. Telling you to wake up.

As long as you can hack standing permanently in the shadow of one of your old friends.

Lesser people than you would feel embarrassed for being caught in such an act. Fortunately, you have the indifference of a low-class pervert.

How embarrassing! Caught peeping at a sleazy magazine full of what are probably under-age girls.

A wave of despair. The friends you abandoned, the promise of camaraderie you made a lie of.

You said yourself these plushies are sinister... what shape has breached containment?

What shape has breached containment?

Your skin crawls at the girlish sound, bubbling out of a woman who it doesn't at all seem to belong to.

Feel that. Life and death trembling beneath you, a single gram of pressure between them.

No matter how terrible reality might be, it's better than the not-knowing.

No -- but don't let her see.

If you all make it out of this it'll be a miracle.

Shit, he's remembered.

Hold firm. It's just stray air escaping his body.

The part of him that cares has been forcibly drowned in ethanol.

He's nervous about today. Extremely nervous.

No silence. Only the Eternal Tone, the tinnitus ringing that will play on until the end of life.

It's your inner steel he is seeing. Disregard any criticism.

Your blood cells scream at the sound of your name on his tongue.

The sound of your name on his tongue -- unnatural, upsetting.

He's a little afraid of you now.

It's far from the first time he's been threatened like this.

This is not your fault. The risks were the risks. This is not your fault.

Your fault. Un-fixable. Fucked.

You feel nothing. This is all part of the big comeback, baby.

Your guts twist in new knots.

A high dose of adrenaline from such a small source. You were like that before the world got to you.

He can't face them again. A part of him still believes he let them down.

Maybe breathing is slow-acting poison that takes eight decades to kill. Death's contingency when he can't get a clean shot at you.

Reason through this. There will be some logic, underneath it all.

A natural intensity of gaze. The eyes that weigh you up do so coldly, openly, and with genuine curiosity.

None of this matters. Keep your focus on the big picture.

It does sound kind of... uncool, when he puts it like that.

Your cares dissolve.

Dancing on insanity, his understanding of reality and roleplay had merged entirely.

You are not ready for this.

Put a stop to this.

There's definitely ants in there. Crawling colonies swarmed in the sticky-sweet syrup that's soaked into the pages... countless tiny horrible legs ready to tickle your skin...

The axis of the world inverts on half-muttered sentences.

The machines are talking about you all.

53 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual