Chapter Text
As the two march towards the destination, Nathan had been thinking as much towards Diane, as he is as much concerned into going home without a bus to rely on.
To him, it's like going on a powdered kegged line, whatever that means overall.
She seemed okay and trustful enough, considering of how she seems to be a student of another school as well as being techniqually a responsible adult of the situation, but he wants to make sure that's the case.
"Oh hey.... Before we continue, I just need to give you something.", Diane assured
She takes a blanket from her bag, and puts it on top of Nathan, surprising him a bit as he is covered from the gift.
"It's going to get windy from what I seen up here, so I think you might need it."
Nathan wasn't really presented in this much of kindness from a random stranger like her, he wonders....
"Thank you....."
"Your welcome.", Diane says before wrapping her arm a bit to his back, spooking him a bit again as they walk
Wondering if that was even acceptable to do towards such a stranger like he is to her, the whole arm thing is kind of off.
He was going to question her about why they are going straight instead of like, right, considering that based on their surroundings, right seemed faster, but he stayed quiet not only due to his lack of confidence, but also the path seems okay as is so far, he didn't really talked to her much at all.....
That is, until she decides to go into a random store near a street, when she let her arm go from his back, catching him off-guard as he continues following her.
"Di-Wa-Diane! Why are we in here for!?", Nathan blubbers to the Fox about his already glaring worries as they walk near the alleys of various resources
"Nothing, just picking some stuff up for when I plan to get myself home after you.", She answered with confidence
"Why Alcohol...?", he says as their get near the various dangers of hardened liquids
"Oh.... That~? Hahaha. It's for a party after one of my friends finishes something off."
"Like what?"
She pauses for a moment, the way she reacted with her eyes slowly opening a bit
"Gradation, more or less.", The Fox smirked
This didn't really help his worry at all. Along with the vagueness of it all, in fact that makes it worse.
He wasn't paying too much attention on what she's doing besides that, mainly because he likes the scenery of the place, but he notices the items she gets are as follows: "How to be the Sly Devil you are in 20 minutes" by David Bowley, random logs with an interesting smell, "Going to Sleep: It's easier than you think!!!" by Bo Vivid, 4 bottles of what seems to be liquor, aaaaaaaannnndd Coffee, the creamy kind.
He didn't think much around that aside of the obvious elephant standing near her hip bag, which she curiously tries to be careful of than the other stuff.
Still worried about wasting the clock too, as always for Nathan.....
As they get out of the store, they continued the direction they were initially heading, going through some pathways near various streets, almost to the point where it is making Nathan feel off.
"Diane.... Do you actually know where you are going?"
"Yea, it's kind of confusing at first but there's this one thing that we need to go on in order to get there. It's going to be to a bus-stop, leads to North right there."
"What.... You mean... Oh...."
Nathan was initially upset by this, as the idea of trying to get a bus after missing one, instead of just walking there, seems kind of a bad idea. But then he thought about it again and realized how dumb it would be to be upset on it.
As they continue towards the destination of the place, Nathan pays more attention to how she is walking.
She seemed kind of walking as if there's a stick stuck on her, like she's afraid that moving to much would have said stick deal more damage to her body or something. It was kind of nerving to him.
But not too much.
"So...... How is your situation?", Diane actually spoke up
He was a bit surprised by the question but nothing much else
"Fine I guess, I kind of feel a bit tired bu-"
"I meant as in your daily life."
Nobody really questions him around that, and while he has a bit less confidence, as possibly shown in his life before, he answers her anyway
"I am with my mom, sister, and aunt. It's okay I guess."
"Interesting....", was all she muttered, not even looking directly at him
Diane then takes a bottle from the bag, and begins to take a sip from it, which makes him wonder...
"Why are you.... Drinking that? I thought it was for the party you are planning on.."
"Well, sometimes when life continues, you are eventually going to get tired.....
Diane then looks out to the sky as her face looks at him, as if she had no idea on what to say next
Considering that you are tired, would you...?", she implies for a drink
"N-No.... I don't really plan on drinking at all..... Or smoking even."
Especially since his mother was a smoker to a big degree, which made him dislike cigs a lot, especially when he experienced them as a baby
And now the stench of the alcohol makes him even more stressed out
Diane puts the drink away, and continues the cycle of walking, only shortly enough to say...
"Well.... That's something to be treasured.", said the "adult"
He thought that was going to be it until....
"Nathan, what do you do anyway?, The Canine speaks up to a different question once more
"Uhh...... I.....
Right again, another question that catches him off guard. He wonders if being inexperienced to talking to people outside of his family is taking it's toll
I don't really, do much, I just go through school, walk around, maybe eat, and then do the things I need to do for life, other than browse the internet, not much else."
"I understand.... Sometimes I got to be like that, I don't even know what to do with myself sometimes."
"Why?"
"Because...... Well I don't know, and that's why I don't know. It's kind of simple..."
"I think I know what you mean now......"
"Yeah, like I know I need to do this, and that, walking around with a smile on my face to keep up with people being fine, it's what it is.", Diane says with a slight sense of miserableness on her breath
"But honestly, I think we just need a bit more confidence, maybe that would cheer us up!", she begins to smile more as she tries to pat on his shoulder, much to his awkwardness, right before quickly making another drink again
However, as they seem to finally get to the light they are heading, Nathan initially thought they just needed to wait, only for his stranger of a "friend" to react a bit more than he was.
"God fucking damn it....... Shit...... Can't believe we missed it.", Diane grumbled
"Wait, we missed the bus?!"
"Yeah, looks like we need another path to North, possibly something more..... Quick..... I want to make sure you get home...... Okay?"
"Okay..."
It was all Nathan coul d say anyway
When the duo go deeper within their new destination the place seems to be more shaded, and bleak, while Diane begins to mutter something like "Stupid time." as she takes another sip to the bottle, but its less of a sip, and more of a chug.
She becomes on what seems to be slowly unhinged, although he isn't sure if that is even the right word
However,
Nathan slowly realizes as he forgoes this new path, that this feels more suspicious, or rather perhaps feels less genuine of a path than what he initially believe. Now they are somehow within a more natural walkway, with a flowing water pathway nearby, rocks, and leaves everywhere.
He feels like he needs to brake rather than gas pedal.
"Diane..... Please. I don't even think this is even that good of a direction.... Wh-What are you even doing?"
"I don't know, I'm just following through here.... I am.... Sure this is the wayyyy...."
"No, seriously. I don't feel like this is even safe."
"Safe...? This is the best path for the situation at hand, all the other choices are too long to do..."
"If thats the case then........ Okay..... Okay....", Nathan heavily sighs as he says that, wondering if that is actually true
The place becomes more eerie, not just because of the area, but rather of her as well, she seems a lot more desperate and inconsistent, as if something is weakening her body while also having said body try its best to be upright
He feels like he needs to say something in order to stop something from happening. She keeps going into this sudden direction on what seems to be bleak hope, the place feels more uncanny, and wretched as the weather gets more heavier than the last.
She seems more desperate, and clinging onto something as if shes about to fall at any moment
He thinks about what he is going to leave if anything goes wrong.
He thinks about his life before, the sings that he heard, the places he gone to.....
The mother that tried his best to care for him, and how much she loved him.....
He needs to do something....... He has to....
"Diane I...... I think you are being........"
Nathan tries to take what little confidence he has possibly left to look straight at her as she turns around, and a part of him wishes he took it back.
She looked absolutely miserable on sight, as if she had been through hell-and-back just to do a selfless thing that mainly left them in being an entirely different person than they once were
Not much for the better either, much to his absolute fear that drills upon him. With the sunken eyes that looked like it went through the void of the deep ends of the world, as dark as the soreness that every pain bears with, to the amount of detail that she is overall bearing as if it was made by a Spongebob gross-out artist
"Too..... Much...", he muttered
Diane opens her mouth, but doesn't say anything, moving her arm around like she's using it to help her think of something, anything to say, then as she points outwards to him, nothing echoes from her lungs,
Muttering the words "Too Much" over and over and over while she looks around with her eyes closed, until she tightened her arm and finger to be straighter, creaking up a more devilish smile.
"Let me tell you something Nathan..... All of THIS, how we act, how we breathe.....
Hohoho! How we live our day to day lives with every spark of thinking in our heads, IS nature! There is NO such thing as "Too much"!"
As she finally roared a bit out of herself, it shook Nathan like a pipe hitting the gutters
"Yo-You're scaring me man...."
"Scaring you? HA! Scaring you?! You know how I feel walking with you...? I felt some fear, and confliction because my heart had some hope, only to drag me to where I previously felt to people like you."
She heavily breathes in-and-out as she gulps the rest of the bottle, taking another one with desperation as she begins to drink a bit down to her throat. She takes it off of her mouth, still heavily breathing
"I.... Oh Jesus...... Well, well, well...... I would tell ya Nathan.... You live..... In a single mothers house... I think, an-and along with some people, or whatever.....
You know, what a negative time is like."
"Negative time?"
"Yeah, Negative time, you know, the struggles of your life seeping within every step you take, and yet, despite all of that, you think that WE, are just "People".......
She then just stops..... Like time just took its course in standing still fo-
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
PEOPLE! PEOPLE NATHAN?!
Is that how you think?! Is that how you feel? Talk about being misdirected! You had all the time in the world to think, all just for THAT!?
Jesus, no wonder humans are so naive, the comforts of their own, even with their struggle involved, makes them not realize.....
To....... The...........
*Sob*
She begins to lose her 2nd composure and begins to break down
"Who am I kidding........ I'm just in a prison.... That I created by monsters...... I-I can't do anything....", she bends her back downwards, placing her hands onto the holes of her broken mask
Nathan couldn't do much of anything but watch, in fear that something worse may happen, but also being mentally shocked that he is really experiencing the entire thing in front of him
"Diane....? What's wrong?", he tried to find on what she is feeling, to understand
"I......... It's not you.....
I just hate everything, even my whole existence...."
Diane begins to show a bit of a waterfall going through the plugs, silently grieving over her own demons wavering around her like dangling keys
Then she bounces up
"Yeah..... That's it! HA! That's what it is all along now! Me living with fur, and snout makes me a Slick Devil. Nothing more than a DEVIL!
Life has proven to me that what you are born is what you get!
It's either me, or them, nobody else. Nobody is going to take me away from myself, as they charge into my doors with their righteous calvary, as they stomp any semblance of my birth! Cornering me everywhere I go as if I am under a "Role". That's why being "people" is a weak mindset! All it does is make you weak against the vast forces of nature, storming and pulling your FUCKING eye sockets until all there is left is mush! What is the point of with your thinking, when all it does is NOTHING?!
NOTHING!
As she begins to rant around her own demons, she bounces up and down around while truly not much as much, each movement from her limbs place a fear to Nathans soul more as more as she does it
You can't leave your own responsibilities; you have to be what they want just so you can make the world go around!
NEVER FALL IN LINE, BECAUSE IF YOU DO, YOU WILL HAVE NOWHERE TO RUN, AND NOWHERE TO HIDE!"
She then begins to hallow out a scream full of agony that puts the massive weight around the whole atmosphere, covering it all in a extremely bleak oily black as the whole area becomes jaded from it.
Nathan can't help but to make it stop, he can't take it anymore.
"STOP IT!"
The Fox freezes up from the nearest roar she could ear from her furred ears, as she slowly turns her head around to him as if he made a "Oh-No."
"JUST STOP IT! PLEASE!
*Sob*
You're just hurting yourself! I can't stand it! JUST......
JUST FUCKING SHUT UP AND STOP IT!"
He can't help but just cry, cry that this is the kind of pain he has to deal with, the kind of pain that he has to see right in front of someone who seemed to be sort of okay at first, even though she was a complete stranger to him....
Maybe a part of him wanted to care about her, but she's making it so much worse for the both of them
Diane didn't even react harshly from it, she just stares into space with a miserable face, sighing before looking up in the sky....
He did not expect this at all, making the whole situation seemingly worse for him
Then she goes off.... Once more.
"What's the difference between a 4-legged canine grass rat that feasts upon the smaller beasts, and a two-armed, two legged canine humanoid who talks, breathes, and thinks like an modern ape? Why does someone like me exist in the first place?
Why did some random god decided that its somehow funny?! Add a layer of different beings? And for fucking what? Hybrids? Oh wait, god didn't pick that one, it's just either human or me, of fucking course it is, nowhere to run, or hide, or even think when the day passes and nothing happens.
Waking up knowing that you are here, ready to see what life throws at you, reminding you that pain would always come no matter how hard you try to defend or avoid it.
Like you, wasting your years of being alone when the world goes on, as you stand still like a pathetic wrench of nothingness, hoping that someone can just walk by, and give you something that you desperately so needed, only to not have that happen because how much of a fucking bystander you are.
A Human with no tale, a being with no effort.
In a world where only the lucky can get to determine everything in this world, hoping that by leaving something alone in the dark without going directly at it, as they delve into their own twisted pleasures, would somehow make it all fade away, only to bite them in the ass over and over, as they never EVER learn.
All leaving a positive person who truly knows about what is good, and positive in the world, to be left as a hard shadow of their former self, mixed and matched by the miserableness of others, acting all high and mighty as if YOU are the childish one, and not themselves.
Hoping that something good can happen out of this daily need to feel comfortable as you try to be safe with what you do, or say......
And then you just realize.....
She walks slowly from Nathan as she hungs downwards from her head and arms
That.... All very soon.... That you yourself are just not good enough.
Maybe it wasn't just them that's the problem, but also you.
Maybe there was something happening with you after all, and that because you were so good, and positive, that you forget to realize deep inside that you were what you fear you were because of it, not playing a role you are assigned to, making you frail, and broken onto every corner as the world reaps off of your lack of confidence, having their flaws of nature control their brains to tangle on every insecurity you have, because they do not care to any bit at all on what you feel, but rather on what you fear.
And from all of that.... You just mold yourself into something else entirely, seeing anything you once loved as another thing that happens.......
*Sob*
That you once loved, is not what you think it is anymore, and that you can never bring it back......
She quickly changes