Chapter Text
Serenity
Prologue
It wasn't quiet anymore.
While he could not remember what it was like before, he knew that all the various noises surrounding him, pressuring him, startling him were new. Whereas before there was nothing, now there was everything. Sounds and sights, smells and taste, touch. It was a constant assault of stimuli, and he wasn't sure if he could handle the chaos. He did know that he didn't like it.
“Oh, the poor dear!”
Again, more noise – a higher toned sound rising and falling as the jumbled racket seemed to come together to express... something. What the thing was saying, he wasn't sure, yet. Of all the confusing things battering against his mind, this one posed less of a risk to his safety, his sanity, he believed. Rather, at unpredictable intervals there was a steady, ominous ticking sound which would signify a rapid redirection of the metal cage he found himself trapped inside. And then there were also the routine but thankfully only temporary blindings for him to worry about as well. Every time his metal cage passed another, he was prevented from accessing his surroundings for a short moment, and sometimes those passing metal cages came so close to him that he felt their vibrations ricocheting through his form. It was disconcerting, and he knew unfamiliar. He wasn't supposed to be here. His existence wasn't like this, but, at the same time, it was the only thing he now knew.
“Phillip, look at him,” that same noise smacked his ears once more.
“I'm driving here, Diane,.” a deeper tone returned. Why couldn't these things communicate silently... in their minds, especially if they were going to insist upon making noises he didn't understand and didn't particularly enjoy listening to. “If I look at him, I'll more than likely wreck the car, and then where will the boy be.”
Boy. Male. Him.
Their disturbance was about him.
“I know, honey, but I just....” Suddenly, the noise rose in volume. “It just makes me so mad. Here we are, desperately trying to have a child together, and someone can just... throw away such a beautiful, innocent little boy. And he's obviously been traumatized, Phillip. Who knows how long he's been wandering out in the desert, he's as thin as a rail, and....” Thankfully, the racket lessened quite considerably. “... I think he's mute.” He hoped that would be the end of the back and forth sounds, but then the thing continued, “you don't think he's been... abused, do you?”
“We won't know anything until we get him to the sheriff's office. There, we'll start looking through all the local missing children, and social services will send someone to look over him medically. Diane, it'll be alright. We'll help the boy.”
“That's the last thing he needs – a cold, impersonal environment, more strangers, to be poked and prodded. Why can't we just take him home with us?”
The larger thing expelled breath harshly. “Diane, you know as well as I do that there are proper channels that things like this must go through.”
“Was it proper for someone to just... dump their child off in the middle of nowhere?!”
At that point, it all became too much. Between all the audible noise; the intermittent lights; the occasional vibrations; the acrid sting of scents bypassing his nose for the first time; the touch of his body against the solid surface beneath him, around him, behind him; and the cacophony of emotions swirling dangerously inside of him – some of his own and some being transmitted by the things before him and then absorbed into his own form, he simply couldn't maintain his control any longer. So, he did the only thing he could do: he allowed some of the stimuli to leak out of his form, their wet release leaving a trail down from his eyes to his face, dripping off his chin, and then continuing to roll their way down his nude body.
They made him shiver.
And still the sounds, and the sights, and the smells, and the tastes, and touches continued. There was no relief. The pressure continued to grow – choking him.
He wanted to go back. He missed the nothingness that is there in his mind from before, but, without understanding why he was aware of such a truth, he knew he would never be able to return to what and where he was before, and it would never be quiet again.