Chapter Text
It's a day much like any other.
Brown eyes alight with curiosity blink open to the three lamps hovering above of his bedroom. If he thinks about it too hard, he thinks they each look like some kind of imploding star. A supernova, maybe the birth of a new galaxy. Peter rolls over onto his stomach, yawning as his unruly bedhead falls over his eyes. He taps through his tablet with slowly-blinking eyes, wondering what today would be like.
It'd be like all the other days, Peter thinks. A day he does whatever he can to keep himself amused and moving.
Already in preparation for what's to come, the four walls of his room pixellate and fade away to a clear canvas. The space sprawls out into a blueish whiteish infinity. He picks up his stylus and renders out today's playground.
The infinity shimmers subtly, the change isn't so apparent because Peter's plans aren't so far off from the blank canvas.
Peter steps off his bed in tentative steps. Rationally, clouds are made out of water and ice particles condensing into near-weightless suspensions. It wouldn't be able to hold the weight of a boy like him, but he puts on his brave face and trusts anyway.
He wanted to float today, maybe even fly. What better place to do it than on the things already present in the sky?
Clouds don't actually behave like this, he thinks later. His hands are clasped over his stomach, back on a fluffy cloud as he looks up into a column of the sky. There are clouds everywhere, all with the same physics-defying characteristics as the one he's lying on right now.
Peter lets his eyes wander to the pink-blue hued sky as the day fades.
For a moment, he lets himself drift.
The infinity becomes awash in blue and beige, sunny without a cloud in sight.
Peter dresses himself in knee-high khakis and a white button-up, looking over himself on the mirror hanging on his closet door. Without thinking, he reaches for sunglasses even though he knows the sun wouldn't actually harm him here—
"Look at him, looking like his old man already!"
He whirls around, and his feet spin the pattern in the sand. For as long as he could remember, Peter was alone in this world. Where did that voice come from?
For a few tense moments, the only things Peter could hear were palm tree leaves rustling against each other, calm sea waves hitting the shore. So eventually, he starts walking.
He walks the length of the shore, however long it may be, leaving indents on the shoreline. He walks close to the edge of the water but never quite touching it. He looks behind once to see his footprints filled in by the waves lapping up the indents in the sand.
A single set of footprints, that's all they'll ever be.
The infinity explodes bright green and deep blue, the sun winking up ahead as torrents of clouds frame it below.
Peter normally only sets his environment once then wanders in it for the rest of the day. Today though, he's going to try something new.
For once, he doesn't leave his tablet on his bed, but he keeps the stylus stashed away so he doesn't lose it. Some part of him is sure it would show up the next day even if he did lose it, but he doesn't want to take any chances.
His white-red raglan doesn't get inky grass stains, no matter how much he rolls and tumbles in it. The blades are crisp and cold on his skin, at the cusp of dewy as though the sun had evaporated most of it before the day started.
Tablet in hand, Peter brushes away his curls before making a few changes to his world.
Something akin to a rumble jostles under his feet, before he shoots up several feet in the air. He could almost feel his stomach turning at the sudden altitude change, but he laughs instead. I did it! I'm still alive!
The pulsing under the skin of his chest picks up, just a tad. Something like adrenaline pumping through his veins as he presses another column, then another and another.
He leaves a trail of stone pillars and laughter behind him.
The infinity fades into a deep purple, frost creeping spidery cracks on the glass-like walls of his bedroom.
Peter decides to stay in today. The outside was blanketed in pillowy sheets of snow. He can see curtains of icicles dripping off the undersides of cliffs, droplets weeping off of them to make discs of ice on the ground.
If he looks up far above him, he can see streaks of green and blue light. It pools color intensely at the bottom, pulling into nothingness as it reaches up into the night. Auroras are luminous phenomena that consist of streamers of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet's magnetic polar regions. They are caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet's magnetic field lines.
He blinks, eyes glossy at recalling the textbook definition. He pulls his coat closer to himself, biting down a sob that threatened to come through.
"Daddy, daddy! Could we have hot choc'late when we get home?"
Peter sucks in a bite of cold air, turning towards the general direction of the sound. There, in the distance, two figures standing at the edge of a cliff. They seemed to be made up of yellow light, dissipating at the edges like fireflies. One was shorter, clasping the hand of the taller figure.
He could step out and take a closer look, but he doesn't.
"Of course, bambino."
There's the voice again, warm and comforting, encouraging pinpricks at the back of his head. A tear falls, trails down his cheek to his chin.
The infinity is more subdued, the changes crawling through the ground before chasing the white canvas into a night sky.
Peter walks through an almost monochrome forest, muted tones of blues and greys as trees sprout up along his path. His hands are nestled in the pockets of his coat, breath coming out as white puffs as though the frosted landscape never left. The tablet is inside his jacket, but he has a feeling he isn't going to be making any sudden changes today. As though traces of yesterday still linger, for once.
He hasn't felt in such a long time. He's almost felt many times, facsimiles and afterimages of what could have been joy, fear, pain, or even just sensation.
The fireflies came back again today, populating the forest in covers of soft pulsing light. They don't make up the same image of the pair he had seen before. Instead they twist and shiver, coming and going as they please. At the horizon, a knife's edge in his vision, are glints of gold and silver and red. Familiar, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
He knows that no matter how far he walks, his destination will always be just out of reach.
It was a day much like any other, until it wasn't.