well it would've been, could've been worse than you'd ever know

[dmboogie]

((The entire time Abe had been trying to fall asleep, something'd been nagging at him.))

He'd tried to put it aside and stop thinking, 'cause like, it's not like there was a fucking calc exam he'd forgotten to study for. Maybe it was just like, regular human sadness, that happened to people, right? Maybe he was scared of dying, maybe he was scared of the consequences of his actions, maybe he was scared of seeing Beryl's open throat every time he closed his eyes. Maybe he just wanted to cuddle with his girlfriend instead of his hoodie. His brain was full of infinite shitty possibilities.

Eventually he got numb to it. His eyelids grew heavy, his breath slowed, all that good shit, his lootbag was a decent enough pillow, he'd honestly slept on less comfortable floors. He snoozed, for a few hours.

Then some fragment of good sense buried deep in his subconscious bitch-slapped him awake, and he bolted up, wild-eyed.

"Oh shit, oh christ, motherfucking danger zones."

Those were a thing, the fucking orientation terrorist murder man had mentioned them. Their collars weren't just to make sure no one escaped - they were gonna get herded around like cats whose heads could explode at any moment. What happened if they made the whole forest a DZ? Dee-zee? Deezy? What the fuck would he do then? There was probably some sorta grace period, but it'd taken him a couple hours to hike to where he was at; there was no way in hell he'd make it out; 'cause like, his other options were to jump off the cliff and do a sick cannonball into the ocean, or just fall onto his knees and plead like 'hewwo pwease, mistew tewwowist, I'm so scawed, ooh-woo' and get blown the fuck up on the spot?

He'd been looking forward to getting some rest, waking up to the sunrise over the sea, having a leisurely breakfast while he decided what the hell he was gonna do with his life, but that was outta the question. He had to be proactive, which meant wandering through the forest in the middle of the night and hoping he didn't trip on a tree root and break his ankle, because running the fuck away from everything was currently his number-one solution to any problem he could encounter.

Muttering various hexes and curses and blasphemies under his breath, Abe got up, tied his sweatshirt around his waist, took out a flashlight, gathered his gun and bag, and set out into the night.

((Right then, there weren't many things in his life he regretted more than ditching his Dew.))