Dial 0 For 0rb

[Slam]

S028: Lincoln Guenther had never been unconscious before.

Of course he’d been asleep. He’d spent somewhere between one third and one half of his life asleep. Definitely more of the latter in his teen years, as his dad so often asking him what time he called this when he finally came downstairs attested to. He was a growing boy, growing for two in fact: he needed a good night’s sleep.

Lincoln knew his orb didn’t sleep, which was why it had its own little padded box back in his bedroom. The sides were stuffed with goose down, so it was super cosy, and it had an extra layer to block sound. Plush as fuck, and let him ‘switch off’.

When he was little, he used to sleep with his orb in his bed with him. Apparently until he was four, he wouldn’t let go of it at night. Some kids had stuffed bears, he had his orb. But as he got older it became harder, because he started seeing all the little movements under his covers as he was trying to sleep. It was like trying to doze off with both eyes wide open, and that wasn’t really doable. So he’d gotten the padded box, and that had helped immensely. It had been upgraded a few times as he’d gotten older and his orb had gotten bigger, but his orb hadn’t really grown in a few years (like himself, he’d often rued when compared to his tall sister (shit where was Mercy??)), so his last box had been around for a while.

The state of forced unconsciousness, in contrast, did not make for a good night's sleep.

His orb had stayed awake, like when he tried to sleep. His orb saw things, even as his eyes were forced shut and he couldn’t move and Oh God why couldn’t he move!? Not just his body, but his orb sat lifelessly in his lap because he’d only taken it out for a little bit to stretch, and he couldn’t float or move around the bus or try to fly out a window and get help or OH GOD why couldn’t he move?!? And then they had grabbed his orb and put it in a bag and he couldn’t see anything and everything was muffled but he hadn’t fallen asleep like back home and Oh God what was happening?!

And it had been like that for hours and hours. Trapped in a bag while he couldn’t tell what was happening to his body, unable to move, surrounded by junk that meant nothing. And then they’d pulled him out of the bag and moved him into another bag, and he still couldn’t move and he just saw masks and hands and then finally his eyes had opened again and they shot Ms. Duffy and that kid with the flaming hair and he kind of wished he could go back to just being in the bag, except he was still in the bag and he could move now but all it really accomplished was rustling the bag about, because it was too heavy and there were other things on top of it, and then there was gas and he couldn’t move his body again and it started all over.

And that’s how it had been for hours and hours more, as his orb sat in a bag full of bottles and other things, but there was no light inside so he couldn’t see a thing, and he had no idea where his body was or what state it was in, until its eyes finally opened and it was trapped too and Oh God Oh God oh, wait,

A sleeping bag, yeah. He’d been in one of those on a family camping trip once. Damn he hated that trip, he would say out loud but quietly admit he valued the memory. Ok, cool, he wasn’t– his arm moved. Slowly. His body rolled when he willed it to. His orb sat still as he waited, its non-existent breath held. His eyes opened. He sat upright.

Toto, he didn’t think they were in Oregon any more.

((Lincoln Guenther continued in Moose Egg))