lil doodle by @salvia

Furnace 1 - ??? IThump. Thing. New noise. Hadn’t been a new noise for a while. How long a while was tricky. Should’ve known. Didn’t. Didn’t know a lot of things you should. You? The concept of You sounded right, must be another thing you stopped knowing. Movement under you is startling. Tensing, it takes a moment to understand that the movement was you as well. Your legs moved because they want to bring you to where the thump happened, because you want to go there, you think. Thinking is interesting, you want to keep doing that. Vaguely, you’re aware of hands that want to help you move too. You listen to your legs because they listen to you. But even with your hands too, moving is tricky. It being tricky wants to make you hit something because you know you could do it better before. Before. Before......Before before before before before before before . There was something before this moment with the thump and the moving what was it what was it what was it what was— There’s suddenly a sound in the back of your throat. You didn’t know sounds could be there, and it’s startling. Felt weird too. You pause, staring at the rocks and stones, and decide to keep moving. That’s better, because thinking about the non-movement things makes your heart hurt and you don’t like it. The different hurts from moving are easier. There’s a thing in front of you in the same spot as where the thump came from. What made the noise, probably. You supposed that made sense, things making noises. Makes a lot more sense than noises being touch-things too. Now that you’re thinking about noises, maybe the noise from your throat that you didn’t like when you tried thinking about before was made by it. Your thinking about noises is interrupted by another noise above. Above is funny too. You didn’t even consider that’s where things could come from. But the big thing did maybe, that’s why it made the thump, from coming from above and not being there anymore, and now there’s a new noise from above too. You’re proud of yourself for noticing it. You decide you’re doing a good job as you listen and look to the new noise. The noise is sharp, different to the thump before, and you see a thing, moving like you, going away. You want the moving thing to stay, to make you know more things again, because if it gave you the thumpy thing like you’re thinking maybe, it’s been doing a really great job! But how to get it to not go away is something you don’t know. You keep looking, because maybe if you keep looking it will come back. It doesn’t. That makes your eyes feel weird. You don’t like that feeling. You want to go above, because then maybe you can see the other moving thing again and the feeling in your eyes will stop. You try to go above for a while, until you’re barely shaky even only using legs but then they get shaky again from too much, and your arms don’t feel like anything instead of hurting, but it’s too far away. With that weird feeling in your eyes again, you go back to looking down instead of above. You’re reminded of the thing that made the thump before. If the other moving thing put it down for you, maybe you should look at it closer? Maybe that will bring the other moving thing back. The thing that made the thump has hands and legs like you but it doesn’t move like you or the thing that gave you it. It’s strange, that it’s so close and far to you. There’s an interesting shiny thing on it too, but only the one shiny thing and not like the other moving thing, which had a bunch more shiny things on it. Maybe your hands know what to do with it better than you do. Figuring out these things seems like something hands are meant for. You do your best to not think a lot like you’ve been doing so far, and just try to let your hands do it for you instead. The shiny thing makes a jangling noise as you investigate it. Your thinking is going back to the fallen thing’s hands as yours figure it out. Maybe it used to be a moving thing too, and that’s why it seems shaped like you? You don’t know why it stopped, but you don’t know why you started either. Your gaze moves to the half-there wall. They’re shiny too, and you wonder if that means they’re connected to the shiny thing attached to the thing that fell. You’re upset a bit that you can’t also check that with the other moving thing too. Fingers ghost across the jangling thing, but it’s hard for your hands to grip it. You fumble trying to get it apart from the thumpy-fallen thing, but your hands aren’t good again at small things like that. The thought of giving up feels bad— not as bad as some of the before-thoughts, but still bad— so you keep on trying, and eventually they make it into your shaky-numb grasp. Your hands’ instinct is to go to the shiny wall, so you follow their direction. You palm at them, trying to feel where the jangling thing is meant to go if you’re right. There’s a block thingy there— all the way across— and upon further investigation by sticking fingers through to feel around the other side, there’s a spot that goes in that you think it might go to? It's tricky— the shiny half-wall doesn’t like your hand going fully past it— but moving was tricky too and now you’re doing that mostly good! With a lot more struggle and almost dropping the jangly thing— made your chest feel cold and bad — you slot it in, and with a bit more trickiness, manage to turn it. The door pops open with a click and you decide shiny things are good things because they mean things like thinking more thoughts and there being more places to go. You start making your way down the hall, proud of how little you stumble but still using the wall to help, but then you see something interesting you didn’t see before and stop. It looks a lot like the thing that made the thumping noise, but it’s moving a bit— and standing upright like you. You're bigger than it— you need to move how you're looking to see it all good when you get close— and prodding at it doesn’t do anything. You try a bit more, but it still doesn’t move. Now you think you maybe understand why the other moving thing went away. Maybe you took too long to move. So, you try to be extra patient, just in case. You stand there until your legs start feeling funny again. But still nothing. The sound from earlier returns to your throat as you turn away and move on. There’s another one further along, and it goes the same, and you feel sad about that. The floor starts to go above just a few steps ahead, and you stand there hesitantly, looking back at the standing things. You wait for them to move just a bit longer, and you’re pretty sure all the waiting you’ve done has been way longer than how long the thing that helped you think did, but they don’t move. Not even stuck in one spot like you were but they didn’t even want to move. You want to keep moving though, so you will. Wet seeps against your skin as you trudge onwards, making your steps harder. You can’t tell much about it other than that it’s wet, and that feels far away despite you being able to see how close the wet is. For some reason you feel like there should be more to the feeling. You shake your head, turning your attention to your other surroundings. The first thing you notice is that the walls round out ahead, and that makes you pause. There’s… something shinier than the wall, which goes above wayyy further too. It’s interesting! You want to figure out how it works because then you can go really far above too. Your hands are good at figuring things out, and with your legs too they eventually figure out the shiny thing and you start to go further above and it makes you very happy! It’s… loud, but there’s a pattern to it that your arms and legs wind up very good at, and then you finally get to where it stops. Your hands and legs aren’t as good as that, but it doesn’t hurt much more than regular moving to drag yourself onto the ground at the top. Bringing yourself back onto just your legs, you notice light like from where you started to the right, but you can’t quite see where it’s coming from fully, so you decide to investigate. You walk into an openness, and the sight before you is new and comforting. In the middle of the openness there’s something sticking out of the below, surrounded by interesting-shaped things and colours like was on some of the things on the walls. Warm like those things on the walls too, you find out closer, and the warmth feels just… right … none of the feeling of weirdness that most things make you feel. You like that. There’s so much blue in the above too, much more than where you started knowing again. The sound your legs make, as you move to give them rest, is different to earlier, there’s not as much of it when it’s dirt below instead of stone. Sitting before the warmth, you feel an itchy feeling on your front, a bit to the side. It feels like how the warmth in front of you smells somehow, but different also, and it’s like it’s reaching and you don’t know why and that’s annoying. You’ve been so good at finding out the why with everything else. You prod at the spot. You hiss. Hurts. Sharp. You reach out to the warmth instead. That feels a lot better you decide, as it flickers along your fingers. You sit there for a while, basking in the warmth, but even that eventually gets boring, and, not sure of what else to do, you stand back up, wanting to investigate what else there is.

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