Last Daniel checked, he wasn't exhibiting any signs of being capable of tactile perception.
He blinks at the pavement spread beneath his hands, the merciful solidity of it, and nearly laughs in euphoric astonishment. The asphalt is cool and uneven beneath his palms. His fingertips scrape over it as he revels in the sensation of being able to engage in haptics and physicality, that link with the somatic world that he's simply never been able to access since he -
Since he -
Wait, what was he thinking about?
The inexplicable rattle and burst of gunfire disrupts that train of thought, and Daniel scrambles back, from all fours to his knees to his feet, the roughness of the stone tearing through the green fabric of his BDUs. Blood oozes sluggishly from the small laceration on the skin of his knee, scuffed in his struggle to propel himself upright.
This time Daniel does laugh, a short, relieved bark that echoes too long and too loudly. It's pain. It hurts. He's given no time to examine why that would engender a kneejerk, literally, reaction of pleasure as opposed to annoyance or anger, as the gurgling snarl of something ravaged and desiccated and inhuman splits over the city's silence, and that, now that.
That is not right.
Daniel wrenches himself around and away from the thing as it crawls toward him, dragging itself forward by its clawed hands as it seems to be lacking legs because it is comprised of little more than a torso leaking blood and copious other fluids Daniel doesn't want to put a name to.
Oh god. Oh god.
Daniel runs.
He runs and spots a building and wrests the door open and slams it behind him and pins it shut with his mass, arms spread across the width of the door in what doubtless comes across as an incredibly and unnecessarily overdramatic entrance, and that's when he realizes he's not alone in the building.
"Oh," says Daniel, blinking once and adjusting his frames in a maneuver that may or may not seem abashed and startled and contrite all at once. "Uh. Hi. Sorry."
no subject
He blinks at the pavement spread beneath his hands, the merciful solidity of it, and nearly laughs in euphoric astonishment. The asphalt is cool and uneven beneath his palms. His fingertips scrape over it as he revels in the sensation of being able to engage in haptics and physicality, that link with the somatic world that he's simply never been able to access since he -
Since he -
Wait, what was he thinking about?
The inexplicable rattle and burst of gunfire disrupts that train of thought, and Daniel scrambles back, from all fours to his knees to his feet, the roughness of the stone tearing through the green fabric of his BDUs. Blood oozes sluggishly from the small laceration on the skin of his knee, scuffed in his struggle to propel himself upright.
This time Daniel does laugh, a short, relieved bark that echoes too long and too loudly. It's pain. It hurts. He's given no time to examine why that would engender a kneejerk, literally, reaction of pleasure as opposed to annoyance or anger, as the gurgling snarl of something ravaged and desiccated and inhuman splits over the city's silence, and that, now that.
That is not right.
Daniel wrenches himself around and away from the thing as it crawls toward him, dragging itself forward by its clawed hands as it seems to be lacking legs because it is comprised of little more than a torso leaking blood and copious other fluids Daniel doesn't want to put a name to.
Oh god. Oh god.
Daniel runs.
He runs and spots a building and wrests the door open and slams it behind him and pins it shut with his mass, arms spread across the width of the door in what doubtless comes across as an incredibly and unnecessarily overdramatic entrance, and that's when he realizes he's not alone in the building.
"Oh," says Daniel, blinking once and adjusting his frames in a maneuver that may or may not seem abashed and startled and contrite all at once. "Uh. Hi. Sorry."