srwu | Third Game

[Its been a while after the Training Exercise gone wrong. Leos somehow managed to get out of the battle with the Jenice he used more or less unscathed. On the other hand, mentally he was even more worse off than before. Seeing Seta get torn apart and devoured by the BETA like that was not good for his sanity, already precarious as it was. Her inhuman ability to come back from that 'death' didn't really help much at all.]

...

[Currently he was in the mess hall, just stirring the contents of his bowl. He was at the odd paradox of being hungry yet being unable to eat. Then he looked at his meal, his mind drifting off and growing unfocused. The person doling out the meals was going to regret giving Leos a bowl of Spaghetti-Os because they were pressed for time and couldn't be bothered to give him something that wouldn't cause his mind to snap because from Leos' perspective the dull orange colored sauce slowly shifted into the hue of freshly spilled blood and the pasta turned into a multitude of eyes that suddenly had mouths form below them and rush forward to try tear his face off-]

AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

[-which led to him literally slapping the bowl away and possibly burning himself in the process before he scrambled off to a small, enclosed spot to force himself into/under and just curl up tightly.]

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"Leos?" Yancy exclaims, getting up from his own tray and rushing over. "What's wrong?"

G..go away! M.. Monsters! Eating people... blood everywhere... eyes...

[Leos' words are disjointed and frantic as he tries to press himself against the wall as if he could become one with it and get away from everything.]

Yancy curses under his breath, reaching out and grasping Leo's hand gently.

"Listen to me, Leos." He said slowly. "Don't engage with the memory. Focus on the now. Focus on the beating of your heart, and the rhythm of your breath."

He inhales noisily. "Do it with me, Leo. Breath in slowly. And breath out. Breath in...and breath out..."

[He flinched from the hand catching his and went into some very serious hyperventilation here, squeezing tightly. His heart was pretty easy to focus since the beating was loud enough to nearly drown out everything he could hear. But for a moment he managed to slow down his breathing and take a deep if shaky breath... and let it out. Each following one grew steadier than the next, despite the shakiness of his hand.]

"Good, Leos." Yancy says. "You're doing good. Now keep up that slow breathing, and– don't laugh at me for saying this– try and listen to the silence in this room. Can you do that?"

...'kay...

[Silence... funny. When Leos tried it turns out it wasn't really that silent. There was a lot of background noise, really faint and not all there. The little things like people walking around the corridors not too far away, or the hum of the air conditioning... admittedly though there was nothing one could say could be made by a monster so that at least helped him calm down a little.]

"Good." Yancy says soothingly. "I'll admit, there isn't much silence in this particular room. But there's some, if you pay attention: the gaps in time between footsteps, the lull in the noise of machinery, the pause in between inhaling and exhaling, where your body grows still."

He gives Leo's hand a firm squeeze. "When two Rangers pilot one of those Jaeger machines, they're in danger of being overwhelmed–by the machine's feedback, and by each other's memories. This is how we keep fighting during the Drift–by focusing on the silence."

He steps back and tries to help Leos up. "If you're ever feeling overwhelmed, do what you did just now, and focus on the silence. The Silence is stillness. The Silence is strength."

..Silence...

[Leos does his best to concentrate on it, but another thought popped up into his head.]

But.. you're not alone when its quiet... Rangers aren't ever alone right?

Third Game

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