"Shut up!!" Foster snaps suddenly, commandingly--his teeth bared right back. It's a rare act, so transparent, so defensive, so borderline hostile that it's outright uncharacteristic. And it's gone in a flash--a flash of white, that is, of prehistoric teeth, before his mouth clamps shut, jaw clenched against a fleeting emotion, his face fixedly impassive.
Psi is more correct than he knows. Foster feels cornered, feels that wild animal pain and anger and fear, Psi's impatience backing him further and further into the corner until he's trapped there, trapped in a place he can no longer give up in, not any more.
"I....." Psi asked for answers and Foster's given them. But they're the wrong answers, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Every answer he gives will be wrong because he's wrong, his disease is wrong--
Every reaction is wrong. You are not responding properly to the situation.
And then, suddenly, with a flash of clarity, of viciousness, of farcical hilarity and divergent anger, he understands why.
Psi doesn't want Foster's answers at all. Psi wants answers that fit his reality. He wants answers to make him feel better--because he is afraid.
It suddenly makes sense.
Truth, reality, are not absolute--not concrete, not stable. An honest answer will never satisfy Psi, because his truth is too unpalatable, it simply cannot be digested. Because there is no truth in Foster that is not riddled in rot, not soaked in his own blood. There is no state of mind free from it, no freedom of thought in the face of disease. That's what's so horrifying--so appealing--so grotesque. Its power is the power to consume. How frightening! How disgusting! How... how....
"You say you don't understand, but you do. You just don't want to. Or maybe you can't. But I... I've deserved every awful, horrible, wretched, miserable thing that's ever happened to me! Even this--no, especially this!" He leans forward, one visible eye glinting, his breathing ragged, saliva wet on his lips. "That's all you need, right? To know that it's not unjust? To know you're safe! Something like this... could never happen to you!"
Is he smiling?
He's smiling.
That's normal.
"I was born dead, and I will either die rotting or live forever. It's all been planned."
Self-defence, feat. Foster getting crazier instead of getting mad
Psi is more correct than he knows. Foster feels cornered, feels that wild animal pain and anger and fear, Psi's impatience backing him further and further into the corner until he's trapped there, trapped in a place he can no longer give up in, not any more.
"I....." Psi asked for answers and Foster's given them. But they're the wrong answers, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Every answer he gives will be wrong because he's wrong, his disease is wrong--
Every reaction is wrong. You are not responding properly to the situation.
And then, suddenly, with a flash of clarity, of viciousness, of farcical hilarity and divergent anger, he understands why.
Psi doesn't want Foster's answers at all. Psi wants answers that fit his reality. He wants answers to make him feel better--because he is afraid.
It suddenly makes sense.
Truth, reality, are not absolute--not concrete, not stable. An honest answer will never satisfy Psi, because his truth is too unpalatable, it simply cannot be digested. Because there is no truth in Foster that is not riddled in rot, not soaked in his own blood. There is no state of mind free from it, no freedom of thought in the face of disease. That's what's so horrifying--so appealing--so grotesque. Its power is the power to consume. How frightening! How disgusting! How... how....
"You say you don't understand, but you do. You just don't want to. Or maybe you can't. But I... I've deserved every awful, horrible, wretched, miserable thing that's ever happened to me! Even this--no, especially this!" He leans forward, one visible eye glinting, his breathing ragged, saliva wet on his lips. "That's all you need, right? To know that it's not unjust? To know you're safe! Something like this... could never happen to you!"
Is he smiling?
He's smiling.
That's normal.
"I was born dead, and I will either die rotting or live forever. It's all been planned."