[Content note for, I guess, fear of mental illness and fear of being committed]
There is the beginning of a story in my head, I do not know how the rest of the story goes. Something magical happens releasing evil monsters of the squirmy variety into the world scaring the hell out of everyone, except for one person who assumes he/she's going insane, and carefully navigates the evil monsters in a way that shouldn't look too strange to an onlooker if the evil monsters do not, in fact, exist.
This is a high school student who is on his/her way to class when the something magical happens and shows up and gets ready as normal. When he/she realizes he/she's alone in the room with an evil monster that's decided to target him/her, he/she double checks that there are no human beings to see, and kills it with a pair of scissors, then sits down and waits for class to start.
Two survivors from the much less safe hall (it's easy to navigate provided you don't ever stop and don't focus your attention on any of the evil squirmy monsters, think giant snakes with human skin and dragon fangs, the moment you stop moving, show fear, or focus attention on a monster you become the target) burst into the room, hurriedly close the door behind them, and then notice dead evil monster and waiting for class to start student. A conversation something like this happens:
Outsider 1 "Oh my God!"
Outsider 2 "Quick get- wait." Inches closer, "It's... dead." To outsider 1 "Don't worry, it's dead."
Outsiders look over dead thing, turn attention to Original Student.
My original abbreviations were silly because they all started with O. So
S = Original Student
1 = Outsider 1
2 = Outsider 2
S = Original Student
1 = Outsider 1
2 = Outsider 2
I'm not sure about genders for sure, but I think the students who came in from the hall (1 and 2) are possibly a heterosexual couple with 1 being the boyfriend of 2.
2 : How did that happen?
S : How did what happen?
1: How did the snake thing die?
S: What snake thing?
2: *Points* The one right there.
S: *Looks* Could you describe the snake thing?
1: It's right there!
2: It's about fifteen feet long, it's skin is smooth and scaleless but also hairless, it has the quality of a greek athlete just rubbed down in oil, the eyes are about 1/3 the length of the rest of the scull, they're slitted, there's a wound near the top of it's head, it's teeth are too large to fit within its mouth so they jut out of it. It looks almost like a Venus flytrap when its jaws are closed, I suppose.
S: Oh, that snake thing.
1: Yes that snake-thing. *whispers to 2* What's wrong with [him or her depending on S's gender]?
2: Thanks for the gate key, (not sure if either of the others get the princess bride reference) now how did it die?
S: I killed it.
-
The three form a team to try to stay alive as a pack, but S is both best at dealing with the monsters, and the least likely to do so if anyone is watching without absolute confirmation that there's a monster there as a result of a deep seated fear of being insane, or more accurately a deep seated fear of being discovered to be insane (S could care less about whether he/she actually is sane, he/she just doesn't want to be committed and seeing monsters everywhere seems like the sort of thing that might get you committed.)
S is also the best at walking through hordes of monsters unscathed because the monsters tend to ignore anyone who ignores them, at least until they've killed everyone who doesn't ignore them in the area. S always ignores them without a compelling reason not to because S is in perpetual (but completely incorrect) fear that S will find S-self fighting an imaginary foe and thrown into a psychiatric ward at any moment if S stops ignoring them.
Thus S never pays attention to them and they return the favor, S never stinks of fear because S never acknowledges there's something to be afraid of. Provided S isn't the only human around, S can walk through hordes of monsters as if they don't exist, and they'll act as if S doesn't exist. Not because they don't notice or care about S, but because they have a priority system in their minds and S, the person who doesn't seem to notice them, is at the very bottom of it. All else being equal if the monsters were to win (they wouldn't because I'd be writing the story) S and those like S would be killed last.
[Original Work Index]
This would seem to be pointing towards the monsters being a side-effect of someone's (or several someones') previously undetected mental powers...
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