Snippet #2682716

Babble

The night passed. As usual this was one of those nights where Babble wasn't tired enough to get any sleep. Ordinarily it was because he could constantly hear everything rattling on around him, so much snoring. In this case it was because he was squished into a box. This effect resulted in an amplification in power as ordinarily he was spread too thinly to maintain this level of prescience. As it was even the sound of the blood squishing about in his veins would of been maddening, more so than usual.

Thankfully he was able to maintain a powerful zone of silence with his magnified control over the sound within this small area. The silence was a result of his sound meeting the waves at equal length and height, cancelling both sounds out. While this meant Babble could live in a bubble of beautiful silence this also meant he needed to maintain it in order to preserve this precarious peace he built. Such is what he did throughout the entire night. He simply sat on the ground, his eyes closed as he let his mind empty of all thoughts. The only thing that remained was his concentration as it maintained the Golden Sound.


When the guards approached his door he did not hear them knock. When the guards entered his room he did not hear them approach. When the guards picked him up by his arms and dragged him from the room he did not hear them trying in vain to talk through the Golden Sound. As he approached the hall he couldn't hear the guards fussing over matters such as how could they not speak or that strange feeling which had crawled into their bodies.

The human body is accustomed to the sound pressure from latent sound present from all around. It relies on sound for a number of functions both emotional and physiological. The first sensation to of effected the guards was a feeling of something softly squeezing their heads. It was by no means harmful but definitely disconcerting. Without even the noises their own bodies constantly made, noises that are ordinarily drowned out by the overlaying background audio that is life, the instruments in their ears started straining to no avail. The fluid which determined their balance was now askew somewhat making their walking awkward. The body constantly uses sound to assist in physically navigating environments. As such this experience wasn't even just like going deaf. It was akin to being sealed in a true vacuum, only with gravity performing normally and they could still breath.


Needless to say both guards were quite unhappy overall. They were eager to be rid of Babble, shoving him in quite brusquely so as to put as much distance between them and him as possible. He couldn't blame them. There wasn't any reason to blame them either. He didn't care. Casual cruelty was practically kindness compared to the state of which he was accustomed to.

With the guards having escaped the oppressive silence to return into normality all that was left was Babble, the people and Kenner... Oh yes and Chlorra. It would be hard to forget her, especially after what she did. Not only did he remember what she had done but he was trapped in it's effect even now. Stuck like a moth in a spider's web all he could do was cocoon himself in hope of putting something between him and the wages the world would have on his poor mind.


Distantly he could hear the howling noise. Even with his power condensed as it was the sound of Kenner's being was still louder than Babble's Golden Sound. As far as any other sounds were concerned there was just a perfect field of absolute silence around him, eliminating all noise up to the distance set for him by Chlorra. Kenner's voice was also distant, like the howling which accompanied him always as far as he knew, and he could hardly make out what the words were. He tried to listen but at the same time he knew if he lowered his silence the power of Kenner's voice would cut right through him. He hadn't the skill nor the confidence to adjust the silence around him with any measure of delicacy. The techniques he used before were still the same but it was like going from wielding a sledgehammer to wielding a teaspoon. If he used the same amount of effort to manipulate the field as he used to he'd wind up switching right over from silent to even more loud which he was fairly sure would hurt him greatly.

So with his Golden Sound keeping him safe he sat cross legged on the floor in between the seats, looking up at the stage while waiting for something resembling a command or perhaps a creative new punishment for Babble. After all, what else was Babble good for except for hurting? That was how the world was, simply enough.


As for everyone else he couldn't hear where they even where let alone what they were saying. His eyes were transfixed on Kenner in the hopes that some sort of message might come across so he couldn't even see what the other members of this new family he didn't even know had formed looked like. He just sat there, still clad in the bloodstained straitjacket and patient's pants he arrived in. His arms were wrapped around his body, not tethered by any means but each arm was tucked under each armpit nonetheless. He was simply staring, mouth flat in a dull line without expression. His eyes were looking with their deep dark circles underneath from all the sleep he never had.

Out of them all none looked like more of a prisoner than he and he didn't just look like one.

I am one.