"It doesn't go away. It doesn't ever go away. Do you understand that?"
[The Shadow is frenzied, ignited with a strange and horrible fervor that burns the cigarette against the side of its neck with the soft sizzle of singeing flesh. It doesn't seem to notice. Its eyes have glazed over, as though fixed on some distant point, and it rattles on and on and on, cursed with a talkative fluidity that has never been Tim's instinct.]
"You think he wanted this? You think that what he wants, what you want, has any bearing in what happens? He looks at you, and all he sees is himself. A scared little thing that was all alone, that grew up in white walls with no friends but the made-up kind, except that you never hurt people simply existing."
cw: self-harm
[The Shadow is frenzied, ignited with a strange and horrible fervor that burns the cigarette against the side of its neck with the soft sizzle of singeing flesh. It doesn't seem to notice. Its eyes have glazed over, as though fixed on some distant point, and it rattles on and on and on, cursed with a talkative fluidity that has never been Tim's instinct.]
"You think he wanted this? You think that what he wants, what you want, has any bearing in what happens? He looks at you, and all he sees is himself. A scared little thing that was all alone, that grew up in white walls with no friends but the made-up kind, except that you never hurt people simply existing."
[And he did.]