Knight is laying on the floor when a note just poofs into existence with pink smoke and falls onto his chest. Harmonia turns to look at him as she was laying on the couch.
“Er- what was that?!”
“What?” Knight says, grabbing the note and pocketing it, “Oh, nothing.”
“Uh-okay. You good?” Harmonia tilts her head.
“Yep.” Knight silently wishes that this doesn’t happen again. He then gets buried under a mountain of notes, the notes are so numerous that he is stuck there. Every Single Piece Of Paper Is Blank.
"Are you good Knight," Cole perks up, "Do I need to get the flame thrower?"
A thumbs-up pokes out of the pile. “I’m good!” Cole nods. He disappears from the living room. Then reappears. Then disappears. Then reappears. Then disappears. He reappears again, slightly swaying. Cole then walks to the bathroom. He flicks on the light, and looks himself in the mirror. He splashes some water in his face to cool off, and looks again.
"The flying fuck..?"
Cole gets scared. There is something in the mirror that is not him. He punches the mirror, turning the water and light off, sprinting back to the living room. He enters the living room with glass in his hand. Luna's chilling on the couch on her laptop. She hasn't noticed anything abnormal about Cole yet.
"Cole, what's going on?" she asks. Knight is still buried under the mass of pink notes.
"Everything is fine, Luna, just uh don't go in the bathroom for a moment. Do we have a broom?"
"Why? Did you break the mirror?" she asks with genuine concern. There's not a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"No, it's uh... exploded, from the heat," Cole lies.
“There should be a broom in the kitchen," Knight says, slightly muffled by the notes.
"Thanks Knight," Cole walks to the kitchen, grabs the broom, and peaks his head back in the living room, "I'm gonna get a new mirror in a moment." After a little while, Cole returns to the living room, slightly wincing in pain. "Bathroom's uh... clean." He leans against the wall next to the couch and opens his phone.
“Thanks,” Knight says, as every piece of pink paper that buried him suddenly disappears. He stays laying down on the ground. Cole turns his phone off and stares at it.
"Oh that's um. Fuck that," Cole punches his phone, and it falls out of his hand.
"Cole? What the hell's going on? What did Terminal do to you?" Luna tilts her head in blatant confusion. He didn't look any different?
"Hm? Nothing's wrong. Not a thing in the world."
"You sound guilty of something," Knight chimes in.
"You broke Harmonia's mirror then punched your phone. Don't give me that," Luna says to Cole, giving him the concerned-mom-look.
"How do you know I broke the mirror? Hmmmm???"
"You said it exploded from the heat."
"Yeah, uh, glass can shatter from heat."
"Can't you raise your temperature?" Knight asks.
"I'd, uh, have to ask Max," Cole says, hiding his right hand, "Plus, you would've heard me break the mirror."
"Bruh, I checked Max. There were no notifications of temperature raising. Dont lie to me." She's getting annoyed.
“Why are you hiding your hand like that?” Knight looks to Cole, tilting his head ever-so-slightly.
"Like what?- I uhh stand like this all the time. New fangled stance, am I right?"
"But you don't. Stop fucking lying. What did Terminal do?"
Cole blankly stares for a moment, then turns to Luna, "I, uhm, uhhh, didn't see, uhm, myself in the mirror, and I, uhm, got scared."
"Wait what? Then what did you see?" her irritated mood quickly changed to fear and concern in a split second. What did Terminal do this time???
"I didn't look at it for long, but," Cole reveals his hand, "It uh.. looked like it had fur."
"Wait what the fuck!? He gave you... REVERSE LOONISM?!?!?" Luna yells in surprise.
"What?" Knight asks in confusion.
"I'm uh, gonna take the glass out of my, uh, hand. It's kind of hurting." Cole begins walking to the bathroom. Luna's in utter fucking shock. Why, Terminal? Why fucking reverse loonism of all GOD DAMN THINGS???? Knight is just confused. What is loonism? Why is it reversed for Cole? And why did that chaos gremlin of a cat drop all those notes on him? Cole walks back from the bathroom, his hand looking normal, and he picks his phone up. "Just gonna put this in my pocket."
"Uhhh Cole, you may wanna stay away from mirrors and shit for a bit. If what he gave you is loonism, then you might wanna learn some deep breathing exercises."
"But I saw something furry in the mirror," Cole explains, "All I felt was fear."
“It was a probably a rat.”
"Sounds about right for loonism. Your face doesn't look right and it crosses wires in your brain. Sends a fuck ton of fear signals and it makes you hyperventilate. Sometimes you'll feel like there's dirt in the air." Luna's rattling off the symptoms she knows off hand. There's the breathing thing, the mirror thing, the sounds as well, but to what extent was this created?
"What do you mean dirt?" Cole asks, confused.
"Well when the whole human extinction event happened in the other World, there was a lot of dust in the air and the resulting radiation slowly but surely turned all of the surviving humans into non-ferals. And then add evolution on top of that. So the dust comes from those times back ages ago as a bad memory of sorts. Actually... I'm not even sure how reverse loonism would work."
"Huh. Weird. Oh, also, when I was leaving, Terminal was crying. I tried to talk to them, but they didn't respond."
"Hmm. That's interesting. I wonder why? The last time he cried was after an Alter in 2014..." She ponders the information over and then looks to her phone. You can see her scrolling wildly through a mountain of notes.
"Do get to kick down a door?" Cole asks.
"I don't know. Oh and for the initiated..." she turns to Knight, who is no longer under a mountain of papers, "Loonism is a mental disorder in the non-feral world where their human-based brains get some wires crossed and they see themselves as humans. Unfortunately, because of their fur, it freaks them out. So a lot of the symptoms are breathing based, dirt in the air, hyperventilation. There's also wanting to crawl into the tiniest space possible and ripping your fur out."
“Oh.”
"And I believe whatever Terminal did to Cole, may be similar to loonism."
"I don't wanna rip my skin out," Cole says, looking himself over, "If this even is skin."
"But you'll probably want to buy a fursuit, haha," Luna chuckles lightheartedly.
"What the fuck is a fursuit?"
"It's this thing furries wear to become their fursona, basically an OC but with animal features."
"Sounds gross," Cole scratches at his hand almost biting it before stopping himself.
"Yeah, it can be," she shudders at the mere thought of some of the fursuits she's seen in her time in the fandom... ughhhhhh.
"Who the fuck would wanna do that?" Cole is staring at his hand.
“People, that’s who,” Knight chimes in.
Luna pauses for a moment to remember her fursuit. She was going to say "me" but that would be an issue. "U-uh, n-no one sane."
"Why did you stutter," Cole pauses as he finishes, "Don't answer that."
"Nothing! Let's change the subject please?"
"Skin is uh," Cole looks at his hand, "A thingy."
"Yes. Uhh yes it is."
"Why don't we feel our skin?"
"The fuck? Why don't you go feel Chris's skin instead. He's more your type..."
"No, I... What??? I meant why don't we feel our skin constantly."
“Probably because we tune it out, like how digestion actually really hurts but our bodies ignore the pain,” Knight says, rolling over.
"I... didn't know that," Cole replies, starting to bite his hand.
"Yo Cole, can you stop that please? This is how Drake lost his hand. You're not isolated hun."
"Fine," Cole mumbles.