Thomas stared at the notifications, bright compared to the darkness he saw in his conventional sight.

Trait: Stoicism satisfied. You have accepted your nature as a stoic, and earned five customization points. You've reached class level 4!

Class Distinction: Improved Hurl

Hurl has a range of 10ft, and the thrown creature deals its Total Armor in damage to any hit creatures

Class Distinction: Latent Power

+1 Maximum Stamina

His lips pressed together tightly. The notifications were closed, and he rest his head back against the cot below him. He'd slept little, if at all; it was hard to tell. Cenpre snored lightly beside him, the outline barely visible in the dark building.

He got up, moving quietly on bare feet past Cenpre's sleeping form, out into the night air of Grimhaven. It was quiet outside, the village still sleeping, and dark, a half moon suspended overhead giving only scant light. Thomas looked up at the stars, a field of light filling the sky with a vibrancy he'd never seen before; he focused on improving his Perception twice, wanting to see them better, and the stars suddenly came into sharper focus. The breeze was cold on his bare skin, but he barely noticed it.

Stoicism, not lust. He considered that for a moment, but it wasn't really a mystery to him. He was still maintaining a tight grip on his state of mind even now – it felt like if his control slipped he'd fall, and he wasn't sure what he would fall into.

Thomas took a steadying breath of the chill air, mind turning to reflect on a term he'd heard before, but never really understood: light pollution. The stars were gorgeous; instead of a handful of pinpricks of the brightest stars' light, the entire sky was lit up with countless stars, and there was a hazy cloud of light he could recognize as the galaxy itself. A galaxy, maybe. Not the galaxy he couldn't remember the name of.

Thomas wondered if that should bother him. His life was slowly slipping away behind him, details fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces; it already felt like a dream he had woken from one day. He could remember remembering that life, now, with more clarity than he remembered the life itself; if not for that clarity, or the absence of any other history he could call his own, he felt he'd be doubting that he'd ever lived another life at all.

In a year, would he only have a year's worth of memories? That was a somewhat jarring thought, uncomfortable. But it was a different kind of uncomfortable, and so he thought about it. Would he be reduced to something more like a one year old, or would he remain with the faculties of an adult? What made an adult an adult? Wasn't a large part of it their memories, their long experience they could draw on, the mistakes already made? If he lost his memories entirely, if he lost his experience and his mistakes, could he reasonably be called an adult? Would he behave like one?

Had he behaved like an adult? Could he even call himself one now? He'd … owed someone money, he'd been leaving the responsibilities necessary to his own survival entirely to someone else's efforts while he had, what exactly? He couldn't even remember. It wasn't like he spent all his time playing games, or reading, or participating in … in … the thing with the computers and other people and arguing about pointless things. Hours had just kind of slipped by him in a daze, turning into days, which turned into weeks, and then months, and then years. Time had just slipped away from him, even as he spent most of his time restless and bored and unhappy.

Whatever else this place was – was it Earth? – it was a new start. That wasn't entirely satisfying – it felt more like abandoning the problems he'd created for other people and left behind than actually solving them – but it was true. And if he was going to have a new start, he needed to stop avoiding responsibilities, he needed to stop running from his problems, which only ever just dumped them in the lap of the next person in line. It wasn't an entirely new train of thought for Thomas, however, and he reflected on that he'd promised himself to do better every time he'd fucked up, and then gone and fucked up again anyways.

He'd missed the interview before this last fateful one, because a cousin had asked him to help move. He couldn't remember much of the details, but he hadn't even mentioned the interview, just agreed, thinking he'd figure out a way to do both, and failed entirely. The interview before that, he'd gone out drinking the night before, because somebody asked. He had grown up thinking that refusing a request was rude, but in a sense, he'd just been denying the responsibility to be rude, if indeed that could be called rude at all; to say 'No', when refusing was the right thing to do, when refusing might hurt somebody's feelings, and his roommate had paid both of their rent for months as a result.

It was a lesson he'd missed, somewhere along the way in life. Thomas wanted to blame culture, to blame entertainment and media and a lot of other things he couldn't remember right at that moment, but the fact of the matter was that other people who had grown up in the same society he had, had no problem doing exactly that. His roommate never had an issue saying no, or telling Thomas off for missing another interview. He was simply paralyzed at the thought of hurting someone else's feelings to their face.

He didn't have many friends left – not that he could count them, exactly – when he'd arrived here. Because he hadn't been able to say no to them, he'd resented their asking, instead; resented that they put him in a position where he had had to pick between the relationship he had with them, and the right thing to do. But that hadn't been right, had it? Not the resentment, but the idea that saying 'no' was damaging to his relationships; that saying that he was sorry, but he was busy, or that he had things to do in the morning, or even just that he wasn't up for it, was in some fashion unacceptable in a friendship.

And so all of his relationships had deteriorated, falling apart for neglect of boundaries. They'd fall apart because eventually, with no fence to separate himself from others, he'd simply ghosted them, unable to deal with it anymore. That hadn't been right, either, but it was just another part of the pattern of his life, of refusing to take responsibility for anything that might hurt someone else's feelings.

Thomas looked down from the brilliant light overhead, raising a hand to wipe tears from his eyes. He'd made a royal mess of his first life, he couldn't do the same thing again. He started walking around the village, aiming to make a slow circuit of the outskirts of the buildings, not feeling particularly concerned whether anybody saw him walking about naked. It didn't seem particularly important right now.

First, he had to get more comfortable with telling people no, with not going along with the wishes of whoever was immediately around him just because it felt wrong not to. He expected others to tell him 'no', would have been horrified to discover other people acted the way he routinely did, that they didn't want to do the things he suggested but simply made themselves miserable and went along with it to preserve his own, what, ego? It wasn't fair of him to expect others to live up to this expectation while routinely violating it himself; he couldn't pretend it was a favor to them, when he would have considered it a breach of trust were the situation reversed.

It was odd, and refreshing, and new, to reflect that his problem, over the past few years, had fundamentally been a kind of selfishness. To avoid responsibility in the way he had was, basically, selfish. He didn't want to be responsible for other people's unhappiness, and yes, this was selfish. It was something he could do something about, something he could change in himself.

How had things even gotten this way? Where had this attitude in himself come from? He considered culture, the dreamlike memories coming slowly – not as an object of blame external to himself, but as something he participated in, and which was a part of himself. Yeah, that was part of it. It was considered taboo to say no, it was uncouth to put your own needs first; the fault in himself, of not taking responsibility, was mirrored in culture in a thousand small ways. It was a perversion of the idea of awkwardness itself, which seemed to be working its way towards becoming the central societal taboo.

It wasn't just other people's feelings, then. He didn't want to be in an awkward situation, didn't want the silence that followed a 'No', the intense awareness of another person struggling to normalize a situation. When had saying 'no' become awkward? It had been before his time, perhaps.

Thomas shook his head, attention turning back to the present, noticing that the sky was lightening. He had a situation now. It would be awkward, and uncomfortable. Also, he was starting to hear people, quiet conversations and rattling metal. He really needed to get back to the healing house, and get dressed before people got up. The thought wasn't embarrassing, as he considered it – in truth he felt like he had kind of burned out his sense of embarrassment now – but it was … something. A kind of normality he didn't want to impose upon.

He quickened his pace – he was on the far side of the village from the healing house, having gotten lost in his thoughts. And then started jogging.

He got to the door, even as he heard other doors opening behind him, and slipped inside. Cenpre was sitting up, pulling a boot on over her pants, although her shirt was still unbuttoned and open. She looked up when he entered, and gave a small smirk at his state of undress.

Thomas hesitated a moment, and then walked over to where she sat, picking up his own clothes, and starting to dress. This was the hard part. The part where he lived up to his decision, or else continued as he had. He hesitated, and then forced himself to start speaking, beginning without committing to anything, just starting.

“So. So. Uh. About last night.”

Cenpre finished tying one shoe, and paused, moving her hands behind her back to stretch, a languid smile taking its time to form at him, as her chest protruded through her shirt. “Ohh, yes.”

“We need to talk.” Apparently that translated; the stretch ended immediately and the smile vanished. She looked at him, and then leaned over to start tying her other shoe, attention firmly upon it. Her voice was harsh and bitter, when she finally responded.

“A mistake, yes? Won't happen again?” Thomas only hesitated a moment before forcing himself onward.

“Yes, it was a mistake.” He was taken aback as she actually growled – growled! – and looked back up at him. He continued quickly. “Not like that. I ...” he paused as he considered how to continue. His intent wasn't to be hurt her feelings for the sake of hurting them. “I didn't want to.”

Her hands froze, the snarl on her face twitching, and then melting, into an expression he couldn't quite … oh. Oh! It wasn't – was it like that? He started talking again, quickly, the dawning agony on her face digging into him.

“Not … look. You didn't …” Would that help him, if the situation were reversed? Was it like … was it like that?

He took too long trying to figure that out, and stared, feeling helpless and uncertain, and her knees drew up, her forehead pressing into them, and she just started … sobbing. Was it like that? What else could it be like?

Thomas sat down, feeling lost.

Trait: Stoicism satisfied. You have accepted your nature as a stoic, and then moved beyond it. You have earned five customization points. You've reached class level 5! You've reached path level 2!

Class Distinction: Inhuman Size 1

You get 25 additional health. Additionally, you may Enlarge at will, becoming Large.

Path Distinction: Deft Nature

You can't be caught flat-footed, and can dodge as easily prone as standing

Thomas stared at the screens for a moment – he hadn't lost control, he thought dully – and then closed them, attention shifting to Cenpre, whose shoulders were shaking. Was it ...? Had he been … no, that word didn't fit. And yet, and yet.