You lose your mind, you tell yourself. No, it’s been gone for years. The reality hits like a truck- people are dying and you have been spending your life pretending to be a student, delusionally sitting still for hours and hours, lost in a maze of hallucinations and radioactive insanity. You slam the laptop shut and stuff it into your rotting backpack, then drag yourself out of the classroom. The stone corpses of what used to be students shocks you- in your delusions, you never came to terms with the fact that you lived in a mass graveyard. Somewhere, a laptop still plugged into the wall is shuffling YouTube, inexplicably. Someone is singing, and you sing along. “I’ll say, we’re okay, but I know we’re not, the sky’s caught fire, our flesh is rot, it’s hard to breathe when the aiiii-aiiii-iaaaaiir’s so hot…”

You begin cackling furiously. It’s like you’re in a band, and the corpses are your mosh pit. No. What the- you need to stay focused. Insanity clutches at the edge of your mind, but you push away the auditory hallucinations and force your mind to pretend like it works. 
This is… Mono’s fault. The sanctions… the protests… the peacekeepers… the rebels… the bombs… oh god, the bombs… 

you collapse on the floor in the middle of the filthy hallway, trying to suppress the memories for the moment. It is hard. Suddenly, your backpack speaks. 

“Survivor of Winslow. We understand it’s hard. But we need you. We’ll help you get help. It’s going to be okay.”