"Breathe. Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth and exhale for me," Percy cooed, eyes glowing with concern. After what seemed like a solid minute, the sim seemed to flicker back to life, beginning with the clinking of silverware against plates. "Empty all the air from your lungs. I want to hear your breath whooshing across your teeth, got it?""O-okay," Caspar replied. Gripping the edge of the table like a drowning man to driftwood, Caspar traced over the repeating swirls in the peeling wood grain as though wandering through a diminutive maze. "Even you mirroring Eythor's species is anxiety-inducing. How am I ever going to manage the real thing?"
"One step at a time. Keep taking those deep breaths for me." Percy's warm paws lightly cupped Caspar's wrists as he shifted back into the guise of a fennec. "I'm not Eythor. Nothing that happens in this sim is going to hurt you, okay? Your clade is right here by your side."
"I'll try." Breathing outward while counting down from eight, Caspar resisted the urge to start gasping for air as though he had just been pitched into the vacuum of space. He exhaled until his lungs began to ache before drawing breath for a count of four. "It's...hard."
"I know. You're doing great. Can you acknowledge three things you can see around us?" Percy clasped his paws tight, giving a reassuring squeeze as Caspar's gaze darted around the inside of Roberto's#e3d7f41a. "Ground yourself in the environment. Don't focus on the anxious thoughts. Acknowledge them before you let them simply...flow down the stream."
Caspar glanced at a cracked mug, the stuttering clock on the wall above their heads, and a wet floor sign haphazardly set up over top of a fallen coffeepot. He pictured every detail of the objects in his mind's eye while premonitions of catastrophe appeared and then fizzled out at the edge of his headspace. "It's helping, I think."
"Good. Are you comfortable with me returning to my alternate appearance to continue the exercise?" Percy asked, waiting patiently until Caspar's breathing had steadied and his paws stopped shaking. He had the server construct bring a perspiring glass of water which Caspar gratefully accepted. "It's okay if you're not okay."
"I don't think that I'm going to slip into a full-blown panic attack, if that's what you're asking." Caspar jolted a little as Percy returned to mustelid form. While he maintained a stiff upper lip, he could sense each pulse of his pounding heart in his pinky toes. "Though I can't quite seem to outrun my nerves."
"Let's talk about it then. What's got your britches in a bunch?" Percy leaned forward, supporting his chin with outstretched paws. "I'm here to listen to anything and everything you have to say, Caspar. It stays between us, cocladists' honor."
"Shouldn't my fork already know?" Caspar asked, rolling his eyes and drawing his arms close against his chest. "You're still me, underneath that nut-brown fur."
"It's helpful to vocalize these feelings. It's why talk therapy works, right?" Percy's dulcet tone complimented the buttery-soft paw pads stroking through his undercoat as he groomed the fennec's forearms. Caspar focused on Percy's thundering pulse, his heart also railing from a mixture of caffeine and sleep deprivation. Fortunately for the weasel, death wasn't programmed into the System. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
"Well, where do I start?" Caspar leaned back, clutching the empty coffee mug like an amulet of protection. "I don't want to give you my full memoirs, especially since you've already got the proof copy."
"Talk to me like I'm just starting to get to know you." Percy smiled softly. "Stay intimate but don't overshare. We can resume the practice date here if you like."
"Okay. Well...I chose to upload when I was nineteen. Never had the best of relationships with my mom or my siblings. I spent a few years earning a steady flow of rep in a communal sim by producing as many interactive action-adventure stories as my chronic writer's block would permit." Caspar loudly sighed. Reflecting on his past was rarely a joyful experience. "Once I had enough saved up to achieve financial independence and retire early, I set out on my own. I've been a recluse in my private sim ever since."
"True Love Lies Within and Without" by Thomas "Faux" Steele will appear in Clade — A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1!