Chapter Text
He’s only ten. He stays up to catch sci-fi shows on TV and decides one day he’ll dye his hair pink like the lead character. He scours chatrooms about the stock market, he reads the back of his dad’s newspaper in the kitchen, and thinks one clear Tuesday morning: if this was a cartoon, they’d hide my dad’s face behind that thing and never ever show it.
It feels like that in real life sometimes too.
He goes to school. His backpack metronomes between a color-coded wonder of folders and a mess of looseleaf paper.
He’s only ten and he’s on wikipedia. The neighbor kid he plays with sometimes is at a 7 people sleepover right now. Techno’s reading about coups, executions, horse breeding, rare gems, politics, industrialization, fishing, farming laws in the US, bodies of water in Europe. The Strid.
He’s ten. He has the wiki page for that river memorized. He draws flowing waters in art class, and never anything else, if he can get away with it.
He’s eleven. He jokes about naming his daughter ‘Strid’ to a classmate and then realizes he doesn’t really want kids. He keeps a pinterest board of rushing waters and mossy stones.
He’s twelve. Wikipedia pages at midnight, then at 1am, then 2am, then later. The Strid. The Strid. The Strid. It’s past 3am and he’s only twelve, and it entraps him so completely. He’s fourteen and he tells his ragtag lunch table group about it: how they still don’t know its depth, at least not for sure. About how many people it claims a year. A river turned on its side as it’s forced into a 6 foot wide stream. A river that will one day turn Techno’s life around. He signs up for stand-up comedy night at the library, and talks about the Strid’s ridiculous existence, about Greek gods of the sea. The stage terrifies him but so does going to school every day, so it’s really nothing.
And somehow things speed up and spin themselves into threads of utter coincidental fate- and it feels like he’s falling. Like he’s falling and slipping through the cracks. College, apartment leases, taxes, insurance. His younger siblings manage to be doing better already- he’s sure of it. Sure that if he closes his eyes for just a second, his siblings will speed past all of his achievements and land among the stars.
But he’s scouring job offers, the printer ink on his diploma still fresh, and the roots of his now pink hair only beginning to grow in. His mother awaits news of some office job- or maybe a career in limnology. She also awaits the news of a date- a girlfriend or maybe anyone at this point. The news of a flat he’s finally not on the verge of losing. The news of any kind of plans for his future.
She’ll wait for the rest of her life maybe. Like she’ll wait for her son to go and get normal one day, just miraculously. He’s normal alright, just not her white-picket-fence 2 kids and a dog type of ‘normal’. He joins the voice call with a polite hello, and the voices that greet him are genuinely excited to meet their new junior sonar operator, all the way from America.
Technoblade accepts the job offer easy- and how could he not? He has to try and come off as casual about it. Like this isn’t something he’d been itching to say ‘yes’ on forever. Like it hadn’t been thrumming under his skin with some ethereal pull.
The job is with some large regional sponsor: they’re looking for a team to try and once again measure the depth of the Strid. That’s what it’s advertised as, and that’s how Techno finds it.
And then ‘camera operator A’ joins their first project meeting voice call, and Techno learns that this isn’t just some science trip. They’re getting sponsored because it’ll all be recorded for a one-episode feature on some science show.
Fine by him. He doesn’t care too much, “As long as I won’t be the main character,” he jokes to keep the call going, and people laugh. They like him. He tries to uphold that sentiment, get them to like him for a little longer, just so maybe he doesn't throw up thinking about having to take part in a group of strangers.
He’ll be joining a crew of 7. Four on the science front and three on the cams. He doesn’t tell his mom this is a job for a TV show because that’s not what matters. What matters is that he’s getting on a plane within the month, and finally flying out to meet the Strid in all her glory.
He ignores her phonecalls after that. He doesn’t want to hear questions about money, about his house back in the US, about anything- he ignores her calls because it’s the river that calls to him.
He bounces his leg, does his crosswords, and mentally rifles through the scant belongings he’d brought. It didn’t feel right to pack a lot. He doesn’t know why yet. And that’s a strange thing to think too- like there is a reason. He just can’t pin it yet. Techno bites his lip and speaks to himself, never alone in his head. And looks out the plane window, watching ocean, ocean, ocean, ocean. Land.
He texts their PR- or secretary? He was promised he’d be picked up at the airport. First time in a new country and all. It’s a polite small man in a green suit, his black umbrella wide enough for three people and patterned with white rhombuses. “ Welcome to the UK, mate,” he smiles like the sun’s in his eyes, and Techno wonders how someone can feel like smiling that often. They walk out of Leeds Bradford Airport and off into the country which houses the Strid, and Techno almost wants to divert and walk there on foot, early . Instead of waiting for their first day of work, he wants to be there now.
He just stares out the window.
There’s a few days of setup- they’re waiting fo r the others to arrive, and then the film crew will pile into their hotel and off everyone will go. Techno just reads his news articles, plays sudoku, and evades more conversation than he utterly has to partake in. Until there’s commotion downstairs and he meets their technician: a scrappy young guy with too much energy for his scant height.
Tubbo’s wheeled in a military-grade sonar, and now the project manager’s shouting something. Techno never hit it off with said manager, but maybe he’ll find better ground with the new guy.
“Sam hates when you introduce new things without warning him,” Tubbo tells him as Techno helps wheel the machinery into his hotel room, “But this bad-boy will scan that thing for us in seconds. It can detect submarines.”
“You’re planning to find submarines in the Strid?” Techno asks just as a way to keep his conversation points up.
“Well.” Tubbo shrugs, his fingers dirty with machine oil. “Maybe not submarines, but if you listen to a lick of what Wilbur goes on about, you’ll start thinking all sort’sa things are down there.”
W ilbur is the film crew’s head. He shows up drenched from the Yorkshire weather, beaming a grin of many promises.
“Is everyone ready or will the schedule suffer further?” He asks, and they’re not even due shooting until next day.
Sam shows up to tell him off again, about how this is a science investigation first and a TV show episode second, and Wilbur listens to it all with an empty grin. Eventually, he’ll manage to evade the chastising, and will drift over to Techno, like a deeply bored person latching onto an introvert’s eternal ability to listen. Techno learns more than he asks to know.
That Wilbur’s got a ‘great team’ and that when Wilbur says ‘great team’ he doesn’t mean it a single bit. The cameraman is clingy and keeps insisting to work under Wilbur. The way Wilbur says this, gives Techno a feeling that he hires the cameraman- Fundy? Over and over on his own merits. The new intern is thankfully unpaid and a loud pain in the ass- even if he gets things done. And the way Wilbur says this betrays attachment and fondness. The narrator and host seems to be Wilbur’s only coworker he doesn’t badmouth. Nikki remains blameless both in Wilbur’s words and tonality.
He loops an arm around Techno, and then leans in real close, “Why this trip? Why halfway across the world?” He smells of smoke and an old closet.
“The Strid fascinates me,” Techno finds himself answering. Wilbur has an odd quality of pulling sincerity deep out of his gut.
He’s met with a bright smile, “Ah, not the rarest phenomenon. People like the morbid, the unknown. Want to study it all day, look at it for longer.”
Techno sits there and doesn’t know how to say: I want to do more.
“HELLO?” Rings through the lobby, audible in the tiny hotel even from Wilbur’s room.
“Ah.” Wilbur sits up, “That will be Tommy.”
“ We’re shooting tomorrow?” Techno asks, and Wilbur, mid-standing shoots him another smile.
“Fingers crossed.”
The prospect of seeing it in real life shoots electricity through Techno.
He’s up the earliest and can’t blame it on jetlag. Ranboo can though. Their most recent arrival, also from the states. They’re in the lobby alone now, sipping tea like the UK’s gotten to them already. He’s a tall noodley guy, just a bit younger than Techno, but somehow with enough work experience to make up for it. He sounds like a salesman.
“I manage the notes,” Ranboo says
in his infomercial voice
, staring resolutely out the window. “
I type faster than anyone else here.”
“So you’ll be what. Keeping track of the findings?”
Ranboo gives a nervous snort, “If there’s anything to find, yes.”
Techno thinks: I don’t need to find anything at all. I just want to see it.
Everyone is finally up . Some new faces that arrived late last night, and finally a reappearance from Phil: here’s where you’re going, here’s your ride, here’s your aquatic biologist- Where’s George?
Everyone looks around the lobby, and Techno realizes : he doesn’t know who the hell George is.
C ommotion breaks: it seems that the people who do know George do not know where he is. Techno leans over to Wilbur, who’s happily underhand, and asks, “What does he do?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wilbur grins, “I’m sure you lot are nerds enough to fill in for whatever job he’d be doing.” And then louder, he addresses the group, “Don’t forget we’re funded by the hour! If we stall any longer that’ll be time shaved off the science study portions.”
Sam shoots Wilbur a deadly glare, and Techno’s happy to remain silent.
They head out without George, who Techno overhears has a tendency to sleep in.
Two vans. One for Sam’s team, one for Wilbur’s. Nikki’s clearly a better driver than Sam is- or maybe a less careful one- and the film crew arrive there early. Techno’s only a little jealous.
He’s the first outta the van. Shoes hitting wet pavement and then similarly wet moss. It smells of pond water and autumn forest and rain, and there it is.
The Strid. The first day on-site it steals his breath away, like it had a decade ago. Just more now, steals his breath so swiftly and mercilessly, it’s like his heart’s stopped too. And he wants to step closer, walk the rest of his way to it, and its sound is all-consuming, it hums in the back of his mind, fitting into some hollow void that’s been eating at his brain in overpowering silence for years- the rush of water fills that and calms him and thrums under his skin and into his blood-
Sam’s hand on his shoulder. Sam’s voice telling him: careful, the rocks are mossy, don’t walk near.
And Techno nods and backs away, slipping out of the hand’s weight the second he can- and he thinks about the center of his chest where a string seems to weave between his ribs and tug. Closer, closer, pulling.
They unpack. Set up. And then work begins and consumes him, and it’s easy to get lost in it. He does his job well, considering the weather’s always toeing on shit, Tubbo and Sam are arguing about equipment, and Fundy’s shoving a camera in his face.
For once, it seems Sam plays the hero in Techno’s story, and tells Fundy- and the rest of the film crew- to lay off. Perhaps he remembers Techno’s joking request to be left out of the filming, or perhaps he just needs an excuse to snap at someone else.
Planks are set up. People scatter and report back to Ranboo with numbers, Techno spots Tubbo’s wires for a while before it’s his time on the sonar. He’s run enough simulations the controls come easy to muscle memory.
It’s all a blur, really.
Until he’s the only one manning the scans- for just a moment- where is everyone? The film crew is harassing their biologist, Puffy, Sam is in the overhang tent rearranging his machines again, phone pressed with his shoulder, arguing over a permit. Tubbo is upstream with a streamgage.
Techno is alone.
That’s when something moves in the lower third quadrant- or. It can’t- it doesn’t, surely it doesn’t. Surely Techno is mistaken- he glances from his monitors to the water- broiling and opaque with bubbles, loud, and suddenly he’s trapped in its noise again, unable to look away unable to breathe past its rush and speed and overwhelming possession of his entire mind and body- and something moves. There is something swimming against the Strid’s current, but that can’t be- perhaps a piece of trash? Yes, huge, but perhaps someone’s jacket or- no, bigger- a catfish? But barely anything survives this current, and barely anything that big.
A trick of the light.
A trick of the light that whispers into his brain:
Come closer. Step in.
Techno's legs move on their own-
There's a loud bang.
Techno manages to blink.
The world comes rushing back in. Wilbur berating Fundy over camera handeling, Nikki practicing her lines. The noise had been Tommy misstepping onto a plank and making it crash down against stone- Ranboo’s quiet approach with a clipboard under his armpit and a laptop in his hands, a pen behind each ear-
“You alright?” He asks, clearly hoping Techno’s answer will be yes.
“Nothing happened-” Techno swallows and then turns to look at him- “Yeah I’m alright- here I’ve got the printouts for you, from the 12 kiloHertz run.”
Ranboo brightens up with the prospect of doing work instead of discussing anything else, “Oh that’s just wonderful, I’ll have them over to Tubbo immediately.”
And things move on.
Techno can’t. Can't move on at all.
Wilbur drifts over eventually, crew left behind on a battery recharge break, “You sure you don’t wanna get filmed?”
“Not a huge fan of attention,” Techno doesn’t look up from his PDF of sonar imagery density references.
Wilbur hums, “You’d make a good focus for the episode, your hair makes you stand out.”
“And that’s about it,” Techno smiles tightly, “You’re better off with Tubbo, he’s been talking his head off at Sam, maybe he can reroute that energy at the camera.”
Wilbur’s silent for too long, and then he says out at the Strid, words almost swallowed by it, “What’d you see?”
It’s a simple and calm question, one that doesn’t leave wiggle room for anything, really. Techno swallows.
“Where?”
“You know about the myths, right?”
Techno looks over at him. Wilbur is older than he looks- almost scarily so, Techno now realizes, catching a glimpse of greying hair and tired lines under his eyes. “No? In all my time reading about the Strid-”
“It’s not in writing,” Wilbur says, “Word of mouth. I’ve lived here all my life,” And he finally looks over, “Loved to play around the Wharfe growing up. You see things. You hear the other boys talking, scary stories.”
Techno looks away, back at the water, suddenly tense. “Every place has its scary stories.”
“Kids and their imagination, I suppose,” Wilbur muses, and then stands up with a sigh, “Don’t go walking too close, never know what might grab you.” By the end of the sentence, his voice loses all seriousness and devolves into its usual evasive cadence.
Wilbur leaves. Techno gets back to work, the sound of that intern’s shouting drifting over before the kid’s ultimately sent home for the day. They all wrap up soon enough.
The rush of water- and then the click of the van’s door, the hum of an engine, friendly talking Techno can’t hear- all he hears is that echo of current, of something alive and just to the left of song, calling, calling-
The hotel happens sooner than he thought. He’s in his room in a daze. Everyone is downstairs for dinner? He’s not sure- maybe someone passed his room to ask but- he’s on his laptop at the hotel room’s table, he’s pulling up tabs again and again in some mockery of his prior obsessions- Strid mythology- Strid myths- Wharfe myths- Wharfe sightings- Strid cave system- Casualties per year-
Nothing.
Wilbur’s lying. Has to be- and then a forum post.
Someone british, evident by the spelling, username just a real name, post from eight years ago. Techno’s not breathing, he doesn’t need oxygen he needs to read faster.
His eyes skim the retelling- the Warfe – misspelled and therefore hard to come across from searches - when we were just boys, mother said don’t, myself and a friend, swimming- summer- we swam out- something- something- a tail- ran- went home and cried- sleepwalking- therapy- thinking about it for years, never told my anyone- even my wife- just moved cities, told my kids to stay away from water- still thinking about it- impossible to keep away- a voice in my head-
Techno swallows down a knot in his throat and scrolls down frantically- all the comments are clearly either kids freaking out or adults bashing on OP for a clearly fabricated account, or a nasty brush with a catfish, and it saps the adrenaline from Techno, mellows it- this, of all things. Seeing the opinion of twenty-something strangers blaring in a red neon sign: this story is bullshit.
It injects common sense back into his bloodstream.
Of course someone’s childhood account of a long, sleek shape in the water is certainly something else- a log, for god’s sake, or trash, or fish. A million things before something other.
But his eyes flick up to OP’s account of a strange obsession, of being unable to leave it behind, at least never fully.
The comments underneath calm him. A reminder of the senseless silliness of something like this, a reminder to step back and close the two dozen tabs, go downstairs, get dinner-
And Techno wishes he hadn’t scrolled further.
One of the most recent comment threads.
It’s not funny to impersonate dead people on the Internet. Delete this.
| this is from 7yrs ago chill
Techno’s blood goes cold.
He looks up the name, the one en-full at the top of that damning post-
In his quiet, dark hotel room, Technoblade leans back in his chair, as far away from the screen as he can. His heart is beating too fast, painfully so. He feels terrifically on the edge of a great, rushing chasm. He feels like he’s leaning forward.
The man behind a damning childhood account of something brushing him in the river is dead. Another tick in the fatality count of Yorkshire’s little marvel: The Strid.
Walked into it at night. Didn’t even live in the city. Body never discovered. Identified by cellphone pings and personal belongings downstream. Ruled as a suicide on grounds of a note.
No matter how hard he searches, he can’t find the note's contents. His fingers run with electricity, every key on his computer just another spike of excitement shooting needles into his lungs- he’s falling- how many deaths to the Strid weren’t silly accidents? How many others-
A knock on his door.
Tubbo, and behind him the looming shadow of Wilbur.
He hasn’t been answering his texts, so they’d come to alert him of tomorrow’s schedule, yes Sam sent them- well, Tubbo, but Wilbur tagged along for fun- and-
“Thank you,” Techno says, and he’s sure he comes off as normal. Maybe tired. But nothing more. His mother’s pretty little ‘normal’.
Tubbo grins, and he’s really just a kid. He’s wickedly smart and still smells like motor oil and shines under attention, the perfect little main character for Wilbur’s production. Wilbur is watching Techno with painfully sharp eyes.
“See you tomorrow then!” Tubbo grins, leaves down the hallway, and Wilbur remains.
Hands folded behind his back, demeanor a strange shift from when Techno had first opened the door. Techno wants to close the door and leave, and for a second, gets the thought that if he were to close it in Wilbur’s face, Wilbur would stand right here outside it the entire night, waiting. For what? Techno knows for what. And hopes Wilbur doesn’t.
“See you tomorrow?” He tries.
Wilbur’s face is stone-still, attentive, “Tomorrow?” He asks like a lure and a hook.
“Tomorrow.” Techno reaffirms, feeling like he’s lying to an older sibling about something stark-clear, lying and hoping they’ll leave him alone.
And Wilbur’s quiet. Like he’s- he’s weighing something. His eyes flicker to the side, at the doorjam, and they’re still both standing there, Techno’s hand on the door, waiting for Wilbur to make up his mind and say his piece, or leave Techno alone to his decisions. It’s light in the hallway, dark in the room, and Wilbur is backlit by deceptively warm yellow.
Wilbur looks back to him.
“Yes… Tomorrow it is then.” And those eyes are studying him. “I’ll see you at the shoot tomorrow morning.”
“You will,” Techno refuses to cave. “Tomorrow morning.”
And that settles it. Wilbur wipes the knowing look off his face and straightens back out, smiling, “Good night then, it was nice meeting you, Technoblade.” It’s the first thing he says that seems genuine.
He leaves.
Techno closes the door.
Checks his email. Nothing he cares for. Only things that spike fear into his stomach – and not the welcome fear of that chasm, but rather the fear of what awaits him if he were to walk away. Work. Debt. Loans that barely let him travel to the UK, to the Strid.
Checks his phone. Takes out the SIM card. Then puts it back in. Thinks for a second and takes it out again.
Looks at his scant luggage. Just two outfits, a toothbrush kit, his booklet of puzzles, and chargers. He looks at how little there is and understands why.
Puts on his shoes, leaves his laptop unlocked. Won’t matter much.
Everyone is in their rooms. Techno leaves into cold Yorkshire night, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, alternating to hold his phone with the map screenshot out in front of him. He has some walking to do. The chill bites his fingers. His nose. His ears filter out the buzz of traffic, late-night cyclists, bars- or rather pubs. It blends and smudges and runs into one blur of something he wants nothing to do with. Hasn’t for a long time. His father’s face behind the newspaper, the faces of passerbies behind shadow. The world stops existing in a way that matters.
The humming song of water wakes him up.
He’s standing on wet, soft moss. Fingers almost frozen around his phone. It’d long shut off. He’d been walking unfamiliar Yorkshire streets blind. Or maybe asleep.
And yet.
The Strid cuts the night in half with its barely visible white current, screams at him with its intensity, calls. Techno doesn’t notice walking ahead. He’s standing on the edge, watching the water, and he knows he could slip here so so easily, slip and fall, and slipping would be terrible- so instead of slipping he decides to take the first step.
And it whisks him away.
Like stepping out of a moving car- it slams him sideways- yanks down at his coat- fills it with water- pulls him- pulls his hair and his clothes- skids him along stone walls- he can’t breathe past the preliminary gasp of falling- he’s- and then his coat snags on something- and snags hard- it rattles all his joints, cuts into his armpits where the sleeves dig in and keep him steady-
He’s left hanging underwater as it desperately pulls him sideways, trying, trying so hard to reclaim him, drag him further- but he’s still caught on something and his forehead burns with what must be an open wound- and- he’s caught on something or- no-
Something's caught him.
Its hands- hands are holding his arm- or a single hand- he can feel fingers around his arm in the kind of grip that hurts. Holding on and ripping into its material, splitting seams- and he can’t breathe- and those hands are moving, to hold him better first by the shoulders, then around the waist, and he dares open his eyes and can’t see a single thing- but a bright fluorescent green through layers of rushing water- and it pulls him. Pulls him against it, and up the current, against it- and Techno’s running out of everything-
He must black out for a bit, but he can feel it turn them off to the side into calmer waters, out of the current, and his nose hurts so bad as his brain forces him to try inhaling after the overwhelming gaping pain of his empty lungs-
And then it’s swimming up- and Techno kicks too, his remaining shoe sloshing in the water and pulling him down- the arm around his waist yanks higher and hurts his ribs but- Techno breaks the surface.
He’s shoved at a stone outcrop that burns his hands with how hard he grabs at its rough surface- he pulls himself up, hacking water and feeling water mix with his tears, tasting blood, too much of it, and everything hurts so bad. So bad- it’s dark- or his eyes are closed- they sting when he opens them, kneeling with his hands on the ground, heaving with no dinner or breakfast to throw up- he’s staring at his knuckles, they’re blurry- but they’re lit from one side by green.
Technoblade turns his head with effort. Through loose wet strands of cold hair, he manages to open his eyes past a bleary squint.
And he has never seen something so utterly entrancing.
It glows like a deep-sea creature, black and green marking on its skin, lips inky, and for a second he thinks its mouth has to be huge, before he realizes the black lines extending along its face are cosmetic, like a smiley drawn over its actual features. And when it smiles for real, baring a predator’s teeth, it’s just close enough to human. Its features crinkle with joy. Technoblade can’t breathe for multiple reasons.
It’s voice is-
Human enough.
Lighthearted and playful, shaped by the smile, “It’s not often people join me down here willingly.”
Techno coughs again in place of an answer, and looks away- they’re in a warm cave- it thaws at his fingers but doesn’t help the ripped and sopping mess of his coat- Techno feels his elbows give out and almost face-plants, instead leaning back to jerkily remove his coat, lest it freezes him into ice.
The thing watches- every time he glances over, it watches- and when he glances around, each breath hurting his nose and mouth and throat-
There’s art on the walls.
He breathes out in forced calm. It stings.
“Usually doesn’t end well for them,” The thing continues its previous thought as if the pause didn’t happen, still half in the water, and Techno looks over again. Brushes his plastered hair out of his eyes and watches the tips of his fingers come away red. Head wounds bleed heavy. He feels for a second woozy. Distracts himself with the ethereal sight of… it.
It lights the water around it in green, each movement’s ripples outlined with an intricate web of neon. There’s human bones along the walls- or perhaps that of a large animal but… Techno’s sure it’s the former. Scattered under the art and scant belongings. He looks back at it. Its playful, waiting eyes, so far removed from social convention it goes and wipes all fear from Techno’s overworked brain. He’s tired, he’s died for all he knows- it slips his lips too easily:
“You’re…” Hypnotic? Bewitching? “Charming.” Pretty. Beautiful.
The creature’s smile twitches- Techno’s never been great at reading people, but this is painted in clear surprise. It startles, sinking further into the water- but Techno watches as it begins to glow brighter somehow, the fins at the sides of its face stand up wider, like the continuation to a huge smile. It’s flattered, Techno thinks. It’s blushing.
Wow.
He understands all of a sudden, everything, the newspaper, the empty luggage, the ignored calls, where tales of merfolk come from- the old ones, about things that lure you in- is this it? Is this where he joins the bones of its spectacular collection? His phone is heavy in his pocket. Dead, surely. He hopes it is. He hopes the world thinks he’s dead too.
He coughs again, wipes at his eyes as water- blood? Dribbles down-
The thing with its bright bright blushing green glow swims over and reaches for him.
Techno can’t find it in himself to flinch. It finds that surprising too.
Its thumb comes up to brush at his forehead, and it stings, must be right under the cut. Techno takes the moment to study it.
A round, friendly face- almost. Something cunning about it, too knowing, the sides of its face framed by fins that taper off into luminescent circles and dots. They seem to fold and move with more expressiveness than the face tiself- The face is… studying him back.
“Charming?” It asks.
“What’s your name,” Techno forces out past the pain of drowning. “I’m Techno.”
It licks his blood off its own fingers, “Dream.”
“That’s nice,” He finds himself saying, delirious, tired. The cave melts him, like a bathhouse, warms him so thoroughly, after the UK cold and the Strid’s icy embrace. The adrenaline drains. Leaves him hollow somewhere down in his chest, leaves his joints feeling weak and tired. But he’s thrown his life away and it’s freeing. “You’re pretty.” He says, and his last thought as he loses consciousness is: how much restraint will Wilbur have to exhibit, so as to not make Techno’s death the centerpiece of his episode.