Darwin Cane<br/>Greyhound / Main St.<br/>Morning<br/>Tagging: Elias<br/><br/>Darwin had not been able to sleep well for over a week. Between the thoughts in his head that were his own and the many that prodded their way in, his psyche was a mess of emotions and confusion. Of course, this was fairly normal for the man and despite the fact he'd gotten used to his<i>crazy</i>, it still caused him to be sleep deprived quite easily.<br/><br/>Things were changing rather abruptly in his life and it was not being accepted as smoothly as he'd tried to make it. Life had not been kind to him, but there was no changing that. In fact, finally being told he was insane was almost a relief. The many who had judged him, bullied him as a child and abused him in his adult years were finally being proven right! That meant that there was no sense in trying to fight it anymore, and the calm that brought him - although only fleeting - was enjoyable.<br/><br/>While he'd been expecting to be carted away to some terrifying, yet beautiful building on the mountains, where Doctors would poke at his arms and talk to him with a careful fear....that was not how it played out at all. His boss at the labor camp where he had spent well over ten years of his life - a frustrating realization to Darwin - had spoken to someone in a town who supposedly would be able to help him.<br/><br/>He was given a ticket and told he'd no longer be allowed to stay at the camp. He'd be shipped off to the middle of nowhere to see this<i>specialist</i>who they said would cure him. Darwin was unenthused and honestly didn't believe a cure for him as possible. In many ways, it was no longer wanted. He'd accepted his fate and now that he was not forced to work for pennies a day, he was going to allow it to swallow him whole.<br/><br/>The small amount of items he'd gathered in his life were rounded up into a small backpack, now sitting between his feet as he rested against the window of the greyhound bus. Travel was annoying as the voices in his head seemed to become far more active. There were many thoughts and none made sense.<br/><br/><i>Did I leave the stove on?<br/>
<br/>
Will they recognize me coming home after so long?<br/>
<br/>
This filthy bus smells like piss and dog hair. </i>Of course, that last thought was his own.<br/><br/>While the other voices never quite made sense, part of his new outlook in life was to accept it. Now, he was trying to make a game out of it. The first voice was female, and had been going on and on about a checklist - what was missing and what was not. He imagined it to be a rather young woman, maybe in her early twenties, going on her first vacation. Darwin himself had never been on a vacation, so wasn't entirely certain what it would be like, but he imagined women worried for more than they needed to no matter where they were going.<br/><br/>The second voice was far different. For one, it sounded to be coming from a man who was quite tired. The way the voice sighed with each word, a bit of a crackle to it as if the voice had been shouting for hours on end led him to believe that it may belong to an old man. Perhaps he had run away from his family as a young man, leaving behind a boy and his mother. Perhaps he went out for cigarettes and never returned, and now here he was...coming to this small town to make amends.<br/><br/>Darwin pictured the scenario in his mind, a bit of a crash and burn situation as the mother would have died and the son bore a grudge bigger than the debt he carried on his shoulders. The thought along had Darwin laughing a bit to himself, earning odd looks from some of the other passengers on the bus.<br/><br/>Cold blue eyes looked around for just who else he was sharing his ride with today. An older woman, late 40s he assumed, was looking over a pad of paper with a pen in one hand. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip as she stared at the page, and Darwin wanted to yell at her to stop. The agitation had no real reason behind it, but he did so anyway, shouting at her to 'Cut it the fuck out'.<br/><br/>Murmurs turned to anger from the other passengers as his outburst caught their attention. A young man in a military outfit chewed him out for his rudeness, but Darwin just slumped back into his seat and looked out the window. Already he'd grown bored of the situation, and took the moment to study the scenery outside.<br/><br/>The bus was now entering into a small town - the very one he would be living in - when a rather large bang rattled the bus and had Darwin popping his head up once more. There were a few black feathers stuck to the windshield of the bus and more fluttering around the air, but no sign of the poor animal the driver had presumably killed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Darwin felt for the animal but instead, a sick grin popped up on his face. "Ha! Dumbass bird...."<br/><br/>Ignoring the looks from the other passengers, Darwin was the first to get up when they reached their destination. He did briefly notice a man around his age asleep in one of the rows, but made no move to wake him. As much fun as it could have been, there were new thoughts racing through his mind. He had reached his destination now, and there was so much more to explore.<br/><br/>With his backpack now thrown over one shoulder, his other hand grasped on to a letter. Short and to the point, it gave him only the barest of information:<br/><br/><i>Your new home:<br/>
Apartment 214<br/>
5078 4th Street<br/>
Winter Haven<br/>
<br/>
Find Gyran Strand. </i><br/><br/>With little more information to go on, Darwin looked around the small town and smiled. It was quiet. He liked that, though there was little doubt in his mind that it might not last for long. As if on cue, a new voice entered his head: this time in a language he didn't even understand. That was the most frustrating and entertaining of them all. Trying to put a picture to the voice was far more difficult this way.<br/><br/>It surprised Darwin to hear the voice out loud only moment's later, and when he turned around it was the man who had been sleeping on the bus. Tilting his head, he watched as the man looked around in confusion and smiled a bit. He was interesting.<br/><br/>"You look lost."