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It is a few hours into a projected 168 of them. Haru is trying to get back to sleep while his mother holds him, because 168 hours is going to feel a lot longer if he can't figure out how to sleep while lonelier than ought to be humanly possible.
Suddenly not having his mother holding him is certainly a way to ruin the attempt.
He's - somewhere that looks very like the sidewalk outside his apartment, but also clearly is not. The silhouettes of the buildings are uncannily similar for how different the specifics are - that convenience store has a different name; his apartment building is a different color and that one has a different façade; several buildings in one cluster that were more on the historical side have been replaced with something shiny and new. The McDonald's on the corner is still there, but with different decor.
It's the middle of the night here, too, and the streets are empty enough that there are neither pedestrians to glom onto nor cars to walk in front of in the immediate vicinity, though he can hear traffic in the distance and - maybe a set of footsteps?
He is so tired and it hasn't even been five percent of this shitshow. Footsteps yes please. "Help!"
The source has headphones on and doesn't notice him at first. She braces flinchingly when she sees him coming at her.
"Hello, I'm really sorry to bother you, I don't know where I am or how I got here and also I am in the middle of my esper awakening as of a few hours ago and it didn't previously seem to have an involuntary teleportation effect which would also separately be a really weird backlash manifestation and anyway I need - supervision, an ambulance will probably do the trick in a pinch?"
"What rock do you live under. I'm sorry, I don't mean that, I'm just - it means I am having a psychiatric emergency that will predictably last one week, can you call me an ambulance and sit with me till it gets here."
"Do you actively want an ambulance or is there a not-in-a-pinch solution that would work better?"
"You could also try calling my parents, I'd been planning to ride it out at home with them, it's not like there are drugs that help or anything, just, as things to ask of a complete stranger when I don't know where I am go, an ambulance seemed like the broadside option! I am intermittently a suicide risk, it turns out my backlash is being intolerably lonely."
Tap tap taptap. Her phone's UI is weird.
It rings out to voicemail and the voice on the 'leave a message' recording is male.
"My dad is supposed to be on an airplane to come take shifts with my mom, so he won't answer, but, just to check -" Number.
"Okay, well, I didn't think esper awakenings involved manifesting new exciting delusional symptoms after they got underway but I also didn't think they involved spontaneous teleportation and I do think I can't trust my brain right now, I'd take the ambulance if you'd be so kind and ambulances turn out to be a real thing that exist and can take me to a hospital."
"By all means tell me what thing I should have instead of an ambulance for my psychiatric crisis."
"I know this guy. Works for the government, in R&D, helped me out of a tight spot once. I could give reasons I think he'd be more helpful but I think I should just call him and if you don't like him you can have him get you an ambulance after."
"That sounds like an extremely puzzling approach to a psychiatric crisis but I am temporarily insane so I will tentatively trust you on this assessment, random stranger."
"Name's Netra." She navigates to something on her phone and starts typing, out of Haru's line of sight. "Also by call I mean text."
"Understood. I go by Haru but if you need my legal name for some reason it is Bellamy Masaharu Swan, and no, I don't know what my mother was thinking."
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