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Peter didn't notice the moment it happened. His stuff was already in the house, as expected, and after he took a minute to wander around and see what it was like, he decided the first thing he wanted to do was go look for a job here.
It's when his computer is booting up and he's thinking about that that he notices that he isn't... sure... what he was going to look for, exactly.
"Well, you see, pretty much every conversation I have had since I started existing earlier today has been very similar to this one, in which the best engagement I could get was a sentence vaguely related to what I was talking about followed by maybe a follow-up question or a similar topic."
"It's not! For example, I tried to ask the spellcaster Sages about whether there were any drawbacks or side effects to becoming a spellcaster, but they kept saying the same things or not really answering my questions."
Peter must be going crazy. He must be in a coma hallucinating the whole world. He must have been kidnapped by fairies and now they're experimenting on him.
He tries talking to other people. They all sound like that. They all—they're all—the same...
Not really. They do have personalities. They do seem to have consistent tastes. Some of them ask more questions than others, some of them are more interested in his life than others, some of them talk more than others. They're all individuals.
They just don't... seem... to be people.
For some value of people.
They don't care if he switches between subjects wildly and unpredictably. They don't really try to go deep into anything. They are garbage at inferring whatever related things he might want to know. Every question, when it's answered directly, is answered in the most minimalistic way. And sometimes they just don't understand the question and say something that's only approximately in the same topic. Hell, he even insulted a couple of them, then immediately apologised, and they seemed... fine. Maybe a little bit offput for a while but eventually it was like they just forgot. They act like... like... like video game NPCs, or something.
And it's getting late, and he's getting hungry, and he's also getting extremely depressed by his findings.
He's also in San Myshuno, and although he's pretty sure his memories aren't really his they seem to so far also not have been false. He does know engineering, all of the websites he thought about visiting do exist, Glimmerbrook is the place you go to to become a wizard, San Myshuno is a cosmopolitan metropolis filled with high rises and skyscrapers and a bustling city life.
San Myshuno is a cosmopolitan metropolis filled with high rises and skyscrapers and a bustling city life, as life should be, and so he has no trouble finding a restaurant to burn §1,000 in because he needs nice food and to get unreasonably drunk.
He doesn't need to really talk to the staff, and thank goodness for that. Table for one, please, show him something nice and expensive—he has vague memories of musings about becoming vegetarian but if even the people aren't people here it's very unlikely the cows are—and nice wine, yes he wants the whole bottle, he wants to get shitfaced tonight.
The staff dares give him sympathetic looks. Surely they're programmed to recognise his mood as "fresh from a break-up" or some shit and to show sympathy or some other such bullshit.
He's good on his word, and after an absolutely delicious series of courses including a starter with baked brie, a main course with salmon and some outstanding seasoning he could not pick apart, and this white chocolate lava cake with blackberry jam that made him understand the word "mouthgasm" in a way he never had before (because he didn't exist before, geddit?), he downs the rest of the wine glass after glass. He doesn't quite drink it straight from the bottle because on the off-chance he's actually still made of biology he does not want to go into a drunk coma tonight, but he's tempted.
Peter stumbles out of the restaurant, not entirely sure how much the food cost or even how he paid, and almost feels like he should be singing into the bottle while thinking it's a microphone, except he doesn't have the bottle anymore. Does he have a microphone app on his phone? Wait, he doesn't need a microphone, he just needs the music. He puts music on, and starts singing, and he'll be damned if being drunk will make him sing off-key. He sings perfectly, he's sure of it, and honestly who cares if he's wrong? No one, because no one else exists.
He manages to avoid tripping and faceplanting on the concrete all the way back to the park he'd visited earlier, but his luck runs out while he's walking past a tree and whoooop the ground is now much closer to his face than it should ever be, for the second time today.
Second time in his life, haha.
He turns around to stare at the sky—it's a full moon, is that magically relevant? are werewolves real?—and is ten seconds into trying to switch songs on his phone before he realises he is not actually holding his phone, as it fell from his hand when he tripped. He looks around for the source of the music, finds it, and tries to grab it, but it's too far. He stretches his hand out and eventually gives up and just rolls a bit to get close enough to it, then decides to instead just put the phone away. The music cuts off as soon as it disappears into Peter's inventory.
He sits up and whoooooooooa why is the world spinning oh right it's 'cause he's drunk. That's... annoying. The world shouldn't spin when he's drunk, how rude of it. He just wanted to forget all about his problems. Which he did! Because he forgot about eeeeeeverything, noooooothing happened before today why is he lying on the dirt again.
Another try, this time he manages to stay mostly up, seated cross-legged on the grass, and he ruffles his own hair to get all the dirt off. Then his... T-shirt. Why is he wearing a white T-shirt. That was a very dumb idea. It's fucking covered in dirt.
He takes it off and sticks it into his inventory. He can deal with laundry later, for now he just wants that dirt off. Except it's on his trousers and his shoes so he tries to pull them off—no, bad idea, he's falling again.
Ugh and now there's dirt all over his skin, he should go somewhere with no dirt. Like home. Home has no dirt. Home is nice and comfy. He gets his phone to appear in his hand and calls a taxi, then he crawls over to a park bench and uses it to pull himself to his feet. After swaying in place a little bit he resumes the work of patting himself free of dirt. He almost entirely succeeds, which he'll call good enough. At least now most of the dirt won't get on the car seat.
He sits on the bench and sways back and forth while he waits for the car.
It only takes a minute to arrive. The driver says something about Peter's shirtlessness, but he's too out of it to notice, and too out of it to be outraged again when his time is stolen from him in the trip. It's almost midnight, now, and after fumbling with the keys to both unlock and lock the door he kicks his shoes off, shambles to his bedroom, and falls face-first onto his bed, out like a light before he even hits the mattress.
Why is that alarm so loud.
Peter tries to reach for his bedside table to make it stop, and fails to find it. He opens a bleary eye and sees no alarm. Then he realises there is no alarm, and actually what he's experiencing is not "hearing a loud noise" it is "seeing a bright light".
Why does the sun exist.
He drags himself off his bed, walks to the window, and shuts the curtains.
Ah, yes. Blissful darkness. And he can go back to sleep now.
...mrr. Who ran over his head with a cement truck, he needs to sue them. And he can't sleep.
He gets up, shuffles to the bathroom, and finds the medicine cabinet. Painkillers, please, and a lot of water, thank you. That should be good for the hangover.
Now back to bed, and the birds are so loud, who the fuck allowed birds. Can they please stop. This is a double bed, he can grab the other pillow and press it against his ears to block them out and wait for the painkillers to kick in. It'll take a while but he is unemployed and furthermore has existed for maybe twenty-four hours total by now, he can sleep in if he wants.
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