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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.
Which he feels very strongly is unlike him. Why did he not have a job already lined up by the time he moved? What possessed him to move to a tiny town in nowhere's asscrack without even an actual guaranteed form of income? That's insane! What if it took weeks or longer to get a job? He has the credentials and networking to only work with whatever he wants to work with (to an extent), looking for a job online on, what, LinkedSim or something, is preposterous.
...right?
........who does he have in his network? Why does he think he could get a good job if he wanted to?
He grabs his phone to look through his contacts only to find he has none. No... no one.
...he has no one.
He has no one. He tries to think of where he last worked, and comes up blank. His major was in engineering but he never went to uni. He can't remember school, he can't remember the names of his friends, or their faces.
Where... did he go to school? Where did he live? Where is he from?
Who is his family? He, he's meant to have a brother and a sister and parents and, and grandparents, he's sure of it but he can't, can't, can't recall—
Peter tries to get up from the chair but his legs give out from under him and he finds the floor approaching his face rather more quickly than it should. He braces for the fall and doesn't really get too hurt, but his head still feels light.
His breathing is coming in ragged and quick, but he tries to force himself to think through the slurry. It's much more likely that he's just having an episode, a stroke or something, than that he actually just has no one. His brain is playing tricks on him, and he won't be able to do anything about it if he panics.
Which itself is... not enough to solve his problems, but it allows him to focus. Breathe.
Slowly.
He doesn't need to get up, he doesn't have any appointments or anywhere to be or anything to do.
(And even if he did, he's clearly having An Episode here and that takes precedence.)
Breathe.
Slowly.
Breathe in.
............
Breathe out.
...........
He can stay on the floor, and he can shut his eyes and focus on his breathing. Breathe in.
...........
Breathe out.
..........
Breathe in.
..........
Breathe out.
..........
He falls asleep. Or maybe passes out, the difference is academic.
When he comes to, still on the floor, the first thought he has is that he's never felt worse in his life, which is preposterous but feels kind of true. He looks down and notices that his legs got tangled with the computer chair when he tried to get up and they're pressed uncomfortably against the chair's legs.
He pulls them closer to his body, dragging the chair with, and manages to get free of it. Then he reaches down to massage his sore ankles, skin red from the pressure, and slowly manages to sit up, cross-legged.
Peter tries to think again, more carefully his time.
His memories are vague and murky, like impressions of memories rather than real ones. If he asks himself about his family, the answer that feels right is that he's the eldest of three, and has a somewhat fraught relationship with his parents. Associated with that answer are vague feelings, the general impression of having been raised with siblings, the overall summary memory of having had fights to assert his independence as the first one to leave the nest and make his own way.
But none of the memories... hold. They slip away, he can't think of their names, he can't remember their fights. His brain insists that the memories are real, that of course no one remembers every little detail of their lives, but he doesn't remember... any of them. Any details.
He's probably having some sort of Episode, but another look at his phone confirms no contacts. He could be hallucinating that, too, or maybe he... wiped his phone and, and somehow induced amnesia in himself? Vague memories of permanent amnesia being harder than fiction portrays it as surface in his mind but every bit of knowledge is suspicious now.
Peter gets up and pulls his chair upright then logs into his account on his computer. Social media, surely he has social media...?
No. Oh sure he has a Simbook account but it's empty.
Computer files?
The computer is bare and new, absolutely no sign of use.
He could Siimgle his name... no. That's his Simbook account and then some other people called Peter Tarleton that aren't him in references or old enough they're probably dead.
Seriously? How about universities, he doesn't remember which one he went to but he can think of specific engineering and programming knowledge that he got from it.
(And just to test his paranoia, he does some more searches to try to confirm that his knowledge is real and not entirely made up.)
He looks for the websites of the University of Britechester and the Foxbury Institute, and tries to find himself there. No luck. They do have lists of graduated alumni every year, but his name is nowhere in those lists for the past ten years.
Is he... sure... his name is really Peter Tarleton? Yes, that's what his phone says, and his ID in his wallet looks legit and has a picture of him (he checks the mirror to make sure) and that name.
Okay... what the fuck.
Option 1: he has gone totally, completely insane, all the way off the deep end.
Option 2:
...
What even is option 2? This doesn't make any sense!
...is Peter fit for human interaction? Should he answer? He doesn't... feel... like his form of insanity will devolve into violence.
It might be good for him to see another human being.
He gets up, stretches a bit, looks down—jeans and a T-shirt, presentable. He checked his face in the mirror just now, he looks a bit harried but not horribly so.
He walks to the door and opens it, trying to look normal.
"Hello, neighbour!" says a person at the head of a small pack of four people. He and one other person are carrying food trays. "Welcome to Glimmerbrook!"
Oh... oh goodness a welcome committee to the neighbourhood. That's so cute!
Also he's still kind of freaking out here and is not sure he wants to receive people! One person would be fine but interacting with a whole group—
"Oh hi!" he says more-or-less automatically. "Goodness this is so unexpected!"
"Oh, I'm sorry dear," says another person, an older lady giving off mad grandmotherly vibes. "Is this a bad time?"
"I'm Unther Hayes," says the first one who spoke. "These are Noelle Basil," grandmother lady, "Charlie Martin, and Austin Riggs," the other two.
"Welcome!" those two say in unison.
...weird people. But cute.
"I, ah, um," he is actually feeling awful and she just gave him such an opening but first impressions matter but he might be going crazy and if so he needs professional help but—
...why did he even move here?
To become a wizard, duh.
Wait what????
Let's. Table that thought for later.
"I'm, ah, yeah this is not a great time—"
"It's quite alright, lovely," says grandmother, even though the other three look clearly less-than-pleased at the rejection. "Just accept our little gifts, then, and we'll get out of your hair."
...okay. Gifts, sure, they did make him food.
(Wizard??????????????)
He tries to be as gracious as possible, and accepts the food, but something occurs to him just before they leave. "Hey, can you take a look at this for a second, please?" He shows them his contact list. "This is empty, right?"
"Yes I am!" he says, you know, like a liar. "Thank you all for coming, I'm really sorry I couldn't be a better host right now. Hopefully I'll be able to make up for it sometime later!"
He shuts and locks the door then slowly slides down to the floor again with his back to it, leaning forward to cover his face with his hands.
A wizard.
What????????????????
He's very sure that's the reason. Like, he has an almost crisp memory of thinking that he wants to be a powerful spellcaster and that was what made him decide to come live here even though he hates tiny towns and is very much a city rat.
(Is he a city rat? What city has he lived in before? He just doesn't know~)
Okay, okay, chill for a sec. Before he goes to explore this idea he needs to finish his thought from before. Where was he...
He sits back at the computer and starts typing into a blank document. It's easier to think that way.
Option 1: he's insane. If he's insane it's a very peculiar kind of insane, with other people interacting mostly normally and informing him that his contact list is indeed empty. But either way, he is hallucinating the preposterous state of affairs of having zero online presence in this day and age.
Option 2: he's not insane, he's not having any kind of mental breakdown, those people were not hallucinations.
...but does it matter? If he's having some extremely vivid dream or whatever, it's survived him passing out and then interacting with people. Maybe he's in a coma somewhere, but it...
...he can just act like this is real. When your hallucinations are this solid and strong and feel this real, clearly you can't use your own senses and pure reasoning to go back to reality. In the worst case, he'll be seen in public interacting with people and things that don't exist one too many times and the nice men in white jackets will take him somewhere.
Note to self: if you ever find yourself kidnapped by monsters or fairies or whatever the fuck else, consider the possibility that actually these might be the first real people you've interacted with in a while and your brain is just projecting your current elaborate fantasy delusions onto them. Be nice to them and try to find out if they can help you.
(However, do keep the possibility that this is reality in mind.)
However, on the off-chance that he can still somehow interact with the world, he can post something online asking if anyone has ever heard of symptoms like his. He'll go to Simmit and post a topic on s/NoStupidQuestions about it. ...and maybe s/MentalHealth too. Yes, that's good, he can check on these later.
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