Waiting on a response to his earlier question about their newest ally's motives, Shirogane froze completely, both mentally as well as physically, as Tak's thoughts entered his mind.The guy could have been Strega and put a blade through Shirogane as he stood there and it wouldn't have made any difference to him in that moment because the moment he realized someone else had somehow trespassed on the refuge of his mind a deeper terror than anything he had ever known swallowed Shirogane whole. His mind was the only place that belonged to him alone, an asylum that is as much a sanctuary as it is a prison, like Hell is as much a kingdom to the Devil as it is his damnation.
He was completely unfazed as the alarm on his phone exploded, and remained catatonic even as Ikeda drew close enough to help shut it off which necessitated the kind of proximity that ordinarily resulted in him getting all flustered and snapped him out of his mental episodes. The fear of death put in him by the first excursion into Tartarus and the unknown dangers which lurked within was a bolstering warmth of adrenaline, though it was a fool's confidence, the encounter with The Other and later Strega had been a chilling terror, but this new terror was another beast entirely. How had the whole world come unraveled so simply? Still frozen, Shirogane felt an immense urge to cry swell up, but he did not although he felt the need to as strongly as a baby just born into the world does. Then he wanted to scream, to shout his lungs out, to roar in defiance of terror and death and then expire all in an instant like a great bolt of lightning that produces such light and sound as it splits the night sky that it seems the whole world might be torn apart by the calamitous force of its existence, but he couldn't do that either. Unable to come to terms with the overwhelming feeling of having 'his place' intruded on, he slowly slumped to the ground.
He felt sick and exhausted, like he'd been running frantic in the dark seeking a safe place to rest and, finding none, ran until he collapsed.
Sitting in the doorway, there was 'outside' on one side of him and 'inside' on the other, and there were 'others' around him, people, but they were like figures or cardboard cut-outs to him. They didn't matter, and he didn't care. The only thing that mattered, the only thing he cared about was this spot. If only the whole world was just this one spot and if he was the only person, then he wouldn't have to be afraid. Except there were others, other places and other people, and he resented them. They turned the world into a much larger place when it would be so much simpler without them. When he could no longer ignore the existence of others, it was then he remembered his sickness because the realization that he was not alone forced him to see himself as others might see him. If the whole world and the people in it are like a mirror and if the reflection in that mirror is made up of how others see us, then Shirogane would turn away from his own reflection disgusted. Resenting himself and then other people, other people and then himself--he knew not which came before the other--each revolution only exhausted him further, and so he drew inside himself more and more hoping to make all his cares, worries, and fears disappear.
