Sitting down on the park bench, he stared at the view around him. Not exactly easy while wearing sunglasses in the dark of night. Hands rubbed against his jeans for warmth, but not finding any, were stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket. The chill bothering him, but not enough to move him. Dark hat donned, seemingly ignoring the world around him. All except for the view before him. A view that wasn't real. What one might see during daylight hours weeks before. Green grass underfoot, reaching up to brush against the bright blue sky. Wind causing it to wave, calling for the sunlight to pay attention to it. Picnic tables with people sitting there, with families and friends. A pause in the day for those that needed it. Eating a sandwich, drinking water or coffee. Laughs to be heard by any and all. Large trees for children to play on or some sort of romance to blossom under. Etchings in the wood or make outs under it. Painted colors changing the sky. Patches of white mixed in, decorating the sky, taking its own turn before the stars did. Birds flying across, moving to find their next pit stop. All the while, a dog runs past him to catch a Frisbee.

With these sounds, these images were no longer real, with no one actually being around this time of night, he pulled off his own sunglasses. Full crimson eyes staring at it all. There was nothing special about them, other than the colors. No special senses, nothing but a decorative measure, it seemed. Left to take it all in and just stare at everything, as only a dim moonlight did what he imagined the sun had done. Everything covered in shadows, waiting on more than the light that washed over from the lamps around the park.

It was a strange sensation to realize that he really didn't sleep. That all of his own dreams weren't the sort that he had believed them to be. That his own nightmares were really partially on him. Some sick urges that ran through him, that tried to control him from the moment they had shown up. A trance-like state, where he hadn't thought much into it. His own movements had just been so characterized by work and what he was used to doing. It didn't matter if he was physically tired or not. Mentally, he was. It became so easy to get into that sort of routine.

Taking a deep breath, too many new things had come into play. Too much of everything. Weeks of finding himself and all of these new things. They weren't his own, and he was so sick of being wrapped up in his own fears. It bothered him more than people didn't seem to understand the severity of it all. It wasn't up to him to explain it, he didn't feel. If he did, it would be more like a constant repeat. A broken record he was not prepared to be. But to be told how things should be or how he could handle them, none of it ever made sense. No one understood because they weren't like him. No one had that ability.

And that, was the worst part of this. He didn't know many out there with the same issues, with this happening to them. It made him feel that much more alone and he really wasn't sure how to go about this. He wasn't exactly something broken to be fixed. That was already a direction he had taken this all, trying to fix himself. But at the same time, he understood that he had done this to himself. Or the other man, Morbius, had done this. An attempt to save his own life. Not everything was explained, even though there were so many words, so many pages to read. Each one had been read more than once. He had the time, the craving for understanding. But here he was, still, alone.

Regardless of these memories of a place, a safe haven for monsters, nature's mistakes, a place where those tortured or discriminated against, could go and be free of it all. Regardless of memories of people and beings he had yet to come across. Regardless of the memories that led him to believe that even those people hated him or didn't care for him. Here he was, still feeling lost. Alone. The woman in his apartment, she was like him, but wasn't. Something was wrong, she would only follow commands, thoughts, directions. As if he had called for her, but that was it. Where had her mind went? She wasn't like him. He didn't understand it, no matter how hard he tried, how much he tried to help her. She was just antoher vessel, and for the life of him, he couldn't understand. Far from the only thing though, as these feelings were bothering him. The lonliness. The reason that he had tried to push himself out of these means. It didn't matter exactly how awkward he felt or how he didn't feel right or accepted. He knew that he had quirks in his own personality or how wasn't like other people, but this brought that to a new point. This wasn't the life he had wanted.

He was thirty-five now. Six more months and he would be thirty-six. All of those years of math apparently did him well. No, the numbers just repeated for him, over and over, as if he were chanting them, speaking them into a truth, questioning someone that was not there. Shouldn't he be in love by now? Married off with a family, having children? Isn't that what people his age did? Rather than just make bad decision after bad decision? Or to just make your life about work and little to nothing else?

Michael didn't know what it was like to have that, didn't ever really think about a want for it. If anything, it felt like one of those things that he had time for at any point. What did it matter now? His mother wasn't hounding him. Without a family, without people that he was close to, it felt like he was free of people to protect from him. There was less to go off of. But that wasn't true. He still found himself trying to protect people, regardless of if he did or didn't care for them. Because people were still people, and where their lives were their own, he didn't want to be the cause of the end. He didn't want to be the real problem. And yet, here he was, still feeling so alone. He didn't want to be a martyr. He just wanted to be Michael.