Challenge #02963-H040: Stress Management Strategies

H - "I am... in a bad place right now. I will be ok when we can get back home and this calms down, don't worry. For right now though I might not experience the same reality that you do, and I need help staying... here."

A - "What do you need from me?"

H - "If you see me turn to look at something or listen to a sound, just say either Yes or No if you see/hear something there too. If you see me freeze up, please just call my name a few times and I should snap out of it."

A - "Is there anything else?"

H - "... Please be real?" -- SilverRey

It was at that moment that Companion Ali knew that Human Hyl was in a very bad place indeed. Wild Humans like hir always came with scars in one form or another. When the scars weren't on the outside, they were definitely on the inside. It was Companion Ali's job to help Human Hyl and very little of this had been covered in Orientation.

This was Ali's first day in the field. They didn't know everything they should, but this was the exact kind of trial by fire that would bond a Human with them for life. Therefore, they had to improvise. "Thank you for telling me," Ali began. "I admit this is a tricky conundrum. How may I best prove that I am real?"

"I'm relying on memory and cams. If the cams see what I see, then there's a good chance it's a real thing. That said, I've been in this livesuit long enough that I could be having playback hallucinations. I don't have detail haptics, so that's out. Uuuuh... Oh yeah. I'll point my eyecam at you, and close my eyes, and tell you to do a gesture. Then you do it again after I do playback for verification. I'm never any good at keeping my hallucinations in sync."

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