First there was nothing but warm and dark and 'Mmm, sleep'.
Then...
NOISE!
An impossible torrent of images and voices at tremendous volume and somehow all making sense individually except that they overlapped and I couldn't think and I was sure I could do better if they'd only come in slowerclearerquieteroneatatimesoIdhavetimeto-
The world got slow.
That's the best way I can really think to describe it. It was like on one of those TV shows where some guy suddenly finds himself the only person who can still move while the rest of the universe freezes around him.
I took a deep breath - or didn't, since I didn't seem to even have a body but the intent worked for bracing myself anyway - and took another look at the torrent.
Ethnic cleansing in Rwa-ed into the North Atlanti-on't you dare thi- then spread the oil and -s to ashes, dust to d-
Television. All the television and radio in the world. But how in the world was I hearing it, let alone understanding the parts that weren't in English? What could possibly connect me to-
Something deep down at the foundations of my soul - and I use the word both precisely and literally - pulsed in response to the thought, as familiar as my own heartbeat despite my knowing that I'd never felt it before.
I had memories that weren't mine, and when I looked at myself, they told me that I'd been... grafted... into the place of the mind and heart of something - someone - entirely different.
His name had been -
I cocked a mental ear, not to the babble of the world's media, but to something closer.
My name was -
Yep. 'Dirty Laundry'.
Nybbas.
Oh boy.
The setting is the roleplaying game In Nomine. The character is Nybbas, Demon Prince of the Media.
About halfway through writing this it occured to me that he might well be too capable, relative to his enemies, to qualify for the kind of trouble 'Shinji' is in.
On the other hand, nobody is actively looking for Shinji to make a mistake so they can put his neck on the chopping block, either.
*shrug* I leave it up to you.
Ja, -n
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"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."