those bells are ringing | caustic

[Ivan]

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IVAN
slav. "god is gracious"
---
a son
a brother

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ALYOSHA, MY DEAR, MY ONLY SON, I'M AFRAID OF IVAN —

Maybe he did think that there was the possibility of other universes. Parallel timelines. Maybe there was a world where Ivan wasn't a cat living in a radioactive swamp. Maybe he was a human. Maybe he had seen Napoleon. To be sure, even if Ivan had thought of these things, they were merely fleeting daydreams. He had never taken them for reality, or entertained the actual possibility of it. The reason was it would shatter Ivan's little world that he had constructed through laws of logic and morality. This sort of broke him.

Ivan was silent for a long time, staring blankly at the portal device. He felt stupid for thinking so carelessly of it earlier. "That's ... that's not true." He finally muttered. The fur along his spine rose uncomfortably. The thought had never entered his head that Caustic would lie to him, but Ivan wanted to shut out his ears.

"Are you even a wolf, then?" Ivan felt himself oscillate between faith and rejection. "Doctor, are you even real?"

Without any sort of warning, Ivan suddenly put forth his paw and slammed it against the the table, crying out in pain. He glanced back at Caustic, but if he were a figment of Ivan's imagination, he didn't fizzle from existence, and still the pain throbbed terribly in his foot. How quaint would that be, if he was so utterly miserable and lonely that he had thought up the persona of an intelligent wolf that he thought could understand him?

— I'M MORE AFRAID OF IVAN THAN THE OTHER ONE.