City life, city dreams
At first it had been incredible. The sun was warm on his face, the air smelt of things. Car exhaust and city, but it was still a smell. There were trees that rustled, and he noticed how different the rustling was when it was living things, not paper. He started walking, towards the city.
It was his first time in the city, he had never been to Tokyo before. His father worked for a company in Osaka, and the first time he had entered Tokyo had been in the back of a Factory van on his way to Raven's Flat. He wandered around the suburbs, soaking in the outside, letting it fill his bones. He was amazed by the vibrancy of life, the things he had forgotten. The smell of the city, the feeling of the sun, looking through windows into other people's lives, normal lives. Seeing people his age wandering home from school, dressed in uniforms with bags of books slung over their backs. They did not give him a second glance, though they may have been the same age, something about Michael, some aura he gave off, clearly marked him out as being different.
As he continued to walk, the sense of difference became amplified. He became more and more conscious of people actively avoiding him, crossing the road away from him. He felt more and more distant from the world, feeling like the buildings were just two-dimensional façades, like websites. He couldn't help but feel that the people around him were participating in some game, the rules of which were unknown to him. They appeared stereotypes of real people, presenting exaggerated characters, like a pantomime. He saw one person, angry, frustrated, pushing through the crowd of people on the pavement and he felt like laughing. It seemed so contrived, so artificial. But he knew that laughing was inappropriate, so he carried on walking, trying to fit in. Every loud noise made him jump, every shout and he was looking wildly for the source of the noise, expecting an attack. People moving too close to him made him nervous, people seemed to be staring at him. They were closing in, they were all around, he couldn't get away, just like before, they were penning him in.
He stopped, leaning against a signpost, gasping for breath until h began to calm. As he felt calmer and was able to think more rationally, a thought emerged which was like a sliver of ice down his spine. He just was not going to manage out here. The outside was not his world, he had become so separated from it, he did not know how to function within it. Outside he felt like a sham, like he was running a program rather than being himself. He imagined that the Internet, behind the keyboard, protected by anonymity, was the only place the true Michael would allow himself to be revealed. He had so many plans for his release, he had so many dreams, but now, as he leant on a Tokyo signpost and thought, he was not sure he could ever accomplish anything. With a heavy heart, he carried on walking, not sure what else to do. Lost and very much alone, the only thing he could think of was to keep walking. He did not even know how to get back to his new home, he had no idea what bus he needed, or even what area of the city it was in. The city looked so different in real life than on the Internet, the logic was gone, and so without logic, he was lost.