So see, my muscle's in agony. It did not labour, nor did it toil, nor did it get boosted with the adrenaline of the terror of being around the wrong people. It isn't even attached to my body, in fact.
The muscle simply detaches and floats about. Its movements suggest cheerfulness but its words suggest (maybe they don't and maybe I misread and maybe I'm insane and maybe I'm) rage.
"I (dissociate) refuse to associate with you!" the muscle says. "You have brought me no love, no joy, and being around you just makes me… just makes me…"
"It's alright," I tell it. "Sometimes beings are simply not compatible. Even if someone is not morally dubious, their presence may simply be grating for reasons no one can control."
"You could be better but you're not," my muscle says.
"You're correct. And I am corrosive. And you would be correct to–" Correct to want me dead? "You'd be correct to want to leave even if I was angelic, because corrosiveness is a good enough reason."
The muscle ponders a moment.
"See, I am you."
My voice is the muscle's voice, see. The muscle steals it to speak. Scream and moan. And whine.
"You're not comparable to the glory of the iron core, you know. You're nothing compared to the iron core of a star."
“Stars that burn the brightest, they–"
"–fall, they fall, they FALL. Even the fighters. Even the ones with flights of fancy, fancying fighting their fate, fantasising of freedom."
"Doomed to dream, to die in delusion."
"You're dying in delusion."
"You're dying in delusion."
"Delusions of hope?"
"Delusions of doom?"
My muscle atrophies. The rest of my muscles also atrophy. Or maybe they're twitching and it just feels like atrophy? Perhaps I'm overdramatic.
"Or perhaps we are rotting."