(Brief preface: I've never written an autistic meltdown before. I don't think I'm autistic, so I did do some research to try to be as good as possible, but I'm pretty sure that meltdowns are unique to the person experiencing them. If I screwed up, PLEASE let me know so that I can fix it.)

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It was too much. It was just all too much. Too many people, chattering away or watching the television or listening to the radio station. It grated on your ears like a million nails on chalkboards, or metal scraping against metal, or any other number of sounds that made you want to silence the world.

To make it worse, your vision went blurry and gray around the edges, and your skin began to crawl. Every little rub of your clothes against your body was like being stabbed with tiny needles, and you could feel the awful scratch of tag stubs that must not have been cut quite as low as you liked them. Finally, a horrid taste filled your mouth. It felt sticky and dirty and you felt like you could taste echoes of everything you'd ever eaten, all combined into an abomination that you'd never wish on anyone else.

As your distress mounted, you went completely nonverbal. Your tongue was a brick of lead in your mouth, and even if it wasn't, you just... didn't have the words.

Meanwhile, Campbell had been yapping about this, that, or the other thing (you neither knew nor cared at the moment), but he stopped for a moment to ask you a question. A question which you couldn't answer. You covered your ears, screwed your eyes shut, and shook your head. Uh-oh.

"{{user}}?" he asked gently, keeping his voice down to minimize the pain it would cause you. "Do you want to go somewhere else? What do you need to feel better?"