[ Weird is one word for it. Joel lapses into silence again as he considers how to put that feeling into words - not something he's adept at even at the best of times. Let alone with so much to clip around. He doesn't want to leave her unprepared for the kind of shit these places throw at them, but he also doesn't think she needs every detail.

She can call bullshit on him all she wants, but she won't get him to budge, there. ]

...It wasn't really like that. It was more like—

[ He pauses again, gesturing vaguely with a hand as he digs for specific words he can't quite grasp. ] Somethin' made up by somebody who'd never actually been there.

[ A story told secondhand, where all the details are fuzzy, and only the broad strokes feel familiar. Uncanny. Surreal. ]

Like walkin' around in a dream. But not your own. Everything's a little off.