Josh turns toward them, wires embedded in what used to be his face and Merton breaks into terrified laughter, tries to swallow it down, already backing up again, and shrieks as Josh charges. He makes no attempt to stop Hiccup from jumping in front of him, easily falling back behind him again as he was pushed.

And as Josh is yanked back before he can reach them, the screens around them breaking into a scream as they show exactly what happened to the kid with a kind of visceral violence no horror movie could ever really capture, he loses it, squeezing his eyes shut and clapping his hands over his ears as his own screaming devolves into crying.

Even as the screaming from the screens stop, and Josh calms again, crouching with his head close to them, as Hiccup begins trying to reason with him again, Merton continues to cower.

He has no helpful words to add to this. Probably couldn't have spoken up even if his brain wasn't blanked out from hysteria. His carefully built Jenga tower of courage had come crashing down around his ears, and now he finally was hyperventilating, every tight breath coming out as a sharp forcefully quiet noise that was caught somewhere between a broken laugh and a sob.