Wake Me Up When It's All Over

Chapter 15

Logan left the memories of parents with a sinking feeling. At least he had a small sample of what Roman's life was like... He found Roman a few moments later in a room labelled 'Best Memories'

Logan looked through a few with Roman. There were a lot with a group of other humans, some with even more colourful hair than Roman's bright red. Logan still didn't know how. There were a few memories of Roman just having fun by himself, there were a few of him at places that looked wildly unsafe, and Logan's heart definitely didn't skip a beat when seeing the machine that turned Roman upside down and dropped him down a hundred foot drop.

At least they seemed to be having fun... In fact, Roman seemed happy just looking back at this memory

"That's an amusement park! People used to go there to have fun and because it was scary. The rollercoasters are usually pretty safe, but I know about some accidents that happened at this place once"

Roman then proceeded to describe a horrific accident that involved two people losing a leg each. Logan gaped for a moment, before looking at the memory of Roman having fun on the very same ride.

"This place was kinda famous 'cause of that crash, but that's not all it was famous for. It had a bunch of Worlds First type 'coasters, like the first rollercoaster to have a one-eighty foot drop vertically into underground, or the first rollercoaster to have fourteen moments that put you upside-down, or the first rollercoaster to combine wood and fire"

Logan nodded, feeling a little ill just watching Roman go upside down for the fifth time

"I see... If you know of crashes and people who had lost limbs, why would you go on that same ride?" He asked hesitantly

"It makes the experience more enjoyable, and after the accident, it was the safest and most monitored ride because they didn't want that to happen again" Roman shrugged like that was normal. Roman seemed to think death traps were normal

"Oh, stars above... Sometimes I used to wonder what life was like for you, and now I've seen that you like moving death traps made to make you think you're gonna die, I'm kinda scared to see the rest" He joked, as Roman lead him out of the best memories section and into a different room, this one labelled 'Friends'

The group of people was back. They all looked happy and so did Roman. He looked through some memories with the aforementioned human, both with warm smiles on their faces. He looked through another memory window and his smile dropped slightly

"Oh, guys, let me just do something real quick, I'll catch up!"

"Sure, Roman, we'll meet you in the warehouse! Five minutes?" Roman nodded, passing something over to another human, who gave him something in return

"Thanks, sir! Keep the change" Roman started walking towards the warehouse, smile dropping slightly.

Next to Logan, present Roman clenched his fists

"This was the second time I overheard my 'friends' talking about me behind my back. I had told them I'd be longer than I was to see if that's what they did every time, and, well..."

Back in the memory, voices were heard

"Oh My Gods, can't Roman just take a hint? I'm sure he must be able to tell that we don't want him to come with us every time we go out" one of them was saying. Memory-Roman's eyes got wet as he listened closer, Present-Roman looked away

"This was one of my least favourite days. These were my favourite people in the whole world, and this was what they thought of me. They probably didn't even care when my curse took effect... Sorry, I know you probably don't care about this, let's just go look at a different memory"

Logan stared at him, trying to make sense of everything. Who would treat Roman like this? Who would treat anyone like this? Roman seemed so nice, and it didn't make sense that people would mistreat him as such. Cursed as a baby, mistreated growing up, and having friends talk about him in such a way...

Logan would hope Roman felt a little less underappreciated in his nest, but he knew that Roman wasn't truly happy in the nest, that he probably felt trapped. Logan couldn't exactly blame him, they were kinda trapping him, even if it was for safety purposes. The world had evidently changed a lot since Roman was first put to sleep, and Logan dreaded to think of everything that could go wrong

A large bird could grab him, a wolf or something could attack him. Logan needed to keep Roman safe. They looked at everything in that room. Most of it was happy, but there were small moments in each memory that added to the concern that Logan held over the human.

It took a while, but eventually, they decided it was time to end the mind-link. Once they came out, Logan was slightly disorientated at how small Roman was at normal height. Logan went to go talk to Janus, Patton and Virgil whilst Roman and Remus talked

"I, uh, learned some things about Roman"

Virgil started asking for elaboration, seeming nervous

"Well, first, he was a prince. Not the most important, but still something. Second, his parents weren't very... good, they scolded him for just about everything, and that's probably why he apologises for everything now. His friends didn't like him and he used to overhear them talking about him a lot. Oh, and I found out why he was cursed"

Janus looked over to the human in the circle for a few moments

"Why was he cursed? Don't tell me he did something really horrifying and had to get punished or something"

"Quite the opposite actually... He didn't do anything wrong, and still got subjected to that. He said that he was an infant when the curse was placed, and that the exact curse placed on him was common around that time, and that there were ways out of the curse, but they didn't work on him"

The others each were displaying a wide range of emotions, and Logan had to agree that he probably looked like that when he found out as well. No one seemed at all happy with this revelation, nor did they think it was okay for that to have ever been done to anyone.

They thought it was bad enough to do something to a teen, let alone a baby

--

Roman knew that what he went though wasn't normal, but he also knew that it was mostly his own fault. If he wasn't annoying, his friends wouldn't dislike him. If he wasn't broken, true loves kiss would've worked

If he wasn't bad, his parents wouldn't have scolded him. If he wasn't dumb, his tutor wouldn't have mocked him. If he wasn't himself, none of anything would've happened.

He was kinda relieved when they left the mindscape and back into the real world, even if it did surprise him how big everything was compared to in there. He didn't enjoy his memories too much, and he felt awkward for most of the time touring his mind. He was just glad that he was only seeing memories he let himself see. He didn't want to see any of the worse memories.

Logan went over to the other giants afterwards, and Roman talked with Remus. They both started gathering materials for an idea they had. It probably wasn't a good idea, but it was a fun idea.

You see, Roman had been explaining the concept of sky diving to the shapeshifter, who had immediately decided that it would be the best idea in the world to try it