Forgotten

~One~

Nobody seems to remember that I exist in this world. Even the only person that ever cared about me, my brother, I haven't seen him in over a year. The saddest part is, I barely remember him. I was only a three when he decided to run away. At least, that's what Mother said, when she wasn't having one of her moments.

My mother, May Castellan, terrified me at times. Her eyes would glow this ethereal green color, and her voice would sound like she's talking through three different people at once. She would clutch onto one of our mythological beanbags (who she seems adamant on adding Mr. and Mrs. before. Hearing her talk to Mrs. Medusa is just plain creepy), and scream about how my brother, Luke, was doomed. Then the green smoke would disappear, leaving the frazzled, frail form of my mother, and she would go back into the kitchen to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and batches of cookies. Always with the cookies. And then there was all the Kool-Aid...

As of now, I'm only seventeen. I'm the only real provider in this household, and that's a pretty sad thought. When I'm not dealing with the drama that is twelfth grade, I'm off at work at the mall, then the neighborhood bookstore, then at the local café run by my friend's parents, and finally working until eleven every night at McDonald's. Trying to juggle all of my jobs plus my schoolwork was exhausting, but somehow I managed.

School, work, taking care of Mother, and cursing my brother and father's names to the wind was the story of my life. Yeah, I say Luke's name and curse him out like a sailor, and as for my father...I never met him, let alone learned his name. Luke left me as a child to deal with Mom, when I couldn't even take care of myself. I remember hearing his voice when he was nine, saying that he was leaving, but that he would come back for me someday. Well, here I am nine years later, still stuck with the lunatic waiting for a son that will never come home.

That was my life before I learned what happened to Luke, before my life went off a cliff into the fiery pits of Tartarus.

My name is Layla Thea Castellan, and I am Luke's younger, forgotten sister.

And this is my story.

-X-

It had been just another normal day, me going to the living torture that was high school, sitting through my AICE courses, while trying to focus on my General Papers teacher, Mrs. Lyons. She had gone off on some tangent about Shakespeare's Midsummer Night Dream, and I had dozed off, staring outside at the boring Connecticut scenery. It wasn't surprising that I had lost focus; I had ADHD and dyslexia after all, and being in an AICE class in general was a miracle in itself. Mom had celebrated with cookies.

I want to burn all of those God-forsaken cookies. All they brought back was bad memories.

Anyways, as I was daydreaming about the day I would finally get to leave the small town of Westport, Connecticut, I heard a loud hissing noise from the front of the room. Frowning, I turned in the direction of the noise, and immediately stifled a gasp.

One of the school cheerleaders-Kelli, I think was her name-had fangs like a vampire protruding from her mouth, skin as white as snow, and her legs...God, what was with her legs? They seemed to be half-donkey on one side and the other was half-robot. Blood dripped down her mouth and onto her chin, and my teacher was lying on the desk, puncture wounds on her neck, and her eyes glazed over, looking at the sky.

"Mrs. Lyons!" I yelped, running from my desk to my fallen teacher. I remembered the basic first-aid course I had taken over the summer, and went to feel for a pulse. There was none. I turned back to one of my classmates, Nicole, who like the rest of my class, was frozen in fear as Kelli laughed hysterically.

"Oh, don't worry about that old crone," Kelli said, licking her lips free of my teacher's blood. She walked up to me on her mismatched feet, and traced the side of my face with her hand, which ironically enough had her nails done a bright red color. "Her blood was bitter anyways."