Sometimes Our Minds Work Against Us...

Chapter Thirty-One: Valentine's Day; Leo Valdez

Sometimes Our Minds Work Against Us...

Chapter Thirty-One: Valentine's Day; Leo Valdez pt. II

Inspired by: Terrible Things by Mayday Parade

Standing and waiting outside the 'Girl's Home' I stared up at the cleaner building thinking about how I would introduce myself, and what's my excuse to be there.... I decided that I would be there to give Amelia the notes from science class. Yeah, that'll be good.

I take a shaky breath and walk up the drive. Three little girls are sitting at the front step holding little dolls and laughing, I bend down and smile, "What are you playing?"

"Oh nothing," The one in the middle says.

"Well, can I get by?" She strokes her chin, "No." The other two giggle and I sigh sitting down in front of them.

"Well then I'll have to join you." The giggle again.

"Okay, you can play the prince." She hands me a small green army man and I nod. "Am I saving the princess?"

They all bust out in laughter. "No silly!" I shake my head, "Okay then what am I doing?"

"You're stuck in the tower and the knight is going to save you!" The little ginger girl says next to the girl in the middle.

"Well, who's the knight?" I ask looking around at the small pile of dolls. The girl in the middle, a mess of curly blond locks, picks up her matching barbie with a smile. "Mine!"

"Awesome, so where is the tower?" The girls laugh again and point to a small brown rock sitting off to the side.

I nod, picking up the little army man and placing him carefully on the rock, making sure he doesn't fall from the perch. The blond girl and redhead laugh as the little indian girl has her's do a tribal dance.

The three laugh and cheer as the gallant knight saves the afraid little prince and gains the throne with her sisters.

They pick up the dolls and carefully place them into a bag and get ready to head inside. "Do you want to come with Leo?" The youngest girl, with feathers tucked in her hair, asks with a toothy grin. I nod and walk in holding her little hand as I walk in. The blond and redhead run up the stairs waving bye to the younger girl and me.

"Piper," An older woman says looking at the little girl, "Piper, who is this?"

"This is Leo," Piper says pointing at me.

"Well, hello Leo, I'm Mrs. Sullivan, would you like to tell me why you are here?" I take a shaky breath and try to remember what my excuse was, but nothing comes to mind. A thought of how Amelia had smiled came to mind, but no excuse.

"I'm here to see Amelia!" I blurt out. She laughs, gently and softly shaking her gray hair. The woman walks over in her skirt suit and smiles, "You must be Mr. Valdez," I blush.

"Yes, I've been expecting you..." She takes a long look at me then shrugs, "I pictured you taller."

I scrunch up my eyebrows and raise an eyebrow in question. Taller, really? That's what she is going to say? Really? Like, really? Is this a trick?

"Are you coming Mr. Valdez?" She asks in a strong voice, I look up to where she had just been but no one is there, "Behind you Mr. Valdez." I turn and see that she is already climbing the large wooden steps.

The smooth dark brown wood is strange in comparison to the gray metal and concrete steps inside the boy's home. It leads to a long brightly lit hall full of lights and photos, girls who had grown up and done something with their lives after leaving. It was crazy, there were astronauts, scientists, writers, artists, but the last one was a bit odd. It was a girl with bright blue eyes and black hair stripped with blue, her was startling to look at, yet captivating.

I looked at the plaque beneath and read, "Thalia Grace, protector."

"Come along Mr. Valdez, we must keep going." The elderly woman takes my suspender strap and pulls me along down the hall. Walking up another flight of stairs we reach a shorter and dustier hall. There is only one door and as we get closer it seems to get smaller, and smaller.

"Mrs. Sullivan?" I turn my head to look at her but she takes my head of curls and turns it back forward. When we reach the door it's a foot tall and about sixteen inches wide, just barely large enough for a human to fit through, so of course thats what happened.

She shoves me down onto the hard wooden floor, she's a lot stronger than a woman her age should be, and kicks me in the stomach three, four, no it was six times.

I look up at her as I feel one of my ribs crack, another kick, oh god it's broke. I feel it shift out of place hitting something inside, and I feel like I'm going to barf. She gleefully smiles, with a flick of her wrist the door flies open, hitting me in the head in the process, I start to see my vision shift sliding into two, three, oh thats new, four different universes. One it's normal, the next the colors are reversed, the third everything is upside down and the fourth? Well everything is normal except for Mrs. Sullivan.

Her head is turning into a pac-man thing with really long teeth, and woah those are like as long as my forearm.... Why is she coming towards me?

I hear a girlish scream and blink once, twice, three times, ah there's the voice. The blond from outside is standing in the hall with Mrs. Sullivan. I turn to the little door and shove myself inside, pulling and dragging using the door frame as I go.

The scream stops, and I have a sickly feeling rolling over me. I shove the door shut and breathe heavily, oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD! What was that?! I remember the pac-man with teeth and feel my stomach contract.

Bile flies out of my mouth after everything else as escaped to the bare wooden floor. When nothing else will come up I sit there and feel my muscles contract and decontract. I shake all over letting the goosebumps run up and down my body, that, was, disgusting.

I take the first look around the room I've crawled into and see the gray metal bars on the windows, the shackles hanging off the walls, and the bloody cane left sitting against the wall. I feel my body recoil again, Amelia, that's Amelia's.... No.... Oh god no...

I sit and breathe ever heavier, putting pressure on the spot where the rib broke does nothing but hurt, because the blood isn't coming out there. I cough a little, and let the dark liquid drool from my mouth.

I feel weightless after a while, and the pain seems to fade to the back of my mind. Oh don't think it didn't hurt, because it did, oh god it did. Just it wasn't that important any more, because I already knew how this ended.

How it ends for everybody, bloody and depressingly lacking the music that it needs. So humming a little to myself I remember a sad slow song. As I feel this desperate tug on my heart, and I feel like I'm disappearing but yet sinking into the floor at the same time.

I can't bare to see the same thing happen to you, so now I'm only telling you this, because, life, can do terrible things.