Everyone goes home and no one talks about it, and you feel too big for your skin and too small for your body, and no one will talk about it even though you know you aren't the only one.
Help, you try to say, try to scream, but nothing ever comes out. Help me, oh gods, help me, I never asked for this.
The others give you smiles and you smile back and they laugh at your jokes and you laugh at theirs, but no one will talk and everyone is dying, slowly dying, but so much faster for all of you, and you can't help the way you smell because of who your father is, but you have to live with it and try not to die with it, because then what's the use of you.
It would be very easy to be bitter, very easy to hate and hate until there's nothing left, but you've seen what happens if you become bitter, and it's a never ending cycle of being ignored and being alone until they come, begging you to fix their mistakes, and it is oh so exhausting to realize that to them, you are nothing but a tool, a blink in their eternity, and that you save the world, over and over again, just so they won't be bored and alone with no one but themselves for company.
The gods are vicious creatures, vicious and petty and stupid. They are selfish. They are insane. They do not care.
(They care, they do, a small part of your mind whispers. They have always cared, they have cared more than you will ever know, and that's why it hurts so much, that's why they lock themselves away.
The monsters come because they know killing you is how to make them hurt most.)
But you are not bitter. You can't be. You are the hero, you are the chosen one and the one who lived against so many odds, and you are the one the others look up to, the one they come to for strength. Don't let them see you broken, don't let them hear your screams.
So here's a secret - Sometimes, you remember falling. The endless darkness, the empty feeling inside you as you leave your stomach and lungs miles above your head, the dwindling light and hope, the cold, cold air rushing past and stealing your breath.
Sometimes, you think you are still falling.
Sometimes, you think you never stopped.
partially my own anxious/depressed thoughts, partially my feelings on these dumb characters that have taken over my life. let me know if you spot a typo anywhere, i only gave it the cursory look over for grammar/etc, might've missed something.