"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."Christian Nestell Bovee
Day 2 Part 2
I had lifted up the lid for the toilet, and sure enough there was the rat, still swimming in the water, as happy as can be. I almost felt guilty, but then I thought about how I really needed to pee.
Mother Nature won over the guilt.
I let the Spider into the room and left, not wanting to see the bloody aftermath. I heard a high-pitch squeak and I quickly bussied myself with the paint. I had only this day left before I had to go to school, and I didn't know what classes to take yet. I dipped the brush ¾ths into the light green paint and quickly began to spread it across the walls. It was thick and easy to spread it along the wall. While I was painting, I dwelt on the had just happened.
The Redhead actually had closed the door on me and held it shut while I banged on it. I would have thought that our almost death-by-spider was going to bring us closer together and maybe we would been better people, maybe even friends. I would have been hate free for a Persona for once, and would have gotten over it.
Nope. I still hate them, him the most of all.
Once I had the base coat down, I began to move the brush in a up and down motion. It was relatively easy to paint the walls, and the time went by quickly. The spider was gone from the bathroom, and so was the rat body, and by now, I was hopping up and down with my legs crossed as I fought the urge to pee.
I looked at the orangish water in the toilet, and I took my chances.
Relief never felt any sweeter.
After doing my womanly stuff I decided that I would paint the living room with the baby blue color. Taking the small(ish) paint bucket, I walked over to the room. I didn't expect to have another two visitors in my living room. They had their backs to me, and were talking quietly. One was tall, incredibly so, and wore a red jacket over his broad shoulders. From what I saw, there was a pair of thick framed glasses on his face along with a goofy smile.
The other one wore his uniform with dignity (from what I could tell) and was shorter than the other one by at least two heads. A frown was etched permanently on his face. His arms were crossed and he gave the taller one a glare.
I could hear him speaking quietly to the taller one,"Seriously. This is completely disgusting, they ought to tear this building down and make another one. Romano comes screaming into my office about a huge man-eating spider, and wants us to check it out? I swear to god I am going to kill him if I spend another second in this dirty hell hole!"
I scowled at how he was berating my library, and while he was in my home.
"Well excuse me." I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. The two jumped and turned to look at me. "I happen to be the new Librarian here, and I am sure I can help you two."
The shorter one, now that I have a clear look at his face had these enormous eyebrows that were covered in his blonde hair. I shall name him Eyebrows. The taller one had blue eyes and a small cowlick where he parted his hair and I instantly hated the beaming smile on his face. His name will be Happy Meal, or that is what I am going to call him until I knew his real name.
"Sweet! Can you help us get out of here? We got lost in the dark and England here doesn't like the dark!" He said as he walked over to me, and I hated his swagger. (Which, I admit now, was some talented swagger.)
"Git!" I heard England swear as he threw a few punches to Happy Meal who laughed the punches off. "You were the one to drag me here!"
"Maybe…" I trailed off, and then smirked. "I will let you out of here if you cleaned my bathroom."
England spluttered, and Happy Meal's face looked blank.
"You mean, you want us to clean?!" Happy Meal looked horrified.
"You cannot make the school Student President clean your bathroom!" England sputtered and looked red in the face. He was obviously angry.
"Whatever, I am sure you can find your way out then." I waved towards the door, and made a mental note to keep it locked. It hung from only the bottom hinge, and it had looked like some wild beast had wanted to come into my house. I glanced at the two shell shocked Persona's and then berated myself. Two wild beasts did come into my house.
"Fine then, I will." England said in a bitter voice and stomped to the door, and before he head into the darkness, he gave me an acidic glare,"And you are so fired."
"Doubt it~!" I sang as he left, after all Rome gave me this job and he said it had been a problem for the last fifty years. I am fixing the problem, so I doubt that I would be fired on only the second day. I turned to Happy Meal to see what he was doing.
He was still shocked.
"B-but I can't clean. I am the US of A! I'm the hero! I can't clean." He mumbled to himself and I sighed, it seems like I would have to convince him.
"But if you went out there, and wandered everywhere, you'd get lost and never be able to eat your favorite food!" I said, in a damsel-in-distress voice.
The fool didn't even notice.
"But Iggy would need my help and then there was the huge spider that is going to kill us all and turn us into ghosts and then-" Happy Meal continued to speak to himself.
I tried my last technique. I hoped it would work.
"You'd be my hero if you cleaned the scariest bathroom ever!" I said.
"IM THE HERO!" Happy meal shouted and fist pumped himself as he grabbed bathroom cleaner and paper towels. "I will clean the bathroom because, I am the hero." and he ran off.
I blinked a few times and then grinned inwardly to myself. It seems like I was learning how to manipulate Personas. I ripped the paper off the walls, and banged the glue off. It was a bit harder than the last room because the glue had been a bit stronger and the paper just wanted to tear off, not come completely off. It was when I had dipped the paintbrush into the blue paint when I realised that I had a problem. I didn't have any water still in my home, and I wasn't able to wash the green paint off the paint brush, so when I had dunked it in, the blue had smudges of green.
I didn't want this to happen. But it did.
I was slightly stupefied on what exactly should I do. Leave a section on the wall looking green while the rest is a light blue? Paint over it again? No. I wouldn't do that. I hated messy jobs that didn't turn out well, and I didn't have enough paint to redo it all over again. That left me one option left. Mix the two paints together and continue from there. I opened the green can to see about maybe 1/4th of it left, and I decided that I would do just that.
Taking the yellow bucket that I had yet used, I poured in the paints and used a piece of wood that once belongs to the wall to stir it all up. It made it kinda turquoise, but definitely darker than the two colors were to begin with.
It was when I started to paint my second wall when the door knocked. Hey, at least they knocked this time.
"Come in, unless you're that Immortal Bastard that left me to the Spider." I called out and England came in.
He was covered head to toe in cobwebs. He looked slightly upset that he had to come back here, and I gave him a scowl.
"Bathroom. Down the hall, door on the left." I pointed and he meekly nodded. I heard Happy Meal say hello and England groan at whatever had happened in the room. I sure hope it wasn't a mess.
I was left to silently muse over what was going to happen. I would show them out, of course, and then I would have to go to school tomorrow. I didn't have my schedule yet, nor my uniform. I didn't know anybody besides England, Happy Meal, Redhead, and Rome. I didn't know how to get around or if my teachers were nice (though I doubt it. They are all Personas).
I had just begun down my way through the hall, my paintbrush going up and down with the occasional dip in the paint.
I heard a phone rang.
I didn't have a phone, and I listened to England pick up it with an irritated "Hello?"
There was a voice over the phone that was high pitch and I heard a few words that sounded suspiciously like 'Pasta!'
"Yeah, in fact I am in the library." I nodded when he said that, and squatted down as I brushed the floorboards with my brush.
"Yes, there is a library at the school." England snapped and I moved over the next inch or so to continue painting.
"No, I am being held against my will by some crazy fangirl who thinks that she is the librarian!" I was slightly offended at that comment. Did he really think that I was some mindless drone who loves something non-existent? I was now close enough to hear what was being said over the phone.
"Veh~! Romano says that shes horrible and ugly! I will doubt it until I see her!" The voice on the other side of the phone said.
"Why do you say that in a way that makes me that she is going to stay here." England asks.
"Veh? Didn't you know? Grandpa Rome brought in a human to be the Librarian for the duration of her school years." Voice says dreamily.
"And he didn't talk to me about this!?" England said, his voice pure anger. I was happy that I made so somebody angry by just being here.
"He and Germania talked about it, veh. Oops, I wasn't suppose to tell you this until noon. Thats when Grandpa Rome was going to announce it to the whole campus!" The voice said, and I looked down at my cheap digital watch to see that it was only 11:46. I had less than fifteen minutes to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. Well, not really zombies, but it was pretty close.
"No worries, it would be out in less than fifteen minutes so you don't have to worry. I will not tell anybody until then." England said, and I finished painting the hallway.
"Ciao!"
"Goodbye." And the phone conversation was over. I peeked into the bathroom to see that England was sitting on the toilet like it was his throne and Happy Meal was happily scrubbing the bathtub. Other than that, it was perfectly shiny and clean. How they had done it that fast, I would never know.
"Hey guys!" I said and I saw the glare and the beaming smile that came from the two old Personas. "Wow! You did an amazing job!" I gave them a compliment, a very rare thing for me to do.
"Its all in a days work for a hero!" Happy Meal struck a heroic pose and I nodded.
"Well, a deal is a deal, and I'll lead you guys out of here." I turned to go.
"How come you are here, human?" England asked, and I looked at him darkly.
"When there is a will, there is a way." I quoted from my favorite movie, and then saw Englands expression fall into one of an annoyed person dealing with an idiot. "My grandpa forced me to come here."
"Human! Cool! Where did you originate from?" Happy Meal shot up and joined the conversation. I couldn't stay mad when I see him. I blame the fact that his smile is contagious.
"America." I said, and began to leave the hallway to guide the two Personas out of my home.
"No way! I'm America!" I turned to Happy Meal- no America- and gave him a once look over. No wonder that he looked slightly familiar. He was my own Country. "Which State?"
"Utah." It was true that I was born in that State, but I had traveled across America and lived in almost all 50. Except Nebraska and Alaska. I heard those two were the most boring to live in as well. (But don't tell them to the actual Personas. They get really offended for some reason. Or maybe I will...)
"Utah would be so excited to know that one of his humans-"
"His?" I snapped and turned back to America. "I am nobodies. You better watch what you say around me because I do take a high offense if you ever referance to me that I am somebodies human." I snapped and gave him a dark glare.
"Sorry." He sounded like a kicked puppy that only wanted love. "I only wanted to be your friend." Oh. Oh. The guilt was rising up on me. I felt so horrible. But I suppose that this is what America did all the time. Make people feel guilty. Maybe he had some motive against me. My mind suddenly ran the different scenarios of him trying to kill me. (Yes Sam, it escalated quickly.)
"I have a no persona policy. That means, I dislike all of you greatly." (Though I hate them all, I could only say that I disliked them because I didn't know which ones I absolutely hated and which ones I could somehow handle.) I pointed to America and England and they just both stared at me. I didn't care if I had a bandana on my face, or if my hair was messed up, because I just wanted these Personas gone. I grabbed my penlight from the floor that I had dropped it on yesterday and flicked it on. "Now lets go."
The trip through the cobwebby darkness was uneventful and nobody said anything. I was silently fuming in anger as I thought about how America referenced me as 'his human' and I gagged at the thought about how Humans would be cattle to these people. To keep and to breed and to talk to them like that we were nothing.
I suppose that I was over exaggerating at this time. I was just so mad. I didn't know what else to think about. I reached the door and opened and gestured to the two Personas to exit my library. "And have a great day." I said sarcastically.
"You too." America muttered and they left in a hurry. I noticed that in the sunlight, they were incredibly dirty and cobwebs stuck to various parts. If they had been in here for about two hours, then how bad did I look after being in here for almost two days? I glanced down at my jeans and wrinkled my nose in disgust. My jeans were not even blue anymore. They were a mixture of brown with turquoise paint stuck to them. At the bottom of the pants was a huge clump of cobwebs that also trailed in dirt and the dust. My black T-shirt that I wore had some tears in the fabric and I knew that this shirt was heading towards the garbage.
Which reminded me. What was I going to do with the garbage I had? The large black bags of old mattress and rotting corpse was in my living room and I needed to clean that out.
I was done with cleaning. I had fixed up my place as much as possible and I was just so done. I needed to feel clean. However, there was the no-water problem. Maybe there was a valve around here that I could turn on. I stepped out of the doorway and into the bright sunlight. My eyes watered as I brushed my pants down, the dust rising up to greet me full in the face. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail I had it in, and took off the bandana to wipe at my face from the clean side. Stuffing the purple cloth into my pocket, I began to lazily walk around the building. It was actually bigger than I originally thought it was. I said it looked about half of a football field, but I was wrong. It was maybe about 3 times that. So a football field plus a half. It was squatty and short, but it certainly made it up in lengthwise. Behind the library was the forest, showing that this was literally the 'end of the road'. Meaning that this was at the very outer edges of the campus. And it also explained why the random animal droppings and the giant spider.
I strolled along the outside of the building, stomping on the falling leaves. It was nearing the end of fall and most of the branches of the trees were bare. Besides the few random pine trees, it was a colorless wonderland outside. So much different from inside of the library. It wasn't until I was halfway down the backside of the building did I notice the three foot square drop. It was only near the wall and I could have easily have passed it if I hadn't kicked a rock into it accidentally.
'This must be what I am looking for.' I thought and hurried over to peek down the hole. A small plastic cover with the universal signal of water instantly caught my eye. This was it. Turning myself over, I slowly lowered myself down the hole that I could easily climb out of and squatted to look at the cover. It looked like it didn't have anything that held it down, so I took one bitten fingernail and slowly pride it up. It was like an insect hive under there. Centipedes crawled over worms and ants scurried about, looking for the danger that didn't exist. Unless you counted me. Earwigs erupted from the pile and began to scurry about the cement floor and bumped into walls.
I might have laughed, if I wasn't so grossed out. Next to me was this T like bar and at the end was a hand for a lego person. It was rusted, but it was obvious that it had to do something with turning the water on.
Gently grabbing the rusty metal, I used the end to dig around the bugs that made a crunch noise whenever I squished them. In the middle of the hole was a valve thing that looked like an undotted 'i'. It took me a few seconds before I actually realised what I needed to do.
Placing the lego hand part of the rusty metal rod in the area, I braced my hands against the T bar and pushed it.
Nothing happened.
The bugs began to crawl over my shoes and I was hopping up and down in order to get rid of them (which kinda made it worse, Sam, because I squished more. Bugs, I swear, go for the blood). This was worse than any spider web. This was worse than a racoon corpse. These were creepy crawlies that had tons of legs that seemed the go everywhere.
With a final effort before I chickened out, I yanked the T bar in the opposite direction and it easily moved. I was such an idiot, it was like those Push and Pull doors. You don't know which one was which and you looked like an idiot if you tried the wrong one. I was that idiot.
I turned it the rest of the way and scrambled against the nearest wall to get out. I heard, and felt, several bodies squish against mine as I leaned over the edge of the wall to climb out. I felt legs crawl up my skin and goosebumps appeared over my body. I was freaking out. Once I was out, I began to jump up and down, smacking my legs or swiping my legs to get rid of the bugs. After about 15 minutes of full on freaking out, I began to calm down. I felt ghostly impressions crawl across my skin, and I couldn't help but shiver.
The water problem was done, now I just hope that there wasn't a break in the pipes. Now that I thought about it, I was almost sure that there was a leak somewhere in this building.
I glanced down at my watch, just to make sure at what time I had and saw that it was 12:03.
Three minutes has passed since the announcement that told others I was here. I needed to back inside and lock the doors. I began to jog (I would have ran, but I am actually not really physically fit to do it. Yeah, I am lazy) and crossed the land pretty quickly. I was slightly proud that I hadn't stopped to gasp for air, and I rounded the corner to only see a few people walking away from my library. They all wore different colors for uniforms, and I figured that they were colors from their flag. A girl was in the middle of two boys, and I didn't recognize her (well, you can just assume that I don't recognize anybody here) but I certainly recognized the boy at her side.
I ran up to my library door and cupped my hands around my mouth. "IMMORTAL BASTARD!" I shouted, and Redhead turned around suddenly. His golden eyes widened and I gave him the finger. "YOU SUCK!" I screamed and then went inside the dark library.
I almost tripped over two boxes in the doorway.
Well, there went my really cool exit. I thought it was really dramatic and cool. Oh well. I bent over and found that one of the boxes was really heavy and I popped my back a few times as I tried to pick it up. Tried was a great word. It replaced the words 'epic failure'.
The other box wasn't as heavy, and I easily lifted it up and tucked it under one arm, most of its weight resting on my hip (thats how girls lift up heavy stuff and babies. From what I understand, of course).
I entered my living space and dropped the box with a thump on the carpet. I headed straight towards the bathroom. I leaned over to turn on the shower and I recoiled instantly. Brown, dirty water came shooting out of the nozzle.
I just about broke down in tears. Because I am too awesome to cry.
I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be dealing with all of this. I should be working on homework, with my grandpa checking on me every hour to see how I am doing. I should be in a warm shower that doesn't look like mud. I should be in school or something! I shouldn't be here! At all.
I wasn't crying. Nope. I suppose that some of the brown water had gotten into my eyes and I am just tearing. Besides, if I was home, Grandpa would have been rubbing my back and whispering comforting words to me. And if I was crying, which I was definitely not.
I felt so alone.
I felt so angry.
How could have my Grandpa thought that this was a great idea?
I didn't know how long I (wasn't) crying, curled up on the toilet. My thoughts bringing me to my cesspool of darkness and despair. However, when I looked back up, the water had turned clear and wasn't brown.
The shower was cold, and I suppose it was alright. It hid my (nonexistent) tears. I didn't really remember much of it. I remembered getting out, feeling numb by all the cold water that had washed across my body. I was so tired. My eyes stung from salt and the small hours of sleep had caught up to me. I don't remember getting dressed up in my fuzzy pajamas, nor climbing into bed.
I fell into a deep sleep, and I didn't remember on what I had dreamed of.
However, when I had awoken, my head pounded and I didn't want to move. The smell of paint and the soreness of my body told me what I had done that day, and slowly I thought about I had done.
I felt so many emotions in me, and I wanted them out. I was going to burst, because it was so strong.
Then my eyes landed on you, Sam. I remembered what my Grandpa had said, and I smiled at the sweet memory of him shoving you into my arms right before I boarded the bus. Then I began to write, and I lost time until I just looked at my watch.
Its way past my bedtime.
-Laura Sands.
