Chapter 4 The Belly of the Beast

I gasped in horror. "What did you do to Elena?" I asked.

Elena's head lifted from dusting herself off. "Nothing, love," she said with slightly glazed eyes.

"You're lying to me," I choked. "Elena's eyes are purple. They're brown now. Elena straightens her hair every day and wears it down. You haven't straightened it and are wearing it up. And Elena doesn't call me 'love'." My voice rose in pitch with each word.

The smile disappeared from Elena's face for a minute, but quickly twitched back on. "It's not like you'll be around long enough to care, love."

My distress and her comment had caught me completely off guard, as did the consciousness that replaced mine. It felt terrible, like dying. The blackness swallowed me, spreading like ink.

Sweeney's POV

I stumbled slightly, unaccustomed to being in a material body. I looked around and noticed that the pie shop had hardly changed, despite the fact it had obviously been cleaned. Something that had never happened in Mrs. Lovett's time.

"Mr. Todd!" squealed Mrs. Lovett, bouncing up and down.

"Mrs. Lovett, whose bodies are these?" I asked.

Mrs. Lovett shrugged and said carelessly "They bought this place and moved in."

I made an annoyed noise in the back of my throat. "You do realize people will be suspicious when their personalities change overnight."

"You're in one of their bodies to," pointed out Mrs. Lovett.

I ignored her. "I'm going upstairs."

"You'll have to use the indoor stairs," she called after me. "The outdoor stairs where removed."

I made another disgusted noise and continued on my way.

She sighed and started to sing softly, to herself more than me. "Nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm around," Mrs. Lovett walked off to continue her cooking.

I stormed up the stairs, angered for no reason, and slammed the door behind me.

Jolon's POV

I was in my own mind. I was not unaccustomed to it, just disappointed in the fact that my refuge now served as a prison. My mind was a long hallway, with pale blue and white tiles on the floors and pale blue doors going down the white walls until the very last door. That door was the only one with a lock. The only one without a key.

I sighed and slumped against the nearest door. Every door in my mind had information stored behind it. Bits of books I remembered, images, things people told me. It wasn't an interesting place, but it was a safe place where I could keep my deepest secrets.

I was curious as to if there was more to my mental world, but was not at all interested in looking for a door or attempting to break my way out. Sure, my mental balance was in peril and about to be consumed by the barber's, the changes in wall and floor color a dead giveaway, but I wasn't interested in saving myself. I had lost a certain will to live. As the blue turned black and the white turned gray, my bad memories began to bleed, sending the thick red liquid from beneath the door.

I reached down and pulled another book of mental notes from the knee deep bloody river in my mind's world and put it on a higher shelf. If only I'd never bought this place. I should have visited first. But no, I couldn't miss a week of high school. And now Elena was in trouble.

I reached absentmindedly for another book and slipped, drowning in red. I can up sputtering, and then, deciding it wasn't too bad, lay back to half-float, half-kneel, looking straight up.

The ceiling was a window.

Sweeney's POV

I was sick of just sitting here. I had already looked around the room. Besides adding furniture, nothing had been changed. Nothing removed.

So I sat, curled against the door, clutching the picture of Lucy and baby Johanna, facing the clouds, lit up for a second by the setting sun, going from a sickly polluted gray to pink, orange, and purple, waiting for the aftermath of diamond-dust stars to be sprinkled between the clouds.

I'm sorry if Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett get OOC-ish . . . or already are. But hey, THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN FLAMING ME OVER SOMETHING STUPID! Sorry ….. btw there's a picture of Jolon and Elena on deviantart. Search deviantart princessroadkamelot and it's in my gallery.