Vulnus

Chapter 10: Melancholy

Thanks to the awe-inspiring, breathtaking, cool, daring, excellent, fearless, great, honorable, impressive, jubilant, knightly, lovable, magnificent, nova-like, overwhelming, prodigious, queen-like, regal, stupendous, terrific, understanding, vibrant, wonderful, xcellent, youthful, and zany Lovin' Big Time Rush for her review! :) Reviews mean the world to me. Thank you so much. I can only wish I become a great writer like yourself. This was written in August 2011.

Melancholy: (noun) a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression.

Logan finished the school day, oddly peacefully. After his hostile encounter with Jo, he had lived through the school day without as much as thrust or pull to call out to Vulnus. After Vulnus's thunderstorm and drenching, Vulnus had strangely gone silent. It was as if Logan could be single again, and be normal.

The biggest and most important part of Logan's day was that he was invited to James Diamond's house. He felt as if it was a ploy; a trick merely set up to humiliate Logan. But he wanted to believe that he was not their 'A-ticket', and that the boys had truly realized that they were wrong for hurting Logan.

Yet, the more Logan tried to convince himself of this conjecture, the less realistic it became. Why would the handsome James Diamond, vivacious Carlos Garcia, and brutal Kendall Knight even think of befriending Logan? Who was he? He was the kid they all hated for several reasons. Logan was undeniably hard-working and smart. He used to enjoy answering the questions that teachers threw at their students, just to receive praise from an adult figure, as he received only taunts from his terminally ill father and depressed mother. It was not like a story where the boys were Logan's friends before high school and they just suddenly began to hate him. It was not a fairy tale in which Logan would emerge with a happier life.

Logan realized that he would never be happy. Depressed individuals only lived to bring others down with them. He would never be successful or happy. Logan could practically see his entire life in front of him, gray and bleak. All Logan wanted was for Vulnus to color his gray and dismal future with kisses of a racy red.

Finding time after his day had ended, Logan had informed his mother through the use of his cell phone that he would be visiting a friend's house to work on a project. To use the word friend so freely felt great to Logan, but then Jo's comment kept on pounding against his cranium.

"So I hope you enjoy being used, bitch. So I hope you enjoy being used, bitch. So I hope you enjoy being used, bitch. So eye hope you in joy being used, bitch. So eyes hope you in joy being abused, bitch. So I hope you enjoy being abused, bitch."

The words just continued to scramble incoherently across Logan's head, and it made him want to take a step back for every step he took forward toward the address in his palm. Every step he took was taking a step toward the black, uncertain future he had no control over. Taking a step back meant he had control and knew what would come next. Logan could not decide what he wanted. The safety of being in control, or the thrilling rush of not knowing what would come next. Logan began to hallucinate situations in his rampant imagination, ranging from an untimely death for the poor boy to a violation of Logan's privacy. There were countless strings of thoughts running through Logan's mind, and they were joining and breaking simultaneously, prompting waves of pain to erupt through Logan's head.

He could not take it. He wanted to turn back and head for the safety of his home with the weakened angel and the bitter dragon. But at the same time, he wanted to visit the realm of the Duke. He wanted to see the King, the Duke, and the Knight. It was a dangerous addiction. Logan was undoubtedly afraid and terrified of the trio, but he was strangely enthralled by them.

It was power. The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. To actuate. To retain ability or competence. To have an aptitude and capacity to do something. Logan desired power; it was something everyone wanted. Carlos, James, and Kendall exuded power. They emanated, excreted, and expelled confidence, power, strength, stature, and perfection. They were all handsome, heroic, and hinged upon their apex of excellence. It was natural for anyone, even the subject of their torture, to be attracted to their power.

The fact that they held so much strength and vitality over the ecosystem of the school spoke for itself. Logan was aware that celebrities like Hu Jintao, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, Pope Benedict XVI, and Sonia Gandhi commanded power and authority all over the world, but the scale at which Kendall, Carlos, and James commanded power and authority over the school reduced any ratio of power these figureheads possessed.

Kendall, James, and Carlos had enough power to make something inhumane and cruel, like beating a vulnerable classmate, seem probable and understandable. They had enough power to say a thousand words without muttering a single syllable. There was an unspoken rule that if they were called out for their covert actions, they would locate the source and force that source to pay.

Truthfully, to Logan, the trio made the Mafia appear to be a throng of old men smoking cigars and coughing up phlegm. It was truly remarkable that even the denizens of the school who were subjugated by the trio desired to stand close to them. It was as if the rejections from the boys made the desire to be associated with them even stronger.

Before Logan realized it, in his rampant thoughts about power, he reached the Diamond Manor. It was an elaborate and decadent house, its front broken by the strained windows stealing sunlight. It was decorated with every type of jewel known to man, but not even the jubilant rays of the sun could penetrate the hard diamond exterior. Everything about the estate screamed perfection. Every grass blade was cut at the right inch, and the flowers all expelled the right amount of scent to decorate the manor with a fragrance of wealth.

Taking one more sigh, Logan waited for a response from Vulnus. But it never came. Logan decided to take one step at a time, preparing to meet his demise, as he entered the home of one of the three devils.

"Please, enter through this archway," A stiff butler spoke with a hint of austerity, as Logan awkwardly set his feet into the pristine marble floor. He felt as if he was a speck of dirt, infiltrating the perfectly pristine palace of the Diamond family.

Logan awkwardly sat on the cream-colored couch, enjoying its soft exterior. It reminded him of this uncomfortable couch, retired with old age yet unable to leave its position as a couch in the Mitchell household. Suddenly, a clicking sound of footsteps overpowered Logan's auditory senses, and turning around, he thought he saw the most powerful woman in the world.

She stood, with a masculine swank to her hips, and stared at Logan. Her eyes devoured him as if he was a poor beggar, awaiting alms from her. Everything about this woman screamed perfection. Her hair, down to the last hair-strand, was in place. Her suit held no sign of prior usage, and her entire stance simply dictated Logan's entire attention.

"And who might you be?" She spoke, with a false sense of security, as if to envelop Logan in a feeling of safety.

"I-I'm...Logan. I am working with J-James on the project." Logan mumbled, his eyes never being fully able to reach the woman's eyes. She hummed her lips, as if understanding the situation far more than Logan could have ever understood.

"I see. I will let him know." The woman spoke, as she made a complete turn-around and ordered a butler to alert her son that he had a guest.

While the butler ascended up the marble footsteps, Logan began to wonder how James had reached his palace before Logan had, when school had ended at the same time for both of them. Suddenly, images of a lush, silver Porsche filled Logan's mind. He figured that James must have sped home, while Logan toiled his way from the school to the palace by foot.

"Logan?" Logan heard his voice, and immediately looked to his right and left. However, he located the source of the noise, and looked up to see James Diamond glancing at him from the foyer from the upper level of the mansion. Logan instantly looked downward, and it was not just because it was James Diamond; a James Diamond that was without a shirt and wearing only a towel was glancing down at him. It was completely humiliating.

James stood at the top of the house, watching down at Logan. While Logan dressed shabbily in his everyday pieces of casual clothing, James could walk around freely in his realm, shirtless or not.

Logan weakly waved at James, who vowed to be downstairs in a 'moment'. Logan nodded, and continued to sit properly on the sofa. Although Mrs. Diamond was nowhere in sight, Logan could feel her piercing eyes staring at him. It was as if she held an omnipresence in the mansion.

Immediately, despite the overbearing presence of the matriarch of the estate looming over Logan, he pulled out his beaten green composition book, and immediately flipped to the next open page. He grabbed a pen from his backpack, and immediately began to flow his thoughts into comprehensible words:

The Duke has invited me to his manor. Along with the King and Knight. Could it be a trap? Could it be a mere ploy to take me somewhere where they have the ultimate rule? Of course, at their kingdom, they can make priests become blood-hungry satanists and convert hungry coyotes to docile dogs. They exerted power, but there was still that everlasting slight exertion of power they had to use to convert people. However, in their own manor, they had the total rule. They could plunder, rape, rob, steal, indulge in corruption, and no one would know. It would be stuck in the hexagonal structure of their castle. Could it really be a ploy?

The Queen was exerting all of her power to convince me so. She wanted me to believe it was all a ploy. But was it? They seemed grateful for my knowledge. But perhaps, they simply want my knowledge to supplement their own knowledge. Perhaps they want to use my knowledge to improve their own status to the elder nobles.

How am I supposed to verify this? How am I supposed to know if-

"Logan?" Another voice filled the house. Logan turned around to see Carlos and Kendall, both confused to see Logan in the realm of their power and capability. For a moment, Logan saw confusion spread across their faces, and he figured that perhaps they had forgotten that the subject of their terror would be working with them. Logan immediately put away his journal, and looked at the boys, as if caught red-handed.

"Um, hi..." Logan looked downward again, looking downward. Vulnus suddenly began to scream shrilly inside Logan. Logan wanted to unleash all of his anguish. He felt an odd and fleeting sense of exhibitionism; he wanted to make love with Vulnus in front of his enemies. He wanted to prove his strength and power to them; he was unsure as to why he would want to prove anything to the three devils, but Logan surmised that it was their charisma that even made their mortal enemies touch their feet.

"Guys, come on up to my room." James called, adorned in a comfortable robe and lounge pants. Kendall and Carlos rushed up the stairs, as if there were no trepidations, but each step Logan took coming up the marble staircase was a contract to his doom, misery, pain, abuse, hurt, betrayal, and death.

Logan Mitchell, the helpless lamb, was walking into the lions den. Logan Mitchell, the vulnerable peasant, was entering the kingdom of his mortal enemies. He was entering a land from which he could possibly never return. For the first time in his life, Logan Mitchell was taking a risk he wanted to take. And this fact scared him.