My eyes flickered open. We were behind the pile of rocks we had taken refuge behind after we got sat on. My head was resting on something. I tried to raise it, but there was something on top of me. I rolled my eyes up, to see what it was. Just then, some brown curls fell onto my nose, and I realised I had passed out on Leo's shoulder. He had then fallen asleep on top of my head. I went bright red. I contemplated waking Leo up, but then decided against it. He needed rest as much as I did. I leaned back against a boulder, and Leo's head fell into my lap. I went redder still, but I didn't wake him up. Instead, I closed my eyes, thinking about the dream I had. I saw my mother again, after weeks, and who was that man? My father? No-my father was dead, he died in a car crash. So why did that feeling not go. I leaned forward to check our surroundings. The giant dog thing had gone. It was just us in a lonely alley way. I looked at my shoulder. It was still pretty stiff. I ripped my jumper sleeve off, and wrapped it around my shoulder, to immobilise it. The pressure immediately released the pain, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Leo turned his head around, so it was facing me, and then opened his eyes. When he saw where he was, he jolted up.
"Sorry," he said.
"Don't be," I replied. "I was passed out on your shoulder anyway."
"Right," Leo said, obviously still embarrassed. "Has the dog-thing gone?
"Yeah. I think we should go..."
"Is your arm ok?" Leo asked, concerned. I smiled. This was one of the many reasons Leo was an amazing friend.
"Yeah, It's fine. I immobilised it in a sort of cast, so it's fine for the present time."
"This is all my fault..." Leo said. I frowned, and put my good arm around him.
"Hey, don't say that. It's not your fault you just happened to be under the buttock, and me in the crack. Don't blame yourself. You don't deserve to deal with the pain." To prove my point, I grinned at him, and beckoned for him to come with me. Leo smiled wanely, and followed me. I could tell he didn't believe me.
We found ourselves next to a sewer, with the the symbol of 'Omega' engraved onto it. I didn't think there was something funny about this, but Leo pointed it out. I frowned, and said,
'So it is... Should we explore?"
Leo grinned, and said, "You read my mind." With that, he lifted the grate up and slid down. I looked down, and I saw a familiar glint of fire. Smirking to myself, I slid down too, pulling the grate down after me.
The place smelt musty, and the air was humid, but in no way was it a sewer. The friendly fire died out, so I called,
"Leo?". I got a small call from ahead,
"Hey, Al, I think I've found something..." His voice trailed off into the darkness. I didn't ask him to re-light his fire again, as I knew how uncomfortable that made him feel. Instead, I felt my way in the darkness, until my hand brushed Leo's curly hair.
"Hey, Leo, I found you. What is it?" I asked. Leo relit his hand (oh gods that sounds so wrong), and showed me what he found. It was a strange mound, of gold.
"Why would they leave such a large amount of gold just here to rot in a sewer?" Leo pondered.
"Why is the Gold in the sewer in the first place? Gold isn't mined here. I don't think this is regular gold, Leo, but.." I reached out to touch it, and something happened. It was like the Gold responded to my touch. The mound started to melt, and melt until it wasn't a mound any more, but a sleek sword, studded with jewels. On the side, there was an engraving, 'The blessed of Apollo will weild this sword to greatness' in ancient Greek. Leo repeated the lines, and then ran his fingers over them. But as soon as he touched it, it turned back into a mound of gold.
"Weird!" I said. I ran my hand over the gold rock, but it then turned back into a sword again. Leo's eyes were alight.
"Woah, that is so cool. That literally means you are the only one who can weild the sword!"
I pondered on it, then smiled, "Yeah I guess." The sword the suddenly changed into a pendant, a round circle, with a lyre stamped onto it.
"Handy transport?" Leo said, doubtfully.
"I think..." I said very slowly, "That we need to get out of here."
"What?" Leo said, confused.
"COME ON!" I took his hand and dragged him all the way to the grate. "Get up there Leo!"
"What is this, Al-" He didn't get to finish his scentence, because I boosted him up.
"Get up there now, please Leo!" He pushed open the grate and crawled outside. He pulled me up, and I closed the grate. Leo stared at me with concern, while I steadied my breath. Then, unexpectedly, I started to cry. Like in my dream, uncontrolled sobs shook my body, but unlike my dream, Leo was there. He put his arm around me, but didn't say anything. I appreciated him for that. He left me to myself, only giving me a silent message, 'If you need me, I'm there'. I controlled my tears, and smiled at him weakly. "Thanks."
"Hey, it's fine. What was that about, Al? What happened down there?" Leo asked, and for that moment, I couldn't have asked for a better friend. I told him all about my dream in the cavern, and the holes appearing.
"That was the cavern, Leo. I felt every thing in there, that man, my mum, and that weird person, they were all there..." I drifted into silence. Leo said something that sort of disturbed my peace, but I answered it all the same.
"What did the last person look like?" Leo asked suspiciously.
"She was made out of grass, and sludge...I called her dirt face...and...Leo?" Leo had gone pale. He was whispering over and over to himself, 'not you too, not you too'. His head was buried in his hands, and he was dangerously white. I placed my hand on his forehead. He was feverish, and was starting to zone out.
"Leo, you've got to stay with me, until we can get off the sewer." He was clearly in no state to respond. I hoisted him onto my good shoulder, until we got to the pile of rocks we came from. I lay him down, and I retrieved a blanket from the bottom of the backpack. Wrapping him tightly inside it, all I could do was wait. My healing abilities only went as far as to curing physical wounds. As soon as it came to a problem I couldn't see, I couldn't fix it. And unfortunately, this included one of the most common ones-a fever.
Soon enough, my patience was rewarded. Leo woke up, coughing and spluttering.
"Are you alright, Leo?" I asked, once he was safely sitting up.
"That's the question. Are you alright?" he asked back at me.
"Leo, I'm fine. But I don't know about you. You kept whispering 'not you too' over and over did you mean?"
That was when he told me the whole story of how his mom died.
*Skip whole part about Leo explaining the stuff about his mom and how she died.*
"I burned my own Mom to death." Leo finished. He looked sad, and before I knew it, a tear rolled down his cheek. Leo, always so goofy and jokey, was crying! I put my arm around him, just to show I was there for him, like he was there for me. He smiled.
"Thanks Al. I guess you deserve to know the whole truth. The thing is right before the shed lit on fire, a lady appeared before me. She was like what you described her as. I called her dirt-face too. That's when Mom died. Every time something bad happens to me, I see her. She's like a curse. And she keeps saying this one thing to me over and over. She calls me a hero, I don't know if she's trying to mock me..." He trailed off into the distance. I stayed silent too. We both needed some time to delve deeper into our minds. Soon enough, Leo wriggled out of the blankets, and said,
"Are we gonna stay here forever, or what?" That jolted me out of my trance, and I replied with a,
"Sure." Gathering all our stuff that wasn't squashed or burnt (or both), we stood up, preparing to cover our tracks, when a familiar blaring sound appeared behind us. The cops were back! We assessed the sound, and the cops were too close for us to gain any headway, so we stayed there to surprise them. Soon enough, they came to confront us, fat as ever. I could see Leo in the corner of my eye trying to surpress a giggle.
"Yup, you're the raccoons who broke into McD's the other day. What do you think you're doing?" I gulped. I had forgotten about that. All we had stolen from the fast food center was a happy meal and two bottles of mineral water, but the cops still treated it as an outrageous crime. I looked at Leo, with a raised eyebrow.
"Run?" I asked.
"Run," he confirmed, nodding. With that we took off from the rocks we were standing on, and fled into the greater unknown.
We were running like hell. A police car was following up on us, and it was closing in. Suddenly, Leo yanked my arm, and dragged me up a tree. Half way up, I began to climb myself. Like monkeys, we were soon at the top, camoflauged between the leaves. The policemen down below shaded their eyes, trying to find us among the Californian big leaves. Soon though, they gave up, and they left with a message in their walkie-talkie, 'Target has been lost, I repeat, Target has been lost.' and a muffled 'Roger that' from the other end of the line. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at me. I looked back, and grinned. The Leo I knew was back.
Hi there! Sorry this chapter seems a little rushed, but there was an incident in the story I was aiming to get done in chapter four, so for my story to go to plan, I had to do that. Thank you so much for reading! Could you please also comment some ideas on what could happen next in the story, maybe even an OC? If you do can you describe them please, because I can then encorporate them into the plot. Thanks!
Yours most incredibly...yours?
MilkandCheez
