I'm back... obviously.
I will warn you that the story is going to have some graphic parts to it from here. I will warn you, but please, pay attention to the warnings and read at your own risk
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
WARNINGS: LANGUAGE, SEXUAL ABUSE (Not very graphic, but I will put it in italics if you want to skip it), MENTIONS OF MURDER, PHYSICAL AND VERBAL ABUSE, SELF HARM
You should know
You're not on your own
These secrets are walls that keep us alone
I don't know when, but I know now
Together, we'll make it through somehow
-"Courage" by Superchick
The next day, Jason doesn't leave his side all day. He sits by him at meals, helps him with repairs...
For the first time since his mom died, Leo feels like he'll be missed.
Leo walks into the bathroom and stands on the scale.
It reads 76.6.
He's gained four pounds, and surprisingly, Leo doesn't care.
Leo smiles.
The excitement of finally being free of the Voice and the anxiety and the depression fades quickly. He should've known it was too good to last.
Monster attacks were not rare. Not at all. In fact, they usually came three or four times a day at least, but this monster attack...
This monster attack was different.
They came about an hour after lunch, and they were so quiet, no one knew they were there. They could've easily snuck up on someone and killed them.
But Jason and Leo saw them.
They were on deck at the time, laughing and talking and just being semi-normal teens, but then, they saw three shadows land on the deck.
I'm not kidding when I say shadows. They were tall masses of darkness with no distinct shape, but it looked like a human that was surrounded by dark mist.
Leo retrieved a hammer from his belt, and Jason drew his sword.
Before either could attack, however, the beings became human.
The one on the right is someone Leo knows.
"Mamá," he whispers.
"Mijo," she smiles, and Leo sobs because she looks just like she had before he'd killed her. She opens her arms, ready to embrace him. "Come to Mamá."
Leo starts to walk forward, tears streaming down his face.
"Mamá," he murmurs, stopping before her and hugging her.
"Diablo," she hisses.
It is his Mama's voice, but now, it is filled with hostility and rage.
"Murderer!" She screams in his ear.
Leo tries to break away, but her grip is much stronger than he remembers, and through the hazy cloud in his brain, he remembers the monsters and vaguely wonders where Jason went.
"Diablo!" A different voice yells, and he is yanked out of the hug, but he is still held in place by firm hands.
Aunt Rosa.
"No, Tia!" Leo shouts. "Lo siento! Por favor, Déjalo ir! Por favor, Tia!"
(No, Aunt. I'm sorry. Please, let go. Please, Aunt)
"I should kill you!" She sneers. "Just like you killed my sister!"
She shakes him and slaps him so hard, Leo would've fallen to the floor had she not been holding his upper arms in a bruising grip.
Then, she suddenly changes, and there is...
"M-M-Miss T-Teresa," Leo stammers.
She smiles, sickly sweet.
"Let's go back to the attic," she whispers.
Leo shakes his head. "No... No! No! Jason!"
"Your friend's not coming to save you," she rolls her eyes. "He left you to me."
"No, he wouldn't do that!" Leo cries. "Jason! JASON!"
"Oh, do shut up," she mutters before her voice whispers, seductively, "Let's have some fun. Are you still my good boy?"
Leo shakes his head and screams, trying to break free of her grip, but she holds him tighter and starts to trace her finger down his chest. She pops open open of the buttons on his shirt, and he screams until his throat is raw, but for better or for worse, she transforms into...
Jake Abbot, one of Leo's foster fathers.
Blood stains his hands, and Leo knows it's staining his arms from where Jake grips him.
Behind him lies the body of Maria Abbot, Jake's wife. Her eyes are wide open and glassy, gazing at the ceiling. Blood pours from a cut on her temple and a stab wound in her stomach.
"You could've saved her," he whispers.
And then, Leo's coughing. Waters gushes past his lips, and he remembers...
Jake had tried to drown him.
Jake becomes another man, and Leo screams, his throat aching from doing so but he doesn't care.
It is Sir. Leo never called him anything else.
The man is burly and tan and smirking in an awful way, a crazy way. Blood covers his shirt, and behind him are the bodies of Alexis and Bradon. They'd been Leo's foster siblings before Sir had killed them for trying to run away.
Leo and his foster sister, Janey, had known about their plan, and Sir had forced them to watch. They'd managed to run away a few weeks later.
He laughs, cruelly. "You thought you could escape me. You silly, little brat."
Sir punches him in the jaw and the ribs and starts kicking him and hitting him while holding him upright.
And then, Sir's hand reaches inside Leo's pants, and Leo screams, kicking Sir so hard, it triggers another transformation.
Now, he is Leo's fourth foster father, and behind him is the body of Leo's friend, Madison.
"Maddie," he whimpers.
A burning pain rushes across his stomach, and he screams so loudly, it surely would've shattered windows.
He laughs, horribly. "Devil's Spawn."
He transforms into a tall, dark boy in gothic clothes.
Blake. Behind him is the body of Julia, her clothes bloody.
"You could've saved her, little bitch," Blake sneers.
Leo swallows. "I'm sorry, Julia," he whispers.
Blake smirks and presses a gun to Leo's head.
"You can join her."
Blake transforms before he can pull the trigger.
He becomes... oh, gods.
The man is taller than Leo and is on the older side- late forties, early fifties. His hair is starting to gray, and His eyes scan Leo up and down with that damn creepy smile on His face.
"Hello, Leo," He murmurs into Leo's ear. "Long time, no see."
"No... no, no, no, no, no!" Leo screams.
He's so terrified that his strength doubles, and he rips himself out of His grip.
Leo collapses on the floor, but he no longer sees Him. He only sees a dark cloud that screeches and vanishes in a whirl of darkness.
Jason and the others are standing over him in concern.
"Leo, are you okay?" Piper demands.
Leo nods, slowly, still in shock. "What happened?" He whispers
"You got yanked into that dark cloud thing," Percy responds. "You just walked over to it, like some kind of zombie."
"What happened in there?" Annabeth questions.
Leo shakes his head at a snail's pace. "I don't want to talk about it. How long?"
"About three minutes," Hazel answers. "We thought we'd lost you."
"I'm gonna... I'm gonna go to my cabin for a while if that's okay," Leo murmurs.
The six of them nod.
"Of course," Jason says. "Go ahead. Come get one of us if you want to talk."
Leo nods and struggles to stand, but he finally manages to do so with Jason and Percy's help.
A hand lightly touches his upper arm, and he jumps, but Piper doesn't remove her fingers. He follows her horrified gaze to his upper arm and sees a huge black bruise in the shape of a handprint marring his skin.
Leo turns away from them and walks back to his cabin.
As soon as he's inside, he breaks down, crying, screaming, sobbing, catching things on fire. Luckily, his walls are soundproof and everything is fire proof (Leo has a tendency to catch on fire in his sleep or when he's frustrated).
Leo yanks open a drawer in his dresser and withdraws a small box. It's a perfect cube, and the four sides and the bottom are black, but the top is crimson red and gleams in the light.
Leo opens the top to reveal a razor blade.
Leo pulls first aid supplies out of his tool belt and leans against the bed, sitting on the floor.
He presses the blade against his forearm.
He rarely cuts in such an obvious place, but he'll have to wear long sleeves for a while to cover the bruises, so it doesn't really matter.
Blood drips down his arm and onto the floor. He drags it across again.
Sometimes, he feels like he's in a castle made of glass, seated upon a rusty throne. He's hidden away from the world, but if you take the time to look, you will see him through the glass walls. You will see the tears he cries.
The walls crack. Everyday, a small line appears in the glass, and Leo knows that one day, the walls will come crashing down, and they will surely destroy him in the process. He doesn't even care anymore.
Everything is blue or black in this world. The glass glints and makes everything appear to be blue, and that's on a relatively good day. But on the bad days, black clouds the mirrors, and Leo can't see out and other can't see in. Those are the days his mask is the strongest.
But red... when Leo cuts, red drips down the walls, and it's such a nice change from the sad blue or the awful black.
Blood is still dripping.
Leo feels so suffocated, so trapped. One minute, he wants to get better. He climbs the staircase and he's almost at the top when he trips and falls back down, landing right back where he started, maybe even lower. But he hasn't hit hottom. Not yet.
I guess that saying is true: the higher you climb, the further you fall.
Leo stares at his arm, which is now drenched in blood. He's getting dizzy, but he doesn't care.
He isn't sure if he wants to die. It'd be amazing to be with Mamá and the others again, but...
There are things he hates about the world, but there are also things he loves.
He loves his friends, his camp, his siblings, especially little Harley. Can he really leave them?
And besides, he wants to find Gaea and put her back to sleep, but not before giving her a solid kick in the face. She should've known better than to mess with his mother.
Leo grabs the towel from beside him and presses it over the cuts, stopping the blood.
Not today, he thinks. Not today.
Leo finishes mopping up the blood, and he goes to wrap the bandage around the cuts, but before he can do so, the door opens.
Standing there is Jason.
He stares at the cuts on Leo's arm, and Leo refuses to meet his eyes.
Jason doesn't say anything. He crosses the room and wraps the bandage for Leo.
No lecture. No promises to stop. No... Jason just hugs him, and Leo swears that he sees tears on Jason's face, but he never asked and Jason never told.
The razor is forgotten.
He doesn't know when. He doesn't know how, but...
With Jason and the others by his side, Leo feels like he can make it through somehow.
For now, I am keeping the rating as T, but please tell me if I need to change it.
Also, the reason I am involving such awful abuse is because I want this story to be as powerful as possible. Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime, and I wanted to share that with my readers. Finally, the story is going to have very dark parts to it because eating disorders and abuse and mental illness in general are very dark topics; they need to be talked about, but they're a dark and difficult topic, nonetheless.
Thank you for reading my rant, and please, I urge you to pay attention to the warnings and read at your own risk. I don't want flames for 'not warnings you' or triggering somebody because I did warn you to read at your own risk.
Thank you for reading.