Timeline X Special: Her Name Was Leni
Somewhere, somewhere in a faraway land, I'm happy.
The house wasn't hers, but it paralleled her own in many ways than met the eye. It waa sturdy, but creaky. And lonely without her, so she felt obligated to keep it company. This was something like a haunted house- Only she was the ghost that placed that status on it, because she was reported missing, maybe dead for all she cared. Dead was the blonde, broken, once ditzy and slow.
Not now, and not today.
The night was dark, but young. The air flowed its breeze through the broken windows, smacking against the doors, blowing them open or closed, and then causing them to rattle back and forth. The hollow of the house was perfect and empty. Perfectly empty.
Why isn't anyone here? Where are they?
Leni tucked herself away on the abandoned bedroom, sitting down in front of it. Sad and alone. Same old song that never changed for this playlist. Sad and alone...
I miss you, Lori...
Nothing to cling onto. Their voices, their faces, vastly fading from memory. Any single day now, she'd forget them all, right down to their names. Currently, Leni needed a change in clothes. The sweater she wore, one of Lori's, had been smelling like gym clothes for a good while. No, all of her clothes, actually. The sweater, her bra beneath, which made her cold at nighttime, the green shorts, her bikini and the small white socks were due for a laundry day.
Why didn't you come back?
And Leni was shattered from within.
I'm a symbol of all your failures, my existence yet-
The place was still lonely, devoid of life. Could she, frail, skinny and in poor condition, say she was alive? The life of a broken doll who knew what suffering was, she was the idea. Starving again, stomach rumbling, and her arms, from a body that fit an anorexic type, too weak to move. And that other girl, the one who had found her and had been coming around, leaving various types of food- The non-perishables and hot meals wrapped in tinfoil, and if this girl made those killer milkshakes, then those were good as well.
Men's guardian angel was a teenager of tan skin, not too much, not too light, just about right. The stranger was a basic hipster, so implied by her fashion choices that betrayed her. Tour average casual one with her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, save for a layer of bangs sticking out. The angel was due her return right this second, and Leni could have been extra happy for the latter's arrival; Leni was that hungry right now.
Come home, come home...
Still creaky, wooden steps looking like they would crumble apart. She dared not move back down to the first floor.
I'm not home.
Nothing to do. Contained. Confined. Condemned.
I am far from home.
The cheekbones, too visible for her own good, became exposed to her empty, silent tears again- And Leni stuck her tongue out to catch the driplets to lick and swallow, and they would always be salty and distasteful. It wasn't ever enough, yet she insisted. She wanted to, the basic function of an organism, and the main one, was to live. It was built in her before she came out of mother's womb, and yet...
For all the time that she was alone, she brought it into question.
Why am I still-?
Her, but not her, the others. Mom, dad and Lucy, lives consumed in the fire. The abandonment by Lisa, Lincoln and Lori. The banishment of Luna. The dissembling of the family when it tried so hard to pick itself up from the remains. It tried, they tried...
She wanted it to work, for the empty gaps to be stretched by themselves and filled into, and she tried.
She failed... Or was it on them? Was everyone a failure?
Who was to say?
And then, downstairs, she heard the kicking-in of the dusty, dirty door. Someone came in, not the sweetheart angel, but a new person, the second stranger in her life entered the fray, footsteps closing in, echoing through the house. She could tell they were coming up because of the sudden creaking that followed along.
With no will to fight, no energy in her body to even remotely get up, she let out powerless moans and tilted her head from one side to the other. The state of decay showed no mercy to her, the sunlight had yet to shower her from head to toe; Leni was afraid of the world before, the lie it presented.
The world's most beautiful lie was that of which she lived for the first half of her life, up to sixteen, that was so long ago. Barely able to be grasped. She could blink, envision and recollect it... And nothing. In the end, the bittersweet nothing that prolonged her life, leaving her with nothing. Voices faded, the faces were already too blurry, damped up in a foggy spectacle. Forgettable.
Forgotten.
Maybe it was death itself coming to finally end her sad, miserable life. And it came in, to greet her, a quiet, deadly welcome. The entity, an actual man, appeared in. He, of muscle and a height that dominated hers, looked like a ghost. His skin was cold and pale, moreso than hers, and his hair- It was white and long, of which she knew he needed a haircut. Funny, he was freshly shaven, presenting no beard at all.
Hair white... Why was that familiar to her?
He studied her, but his eyes, they were hidden away, locked from view, as if that wasn't strange enough. The silhouette put himself in front of her, head rotated downwards. Leni hadn't noticed it before, but on his left hand, firmly placed alongside to his side, there was a funny-shaped object in the near shape of an L. Leni might have been a sweet cinnamon roll once before, but she knew a handgun when she saw it.
A handgun, one such physical embodiment of death- And him, the handler.
If it meant what she thought it meant, she had it solved. One single bullet to wash it all way, to drain the dreaded sorrow from the soul. Here, Leni could only draw a perfect smile.
AN: You know how this ended up from the original source material, it only ended one way, the only way, for poor Leni. Additional scenes will continue from here later on.
I made an oopsie in the previous chapter, it seems. Ugh.