Leona - Old Wounds

Leona found herself staring down a long, dim hallway. It was familiar to her, yet only vaguely. The walls reached up much further than she’d thought normal, and behind her was only a dead-end. She had no choice but to move forward towards the lone light at the end.

With each step forward she noticed that there were things on the walls. At first it was just blank corkboard panels. A few steps later and sheets of paper begun to hang from them. Leona paused nervously and looked behind her, only to discover that the dead-end was ever present. She took a deep breath and searched with her eyes across the flyers and sheets that’d been pinned up.

Some of them seemed to be art, or what would pass for art when drawn by a child. Her eyes lingered across them, pausing as something deep within her memory stirred. Other pages were announcements for events of some kind.

Events during and after school.

Further down the hallway she’d even found one that had a date on it.

“No, that can’t be—“She whispered to herself, only to come up short as she became very aware of herself.

She stuck out her paws and wrapped her tail around herself. Equal parts shock and horror took hold when she realized she’d teleported to a time when she was eight years old. Memories bubbled up. Uncomfortable memories. Scary memories. Sad memories.

Heart racing she took off towards the light as fast as her little legs could carry her. She tried to fly but her weak wings could barely even lighten her step. But no matter how fast or far she ran the light never grew nearer. She ran and ran, all the drawings and sheets and banners and everything else on the walls streaking past in a blur. The little manticore ran until she could scarcely breathe and her legs felt like they were going to collapse.

Panting heavily, her ears pricked up as sounds of voices filled the hallway. Her ears swiveled around and her eyes followed, trying to find the source. Like everything else there was something familiar about the voices. Terrifyingly familiar. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and then when she opened them there was something new across from her. A doorway.

Leona looked between the dim light that’d remained distant and the heavy, wooden door in front of her.

“What is this?”

Again she closed her eyes, but nothing changed when she again opened them. And the voices were unmistakably coming from behind that door. With a gulp Leona padded towards the door, and reaching up on her tip-toes she turned the handle.

The door creaked open as if it’d been the first time in years. From inside the tips of Leona’s ears appeared, followed by her red eyes and alabaster skin. A teacher, who had, until Leona showed herself, been talking about mathematics turned to the tiny Manticore.

“You’re late,” the teacher said far too sternly.

Feelings of dread and fear gripped Leona’s heart.

 “Take your seat, Leona.”

The tiny albino manticore’s paws began to shake.

“Now.”

She winced, wishing she could shrink away from the voice. The scary, scary voice. She just wanted it to stop. To go away. Walking as if her life depended on her silence she moved towards somewhere in the room. She didn’t know where, only it’s where she ought to go. It wasn’t until several unsteady steps in that she realized a multitude of eyes were upon her.

Two dozen students and the teacher were all watching her. Leona began to shake all over, curling her wings and tail around herself in a desperate bid to make herself feel just a little safer.

Tears in her eyes she managed towards the lone, unoccupied desk. She didn’t know how she got there, but she was all too eager to take her seat and pray everyone would stop noticing her.

And, for a time, it seemed that way. Like magic all the eyes turned away from her. Leona still shivered, but she felt just the slightest bit safer. For a time.

Inexplicably she pulled out a book and notepad and began to write things down. Notes about this and that. But every time she looked down and back up, everyone else seemed just a little closer. A few notes, look up. Closer.

They began to stare at Leona, even as they wrote. Some smiled, but they weren’t kind smiles.

They weren’t getting closer. They were getting bigger. Or maybe she was getting smaller. They began to look down at Leona. She tried to hide in her book, never looking up. If she never looked up, she’d never have to meet their awful, awful gaze.

“Freak!”

Leona’s face shot up. They towered over her now. Laughing.

“Look at her!”

She screwed her eyes shut and smashed her ears flat on her head with her paws.

“What a runt! Hahaha, she’s white as chalk!”

Leona’s heart pounded in her chest as she tried to shut out the world around her. But she couldn’t. She could feel their stares and no matter how hard she tried their voices sounded like they were on top of her. Tears began streaming down her face and she so desperately tried to curl up and protect herself from the world.

“Aren’t Manticores s’posed to be tough?”

“What a baby! Babies don’t belong here!”

“Hahaha, what’re you gonna do, cry?”

Laughter. Bitter, horrific laughter surrounded her. Terror took hold and Leona screamed and ran. Eyes burned with tears she stumbled from her desk towards the exit, pushing against invisible bodies and walls and voices that seemed to block her in.

“Look at her run! Scaredy cat!”

Finally, somehow, she found the door and threw it open. Just as she crossed from the blackened room into the dusky hallway, she heard one last voice.

“I’ll be telling her parents about what a troublemaker she is.”

The door slammed shut. The voices cut out. All was silent, save for her ragged breathing and the beating of her heart.

To one side was the dead-end that’d always followed. To the other was the infinite expanse. Leona sat down on the floor, holding her knees to her chest and letting years and years of anguish spill out in sobs and cries.

Until the murmur of voices came back.

Like a bolt of lightning Leona shot up and began to run. She needed to get away. Leave the voices far, far behind. And for a time the voices did quiet and subside, even if her tears did not. She ran as far as she could manage. At one point she noticed the year on a sheet changed. She tried to stop and get a better look, but stumbled and fell. The world went dark for the briefest of moments, and Leona felt herself change.

Back on her feet, she noticed she was bigger. A teenager. And there was a letter on the ground. She reached to pick it up, and upon examining it noticed it was addressed to someone. A guy’s name. A name she thought long forgotten. A name that stirred feelings she’d forgotten.

Turning the envelope about her paws she felt someone behind her. Whirling around she discovered she was no longer in the hallway but in a vast, open room. An auditorium of some sorts. A stage. She was on a stage, overlooking rows of empty seats.

“Leona, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be over there for this part,” came a voice.

She glanced to her side. A face and a voice to go with the name. To go with the feeling of warmth in her chest.

Without thinking, she spoke.

“T-this is for you!” Leona said, holding the envelope out towards the boy with both paws. Her wings and tail fluttered behind her. When he plucked it from her, Leona immediately began to wring her paws.

The boy quirked an eyebrow and looked over the envelope, then opened it. His eyes darted back and forth as he read the few lines. Leona wriggled about on the spot, full of anxiety. He’d been one of the nicer ones to her. He’d been the reason she joined the drama club. He’d accept her feelings. Right?

He smiled. Yet the smile made the warmth in Leona’s chest go cold, as if someone upended a bucket of ice water on her heart.

“Are you serious?”

Leona blinked. “Y-yes? I like you!”

He began to laugh. Others materialized around the boy. Shadowy shapes, forms. But they all wore that same malevolent smile.

“Just because I act a little nice to you doesn’t mean I like you. I just pitied you, that’s all.”

Leona’s mouth hung open for a long, awkward while. She tried to think of something, anything to say.

“Yeah, who do you think you are? He’s too good for you!” Came a feminine voice. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, you white freak!”

Leona shook her head. She tried to back away, but with every step backward they took a step forward. Panic. Her eyes wandered toward the audience. What was once empty was now full. Hundreds of eyes, all transfixed on her. She stumbled and fell when she tried to take another step back.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t you do anything right? How useless can you be?”

Panic. Panic panic panic.

Leona scrambled across the stage on all fours, seeking safety behind the curtain. However as she crossed through it, it seemed to grab and hold onto her. The more she struggled the tighter it wrapped about her. And the louder the laughter became.

Then all at once it came to an end and Leona found herself in the dim, empty hallway.

She collapsed on her stomach, no longer possessed of the energy to even sit up. She cried and cried, desperate to elude the specters that haunted her. But no matter how much she begged and pleaded, she never budged from her spot in the hallway. After what seemed to be hours she’d even lost the energy to cry. On her back she stared up at the ceiling and made one more wish.

Almost immediately darkness began to swarm around her. Inky tendrils that stole light and comforted her in a blanket of numbness. They inched towards her face, and Leona smiled through her tears.

But inches from letting herself go completely, something twinkled overhead. Another voice. Suddenly, she found herself regretting her wish. Kicking and fighting she tried to shake the emptiness from her but it held fast, dragging her away into the abyss.

“Leona!”

Leona reached out and screamed. A hand took her paw and pulled her free from the abyss.

The hallway vanished, replaced by another sort of dark. The silence was replaced with chirping crickets. Leona’s eyes and head searched feverishly for danger, for the terror pursuing her.

“Leona!”

Her whole body focused on the voice. Hands were holding her shoulders. She blinked once, then twice as her mind was slow to register who she was looking at.

“Master?”

Though before he could reply Leona’s eyes welled with tears, yet again, though for a completely different reason. She threw herself forward, knocking the two of them down on the bed. With her paws wrapped tightly around his waist Leona sobbed into his chest.

“You’re real, right? I was so scared!”

“Yes, yes I’m real,” he said, rubbing her hair and ears. “What happened? Were you having a nightmare?”

Leona looked up at him, trails of tears staining her cheek. Along with a fair bit of snot running from her nose and onto his shirt. “Y-yeah…”

“Well whatever it was,” he began as he registered the wet warmth spreading on his chest with a forced smile. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”

For a long while he continued to pet and rub and reassure her as Leona cried. Finally, when it seemed she’d cried all there was to possibly cry, she smiled. “I-I’m glad I have you… You love me, right?”

“Of course I do. What makes you ask that?”

She hesitated and looked around the room for the first time. Her eyes wandered to the alarm clock on the nightstand and the moon hanging in the sky out the window.

“N-nothing… I’m sorry to wake you up…”

“It’s alright,” he said with a sigh.

“Was I being loud?”

“About that,” he said, indicating to his arm.

Leona let out a little gasp. There were four nice claw marks that’d drawn blood. Not a lot, but enough that it would take more than a few seconds to quit bleeding.

“I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay. Hell of a way to wake up,” he said with a comforting grin.

“I’m so sorry…” Leona muttered again, shifting to lick the cuts.

“Never mind that, what got you all worked up?”

Again she was slow to answer. “I… had a nightmare I think, about my past.”

“Wanna talk about it? Now that I think about it, I don’t really know much of your history.”

“It was rough,” she said so softly that he had to strain to hear her. “But I have you now, so I don’t need to worry!”

She threw her paws around his neck and dragged herself up to plant a kiss on him, but she wasn’t able completely conceal the pain of her memories. Despite her assuring smile more tears began to leak out.

He sighed and held her close as another wave of sobs wracked the petite-bodied Manticore. And sob she did, until she once again fell asleep. This time, however, her slumber quiet and serene. For a short while.

“Oh master…” Leona mumbled, then giggled. “Everyone can see us…”

Despite the low light he could spy the tip of her tail glistening as it swished about. At least she was having good dreams now. And one day he’d have to figure out what happened to her.