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SUN CREPT THROUGH the curtains that had been left drawn in an act of vengeance. The warmth spread across the floor, draping its brightness over the bare walls. It was supposed to be fall, the sun had no business being quite so bright and yet here it was; saving him from the clutches of another paralysing nightmare.
Leo jolted upright frantically. His chest heaved with heavy breaths and sweat trickled from his brow. This wasn't anything new, but that didn't make it suck any less. He reached into the drawer of his bedside cabinet and fumbled around until his palm closed around the familiar shape of his inhaler.
He brought the breathing device to his lips and pushed down twice, spraying two doses of the life-saving medicine into his constricted throat.
Breathing in through his nose quickly proved to be the wrong choice- his body odour had reached an all-new high. God, he smelled worse than Chase after that pathetic attempt to host a soccer competition three years ago.
There was no time for a shower, not with the many worried parents of sniffling children desperate for confirmation that their offspring's ailments were a common cold and not some life-threatening flu outbreak.
He got out of bed and switched his pyjama bottoms for yesterday's torn jeans that he was supposed to take to Tammy-Rose to stitch up- oh, god, she was going to kill him.
Leo slipped his arms out of his shirt and spared himself a glance in the mirror that Alden nailed into the wall. At the very bottom of his spine, the 'X' that had been burnt into his flesh all those years ago remained as prominent as ever, swapping its previous shade of scarlet for a ghostly white.
He hated everything about it, so much so, that sometimes he wanted to skin himself alive, tear off every layer of tainted flesh until he was left with skin that nobody except those he loved had touched.
Swallowing shamefully, Leo tore his gaze from the looking glass and pulled out a fresh shirt from his dresser. Deodorant was a thing of the past now, so it was an unspoken rule that nobody ever pointed out when somebody smelled. After all, it couldn't be helped, Hilltop didn't have running water like Alexandria.
Barrington house wasn't quite as empty as he would've liked. Raised tones infiltrated his ears the second he pushed his bedroom door open, making him regret ever leaving the surprisingly comfortable pit of sweat and doom that was his bed. He could determine the owners of the voices before he even reached them- Tara, and the reluctant leader of Hilltop, Jesus.
It had been almost five years since Maggie, Chase and Hershel left but Jesus refused to accept that it was anything less than temporary. He was delusional, but Leo wouldn't hold it against him- he understood.
