Is He a Hero?

(1.4) Taking Care of Some Business

For Leon, the next week was pretty much the same as it was. Go to school, eat lunch on the roof, take the shuttle back home, go to work, go to bed. It felt as if Leon was reliving the same day again and again. But he didn't mind it in the end. For him, he just wanted to get school done with as soon as possible.

However, a part of him wished he had someone else to talk to other than Curtis and his co-workers...

Daniel kept trying to talk to him during lunch. While Daniel was genuinely nice to Leon, it still made him uncomfortable with how close he was getting, but that was the anti-socialite in him, not much he could do about that feeling.

Not only that, but the harem at his table finally noticed that he was spending time away from them to talk to a random kid they never met. Anytime Leon looked over their way, he was met with glares and pouts from various girls, accusing him of stealing their man without speaking a word.

'Don't give me those glares, I ain't doing anything! He's coming onto me!'

Another thing that he did was he started peeking at his classmate Maya more. It wasn't that he had a crush or anything, to him it was still surreal that he was in the same class as 'her.' Thankfully, Maya hadn't noticed his staring, or maybe she did and decided not to respond since both of them knew the moment she looked his way, a dozen other people would be looking his way. He silently thanked Maya if that was the case.

...

7:55 AM

Monday, October 9th

Leon sat on the shuttle as it passed through the city. The low sun beamed down and struck his face, rendering him uncomfortable as he tried to shift out of the way of its bright gaze. When he got out of the light, he looked at his arm, flexing it and bending his fingers and wrist as he got used to the sensation of moving it again. He got his cast off on Saturday and since then he spent most of his free time staring at the new scars he had on his arms. Like the ones on his neck and face, they were light, hard to see...

That was a lie, they were really easy to see if someone looked close at his arm. Aside from being broken, his right arm was relatively unharmed by the blast except for a small cut on one of his knuckles. His left arm was definitely the worst of the two, a large cut ran from the inside of his elbow to the midpoint of his forearm, and smaller scars dotted his arm from wrist to shoulder. He chuckled to himself every time he counted the number of scars, both old and new, joking that he would have more scar tissue than skin by the time he turned 30.

Eventually, his thoughts turned to the hospital bombing. Every day that went by, he would have some sort of flashback to that day, to the chaos, the carnage, the blood...

___________________________________

'What... Happened...'

Leon's ears rang as he tried to reorient himself. His arms were stinging in pain, but his right felt like it was on fire. Supporting his weight on his left arm as he got up, he saw a few other people strewn about, collapsed on the pavement. In front of him, smoke and fire poured out of the building he was about to enter, the Providence Hospital. Grimacing, he looked at the small shard of glass embedded in his hand and pulled it out, ignoring the searing pain as he did so.

Leon hobbled up the small set of stairs and tried to open the double doors, the alarm system blaring loudly right above the doors. For some reason, the doors were bolted or locked shut as he couldn't open them.

"Fucking Damnit" He cried out in frustration as he couldn't get the doors to budge. He gave up as he tried to find a different solution.

Leon took in a deep breath as he stuck his arm through the small, broken window. He tried to avoid the glass shards still stuck to the window as best he could, but in his rush to try and unlock the door, Leon gives himself a big gash on his forearm trying to reach through.