BEING ALIVE

HIDDEN BLESSINGS

The air was cold. Leo himself was cold. It was all just cold. For a full minute, he just laid there, half-expecting to float up into oblivion like in the cartoons he used to put on for Madeline. Though after a while he realized that he was not in fact an incorporeal spirit crossing over to the 'other side.' He was actually completely corporeal. He could move around if he wanted to.

And he did very much want to.

Leo moved his left arm first, almost able to hear the creaking of bones that hadn't been used in a very long time, then his right arm. He used both arms to prop himself up and look around.

The night sky in New York was like a plum inkwell. Not quite black, but not that gorgeous navy blue with specs of white one might see in the suburbs. Leo had only ever been upstate once when he was ten and Madeline was five. She might not have been old enough to remember the look of the sky, or even mature enough to bother looking at anything other than that creepy stuffed elephant she used to drag everywhere, but the night sky in Buffalo was not something Leo would ever forget.

Madeline. He scanned his surroundings for the blonde tween who liked to play with hair dye. Nowhere to be found. What the fuck?

Leo was on a rooftop it seemed. How he got there was a mystery, but he quickly brushed it off and walked to the edge of the roof peering down at the nearest street sign. 54th street and 10th avenue. He was in Hell's Kitchen.

Despite Leo's initial displeasure at his circumstances, he took it as a blessing. Not only did he know where he was, he was familiar with the area. Getting home would be a piece of cake. As he approached the fire escape on the side of the building, he buckled over, images flashing through his mind, hitting him like a truck.

An open road. Speeding up the 9A with Madeline in the front. Rain was coming down hard, but they kept the windows open nonetheless. They were getting out of the city; going back to Buffalo. He remembered only needing a few bags for each of them. They sold the rest of their stuff for gas and food money. Leo had said something. Madeline had laughed and then called him stupid like any good little sister was supposed to. However, as her head turned to face forward again, a look of terror filled her eyes and she began to scream. She didn't even get half of a cry out before everything went dark.

The car crash. The world seemed to close in on Leo as his eyes widened and a knot formed in his throat. He quickly stumbled back from the edge of the roof. "Madeline," it came out as a whisper first. "Madeline, no," he choked out, just a bit louder this time.

Leo was supposed to take care of her. When their parents had disappeared without a trace all those years ago, when no one had even noticed the Pryor children were fending for themselves, it was his job to take care of her.

He quickly wiped away a tear. She might not have died in the crash. But then that would mean that she was probably in foster care somewhere. And if she had died, would she be in the ground or wandering around rooftops, confused and scared, like he was?

There were two things Leo could be sure of. One was that he was in Hell's Kitchen. The other was that he had definitely, without a doubt, in some way, come back from the dead.

And it scared the shit out of him.

He needed a game plan. He needed to go home.

All too aware of the lack of air in his lungs, Leo made his way back to the fire escape and climbed down. This was when he realized that he was not wearing the clothes he died in; the jeans and dark blue sweater with his dark grey jacket thrown to the backseat. He was wearing gloves, for some reason, and a black hoodie made of a thick material that he could not name for his life. He was also wearing black cargo pants which had a considerable amount of pockets, most of them empty.

He reached into one of the pockets that felt heavier than the others, feeling six bits of cold metal as he did so. Leo pulled out six bullets. He had been carrying six pieces of spare ammunition in his pocket. He dropped them quickly and stepped away, further into the dark of the alleyway he had climbed down into. 

"What the fuck?" He whispered aloud this time. His heart should have been beating out of his chest. His lungs should be working overtime. Leo wasn't one to let things get to him, but in this instance he knew his body should have been working at a million miles an hour.

The stillness of it all, like everything else that had happened to him that night, should have given him the chills. But there were no goosebumps. There was just plain cold.

Get home. Get home and then you can freak out about this.

54th street and 10th avenue. He just had to walk one block. Leo stepped out onto the sidewalk and began to walk slowly towards 11th avenue. His legs were starting to cramp up, but he kept going.

The apartment building Leo and Madeline Pryor lived in was near the docks, which just so happened to be an epicenter of crime in Hell's Kitchen. He remembered when the Devil of Hell's Kitchen started to rattle things up, beat the shit out of criminals, and wait for the cops to take care of the rest.

Unfortunately, that seemed to make said criminals very angry. Things got worse as the Devil fought harder. That was part of why Leo and Madeline had to get out.

But here he was, right back where he started. He walked into the redstone building, up the narrow staircase, and down the constricting hallway. On the front door there was a bright yellow piece of paper that read, 'EVICTION NOTICE' in big black letters. He groaned and dug around his pockets for his keys. Of course, they were not there. Leo wasn't sure why he was expecting to find them.

He took in a deep breath, even though he didn't quite need to, and stepped back a few steps before running right at the door. Flimsy locks. Another reason they had to move. Leo found it odd that he didn't break a sweat from ramming into his front door and breaking it open, but he decided to add that to the list of things he could worry about later.

Leo pushed the door closed behind him and attempted to flick on the lights. Of course they'd turned the electricity off. There was no one there to pay the bills for two months. He went to the kitchen, opening the cabinet under the sink until he found the emergency kit. Almost everyone in New York had one ever since the sky opened up and Aliens and Avengers tore the place up.

The plastic box consisted of small MREs, medical supplies, flares, and a flashlight. He took out the flashlight, closed the box, and turned it on. The apartment had been left completely untouched.

With his pace at a rapid decline, Leo slowly made his way to the bedroom he used to share with Madeline. When they Pryor siblings began to exit the grieving stage of their parents' disappearance, Leo had suggested that he take their old bedroom, giving each sibling their own room. He thought it would be a smart decision with Madeline getting older and wanting more independence. During the first night, the girl had snuck onto the queen sized bed before the strike of midnight. That was the end of that.

Unneeded articles of clothing were scattered across the floor. He remembered now. They left in a hurry. As Leo approached his bed, he found a drawstring backpack. Upon opening it, the teenage boy found one hundred and fifty eight dollars in cash wrapped in an extra change of clothing. His eyes widened. He'd forgotten to take their money. Had Leo survived the crash- had the crash naver happened, they wouldn't make it halfway to Buffalo without getting marrooned on the highway with no gas money.

He had the money and the clothes now though. Maybe that's what mattered.

He sat down on the bed, putting his head in his hands. Hidden blessings. He thought to himself. Hidden blessings...