March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

FIVE

I stayed in the bed for the rest of the day and most of the next; Soria brought me food that consisted of a giant bowl of some weird soup that was supposed to make the pain in my body go away and several glasses of water that I needed to keep the vile shit down. It tasted like spicy dirt and it smelled terrible; I had actually ended up vomiting the first time I had tried to eat it and, unfortunately, instead of laughing at me or getting angry, she apologized, cleaned it up despite my protests, and brought me a smaller spoon and four glasses of water.

She tried to talk to me, and while I did manage to talk to her, she clearly didn't want to talk much about what had happened. I'd only gotten a little bit more information from her than I did from Phrer's little ranting to make me feel bad, but it was enough to piece together most of what had happened.

Apparently, she had woken up to the sound of someone crying and she ended up finding me curled in on myself on the floor of the back half of the lobby. When she had tried to talk to me, I freaked out, smashed the glass door, and tried to attack her before I supposedly stared at her like she was a ghost and proceeded to try to stab myself for all that I was worth. When that didn't work and she managed to wrestle the piece of glass from me, I had proceeded to scratch myself with nails that I hadn't even noticed I'd had. I'd apparently dug so deep into my scalp and pulled that I'd needed a couple stitches, which explained the slight pain in my head.

She had been about to run to go get Phrer when everyone suddenly appeared and, after twenty more minutes of me freaking out, had finally managed to pin me down and make me calm enough to carry me back upstairs to what I found out was Phrer's room. She also commented on my lack of response to Talia's voice, who had locked herself away for the day due to her embarrassment of breaking her sacred vow to Phrer.

"I've never seen anyone, gay, asexual, or anything else, not respond to a siren before," she stated again, still puzzled over it. "And mortals usually have an even harder time, even if they're crazier than Hades."

I gave her a droll stare at the last comment, but I didn't particularly care. I just wanted to get someone, anyone, to stop treating me like I was going to be okay. I wasn't.

She had been rambling on about something else, trying in vain to cheer me up before I blurted, "Why aren't you mad at me?" She paused at that.

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"Well, for starters, you know what I did. I'm not a good person. And I tried to attack you when you were trying to help me," I argued. She stared at me, actually contemplating what I had said, to my relief. I sat there in awkward silence as her eyes darkened and spaced out a little bit.

I was beginning to think that I broke her when she finally spoke to ask the question I hated most. "Do you want me to be mad at you?"

Yes, actually, I do. I want everyone to be mad at me that way I have enough of a choice to get away from you good-doers and not taint you.

"Yes," was my curt response.

"Why?"

"I just told you why!" I said, exasperated. "How can you not be mad that I could have killed you or anyone else in that room?"

She actually snorted slightly at that, making my eyes narrow at her at the questioning of my abilities. "Sweetie, you were having a panic attack, I'm not going to fault you for not being in control of your own actions. You have to remember that you tried to kill yourself, too, not just me. And hurt me? You couldn't hurt me if you tried, and that's not due to a lack of skill, either."

I glared at her, angry now, as she continued. "We couldn't die from anything you could possibly do to us; cause us major bodily harm, send us into a coma for a few hours due to blood loss, and try to chop us into bits, sure, but I put emphasis on the word 'try' there. Hell, I've been poisoned and tortured with the venom of a hydra and I'm still kicking." She paused for a second, contemplating again. "Well, limping, but kicking!"