Don't Let Me Break More

Chapter 2 (Prince)

We all froze as a thud resounded from the door to the main room. It was like a screen room that showed us Thomas and the world outside his mind. Slowly our heads turned and we sat frozen. Anni had passed out on the floor by the doorway. I was the first to move, followed by Dad and Logic. I checked his pulse, it was weak and faded from its normal beat. His face was pale and his neck was covered in bruises. He was bleeding from a cut under his eye.

"Do you think he heard us and did this to himself?" Dad asked.

"Even if we somehow are the cause of this, he can't have done all this while just standing in the corridor listening in on our conversation." Logic intervened.

"I don't think he did this to himself." I thought out loud. I was confident about this fact. "Anni doesn't handle self-inflicted pain with such a high level of composure. He must have been standing out there for awhile before he collapsed. If it was self-induced pain, we all would have known that he was standing there. The real question now is, who would do something like this to our precious Anni?"

"See Princey, You do care more than you admit to care about him." Dad smiled softly toward me. I frowned at his face.

"Of course I care some. He's a part of all of us." I said as I lifted him into my arms and carried him down the halls to his room. The others followed me, but we all stopped when Logic opened the door. Inside the room's decor was mostly slashed, everything was black and right in the center sat a piece of paper. It was a bright white in the darkness. Upon further examination, it was several pieces of paper. One had perfectly represented lines drawn out upon it. The letter L was in the center of it. In the center of another one was a cheesy smiley face with nerdy glasses pushed up on it's face. In the corner of this piece was the word Dad. A crown sat in the middle of the next one, surrounded by music notes and with gems in it that spelled out Prince. The final piece of paper was crumpled. There was one word in the middle of the crumbled scrap.

Worthless.

I tried not to think about it too much as I pulled the others along, away from Anni's room and away from the dark. I turned to Logic.

"Go check on Thomas. We'll take care of Anni." Logic looked like he wished to argue, but when he did open his mouth, it wasn't to say what I thought he would say.

"Fine. Just don't... don't screw things up more than they already are." He walked away slowly, back towards our view of Thomas and the outside world. I nodded as I dragged Anni's deadweight into my own room and dropped him on top of the bed. It was a canopy bed you would see in a depiction of a fairytale. As I dropped him down, I wondered if perhaps some of the lower, less prominent emotions would be able to help Anni. He'd never been this down before and I just wanted the normal Anni back. The one who wasn't passed out on my bed and plainly showed when he needed attention. Sure, he may have ruined some of Thomas's memories, but he was still a vital part of his existence. I knew that, yet sometimes I forgot and favored yelling at him instead of seeing that it was his own pain he was projecting on Thomas.

"Why don't you go look for some emotions? They might be able to help." I whispered to Dad, who nodded and started for the door.

"Try to get him up. But don't force him to tell you anything. Don't make things worse okay?" I nodded slightly before I went to go get Anni a glass of water. He was shivering and sweating at the same time and he did not look well. When I came back, Dad was gone and Anni wasn't looking any better. His shivering had become trembling. Slowly I placed my hand on his shoulder and he screamed.

"Anni. Anni, wake up! It's Prince Anni! Anni!" I shook him slightly harder.

"Get away from me! I'm weak, haven't you had enough! You can't make me any lower without killing me!" He shrieked.

"Anni, who's doing this to you?" I asked slowly.

"It's all my fault. If I hadn't angered Prince the other day, then she wouldn't have come back and I wouldn't have to hide from everyone else." he whimpered as his trembling grew worse.

"Anni. Anni, wake up!" I called. I got no response. "Anxiety, please."

Anxiety snapped up.

"Where am I? What's going on?"