Behind The Smile

Assembly

The next day no one questioned my long sleeves, not even Zeldris or Estarossa. Luckily for me, Ban was late to school so I managed to avoid him all morning.

After a long break of hiding from Ban and his friends we had an assembly with all of 4th year as well as our 3rd year. Luckily that was only mine and Elizabeth's class. When everyone filed into the assembly room that was only a little bigger than a classroom I sat beside Zeldris, Elizabeth and Gerharde.
"I wonder what the assembly's about." Elizabeth said.

"I don't know." Gerharde said. "But shush it's starting."

Our headteacher Mr Smith stood beside a projector. "Thanks for coming, everyone. Today we are going to discuss something truly troubling. War." He coughed and then continued "Not just any war, but the war between our neighbouring kingdom. Danafor against those horrible Barbarians."

Everyone let out a gasp. I visibly tensed and so did Zeldris but the teacher simply switched on the projector that showed devastated parts of Danafor.  "Danafor was a beautiful kingdom that was admired for its beauty and friendliness. It was a wonderful trading partner. That was, until the Barbarians started a war against them for a reason unknown to us."

"Now the once beautiful Danafor has been wrecked. It's been destroyed by bombs and shooting and raids. These pictures will show you the devastation war wrecked on the capital." He showed us countless pictures of run down, abandoned, destroyed buildings and what they looked like before.

Meanwhile, flashbacks were hitting me like bricks. Screams. Stop. Fire. Stop. Blinding light. Stop. Blood. Stop. Death. Stop.
"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it." I whispered loudly. My throat was on fire. Zeldris and Elizabeth turned to look at me. I clutched my head because the images and voices became louder and more clear, more vivid.

/////Elizabeth///// (only a little while)

I watched, frozen to the spot as Meliodas lay on the floor with his hands clutching his head whispering "Stop it. Stop it. Stop it." Tears streamed down his face.

Zeldris, however was more active. "Shit. Everyone move out the way!" The teachers noticed everyone moving and Miss Twig came over with our teacher Mr Jones.

"What is going on here-" Mr Jones started to say but their faces paled at the sight of Meliodas.

"Get him to turn it off." Zeldris said as he ordered everyone out. Miss Twig nodded and ran up to Mr Smith.

"What is going on up there?" He demanded irritably.

"Boy having some sort of mental attack." She said. "Everyone out." Everyone but Zeldris, Gerharde and I were left in the hall. "What can we do?" Miss Twig said helplessly.

"Call Estarossa and tell him to come to the school immediately. And grab his medicine, both the yellow and the red." Zeldris ordered while rubbing circles in Meliodas's back. "Elizabeth, Gerharde, get as much water as you can."

I was snapped into action and we came back a few minutes later with three full water bottles. Miss Twig and Mr Jones came back with two large bottles full of red and yellow tablets. They also had syringes strapped to the side with instructions written on them.

"Tablets." He said and took a red one as well as several yellow ones. "Here, he said, "Eat this." Meliodas ignored him and kept muttering "Help! Stop it! No, don't. Stop it. Stop it." But in a clear voice. Though tears still streamed down his cheeks and he writhed in what looked like agony.

"Shit. I guess we're doing this the hard way." Zeldris said. Zeldris dissolved the tablets in the water and took out a syringe. He took about 10ml of the solution and then attached a needle on to the end.

To my horror, he jammed it into Meliodas's throat and injected all of the solution into his neck. Meliodas's eyes widened and his legs kicked out trying to get away from Zeldris had him held tight. Slowly, he stopped resisting and his hands slid from his head. His eyes closed and he appeared to be asleep. "I'm sorry." Zeldris whispered.

Just then Estarossa walked in and looked at Zeldris and then at the needle and then back to Zeldris. "I'm sorry, I had to. It was really bad. I couldn't do it any other way." Zeldris's eyes were watering.

Estarossa nodded gravely. "Okay. I'll take him home." He reached down and pulled out the syringe. "I'll take him home. How much did you give him?"

"10ml."

"That explains why he's out so fast. He probably won't wake up until you come home after school."

"But I want to come with you!" Zeldris whined.

"No, I think you need to explain this to Elizabeth and Gerharde." Estarossa said. Zeldris nodded. He turned to the teachers. "Is it okay if the three of them come home after he explains it to them?" The teacher nodded.

After Estarossa left Zeldris and Gerharde sat down so I did too. "Estarossa said you had to explain something?" I asked quietly. I was still pretty shocked at what happened.

"Yeah." Zeldris said."What I want to tell you is about Meliodas. You see, Meliodas has Scarlet Vocals." (I made this up)

"No way!" I gasped, horrified. My face must've paled because Gerharde looked worried.

"What's Scarlet Vocals?" Gerharde said, looking kind of terrified. "Is it a disease?"

"Scarlet Vocal Disorder is a disorder that affects the vocal chords." Zeldris said. "It is actually a genetic mutation that gets passed down from family, especially in our case. It's when speaking makes the vocal chords burn when speaking. This is because the vocal chords grow so that they stop vibrating." Zeldris said gloomily.

"That's terrible!" Gerharde said. "How does Meliodas have it?"

"O-Our mum had it." Zeldris said. " Luckily Estarossa and I never caught it. But poor Meli did. He managed to keep talking a lot longer than he should, he was very tough. Usually by the time you are 5 you are left unable to make a sound without your throat being on fire but Meliodas made it untill he was seven. "

Gerharde saw that it was hard to talk about and put her hand on his back. Taking a deep breath, he said "Talking that long will probably keep him off school for the next day or so. The older you get, the harder it is to talk. Today probably felt like someone poured gasoline down his throat and then lit it up."

"Let's go. I want to go home." Zeldris said.

"Sure. Let's go." We walked out of the school building, making small talk and hoping that Meliodas will be okay.

I can't believe he has been through that much pain.