The Sadness After ( The Underland Chronicals )

Chapter 5

He goes home that day with Brandon and Ryan questioning him while Jackson sulks in the back. Gregor and Brandon get off and they walk to their houses. "Dude, what the hell? You're insane, how do you fight like that. It's almost too smooth..." He says for the 4th time.

"I don't know, ive always been ok at fighting." Gregor said, cringing at eaht he said.

"Dude, that's not just Ok, you insane. Go into the UFC or something." He says with a chuckle.

"Maybe." Gregor responds, fake laughing. He knows he could never do it, number one his mom would never let him and number two he would probably kill someone or something. " Well I gotta go."Gregor blurts out as he veares off to the right.

"Well, See ya Gregor!" Brandon says as he jogs off.

"Bye!" Gregor yells off as he enters his house. He walks in to see his mom in the kitchen making Mac and cheese with Boots at the table. " Why's Boots home so early?" He asks.

"Oh, she had a fever and had to be sent home. Want some Mac and cheese?" Gregor's mom says, but Gregor can't think straight after the fever thing, memories of their first trip in the Underland come flooding back and all the worries and the deaths of Tick and Henry.

"S-sure mom." He chokes out as he pulls up a chair to sit on as he tries to re-focus. He gets a bowl and eats it while he stares out the window at the field, voned out until his mom breaks into his mind because she was telling his name.

"GREGOR!!!" she yells at him.

"Yeah, yeah, what is it." He says,not knowing what's happening.

"I called you 5 times, can you come fix this fire alarm." She says, calming down and pointing at a fire alarm on the ceiling.

"Yeah, sure, I'll grab the ladder." He walks out and goes to the shed and gets the ladder. When he gets back Boots is complaining about the beeping.

"Make it stop, it hurts my head" she says between beeps.

"Gregor's gonna fix it Boots, you'll be fine. Here, I'll get you some Tylenol" she says and leaves to go to the closet with all the medicines and things.

Gregor places down the ladder and goes up it with a screwdriver and batteries. He unscrewed it and takes the shell off and places the batteries in and tosses the others off to the side.

He's about to screw in the last screw when he here's a pop, "oh shi--" the ladder collapses and Gregor is falling down again. Still never used to it. Time slows as he watches the ground come closer and he feels his lips begining to move.

"ARES!" He yelled in terror, it came out impulsively and he hits the ground. He doesn't feel physical pain, only wave after wave of sadness as Ares keeps flashing through his vision.

He only escapes when he hears his mom screaming as Gregor lays on the floor. "Oh My God, what happ-" she cuts out in shock as she rounds the corner.

Gregor looks at her and sees the screwdriver. Sticking in one side of his calf and coming out the other. Somehow he grinned. "Heh, that sucks."

"Gregor, we gotta get you to the hospital." His mom says as she runs to the kitchen and grabs her keys. Gregor gets up and hops on his good leg. "Come on in the car. Boots don't do anything stupid until Lizzie gets home." His mom's says as she almost slams the door.

Gregor gets in the car and looks at it while she rushed to the hospital. "Mom, it's not that bad, slow down." Gregor says, still grinning for some strange reason.

"GREGOR, YOU HAVE A SCREWDRIVER THROUGH YOUR LEG!" she basically screams.

They get to the hospital and he gets to the emergency room and gets sent straight to a room.

"Wow, what happened kid?" The doctor asked.

"Fell off a ladder. Loose screw or something." He replied casually. He was kind of worried about how he didn't feel anything, but thankful.

" Well, first we probably have to get it out, obviously." The Doctor says with a chuckle, Gregor gave a small laugh, "then we got to stitch it up and you'll need crutches for a week, but you'll have to wear a bandage for another 3 weeks."

"Okay." Gregor says.

"Ok, now I have to remove the screwdriver." He says as he dabs rubbing alcohol on his leg. "Ok 3, 2---" and he takes the screwdriver out with a pull and Gregor winces at the small amount of pain he feels.

The doctor stitches the wound and wraps it in some bandages. They leave the ER with Gregor on crutches, bandages and some medicine for the wound.

He gets in the car and feels another wave of sadness wash over him. His injury had brought his mind away from what he had said. He called for Ares. He hadn't done that for 2 years now. He'd fallen in-between these times and he'd never said anything, just hit the ground, got the wind knocked out of him and got up. But this time was different. He impulsively said it, not knowing what he was doing.

He looked out the window and contemplated for the rest of the car ride, wondering why that triggered him to call out for him. They arrive home to find Lizzie on the floor freaking out. "Woah, woah, what's wrong?" Gregor says as he sits down with her. She never got rid of her attacks, but some of the medicines helped her.

"B-blood. W-why." She blurts out. She's been scared of blood because of the Underland, it freaked her out.

"Lizzie, it's nothing, I just got hurt." He said stroking her head to calm her down.

It took 10 minutes but she finally calmed down and went to her room to sleep. It was 830 already so she was probably going to stay there all night.

Gregor sits down and eats his meal and goes to his room. He plops down on his bed and puts on his headphones. Another thing that helps him is music, takes his mind somewhere else, listening and lip syncing help him out.

He lays there for about an hour and now he's pacing, back to Ares. Something is happening, because now that he's calling for Ares, who else will he call for, Ripred?  He can't, it would create to many questions.

He does this for hours, laying down, pacing, laying down, pacing... He finally lays down and feels his eyelids grow heavy and his mind slips to his mind.

He wakes up in Ares' hideout. Gregor pans around, walking through the cave. He moves a crate and stares, there is Ares' claw grasped in the hands of the baby Bane. Gregor lets out a roar of anger and grabs the nearest sharp object, stabbing it through the Bane's heart. It looks at Gregor as it's blood pours out, with the same eyes Boots has when she's sad, then it drops dead. Gregor kneels down and grabs Ares claw. He holds it to his chest and cries silently, he cries for hours, holding his claw. Then he hears scratching behind him he turns and...

Gregor springs up from his bed dripping in sweat from his dream, dried tears on his cheeks.