30
She never expected them to come back.
According to what she knew, they weren't supposed to be here.
Leo was supposed to be alone in the quiet, padded room. It was a nightmare as much as it was a memory.
Something was amiss, even as Pulse and Quark doted on her, brushing her hair from her face, cupping her cheeks, asking repeatedly: "Are you okay? Are you okay, Leo?"
They were supposed to be long gone.
'So why are they here?'
She has yet to say anything. The stars were increasingly frantic, looking her over, trying to get her to say something. Anything would do, anything to affirm Leo was there in their hands, that those tears still had life in them.
'This isn't just a cruel trick, is it?'
"I'm okay," Leo said at last, cautious. "Why are you here?"
“What are you talking about?” Pulse sounded insulted. “We said we'd come back for you, didn't we?”
“But here? Aren't you supposed to be–”
"We are supposed to be with you," Quark wouldn't let her finish. "Don't worry about the small details, okay? We can discuss it later, but we are getting you out of here."
'Out to where?'
“I can't. I can't leave.”
"Leo," Pulse was firmly sincere. Even as they held her face, staring into her eyes, their light didn't blind her in a way that hurt. "You can leave. And we are here to help with that."
“No, you don't understand, I'm stuck here.”
“Stuck?”
“Look under the sheets.”
Quark and Pulse were hesitant. Confused but most of all alarmed. They peeled back the sheets.
The mattress had sprouted stone tentacles, embedding into her flesh, knitting her to the springs and the base.
It wrapped and threaded around and through her feet, her toes, twisting and braiding into her skin.
It had started to burgeon up into her ankles before they arrived.
That fleeting moment of hope Leo felt, seeing her stars, curtailed the growth.
She knew better than to keep her grasp on that hope.
Life taught her many times why she shouldn't.
“It's okay, we can get you out,” Pulse assures.
“Pulse...”
“We got you, Leo. We will not leave you here. Quark–”
“Hang on,” Quark was quick to interject. “I know what you're thinking.”
"You can do it. You're the best one for the job."
“But you're so much stronger–”
“And bigger. I don't have nimble fingers like you. I'd do more harm than good. Believe in yourself here, okay? I know you can do this.”
Leo became increasingly nervous over the implication. "You're not telling him to pry the stone out, are you?"
"We can't haul the entire mattress with us. It's the only thing we can do."
Their hands nearly engulfed her entire head and were hot against her cheeks.
They used their thumb to brush away a tear before it fell down her cheek.
"We got you. I'll hold you while we do this.
Bite my arm if you need to, because it will hurt.
I promise afterward we can get you out of here, and then you have us.
You have us for as long as you want and need us.”
She always wanted them. Leo always needed someone there. “I don't want to hurt you, Pulse.”
"I can handle it For you, I will deal with whatever you throw at me, but we need to get you out of this place. Okay?"
Pulse sat behind Leo and put their arm around her shoulders. Their forearm primed for the full bite force of a cornered lion.
As he chewed on his lower lip, Quark examined her feet and planned out the first step.
He stalled while feeling the vines with the tips of his fingers.
Leo could hear him trying to calm and quiet his breathing.
She could see the uncertainty in his eyes.
She saw the thoughts in his head, the worry, the doubt, and the anxiety.
"It's okay," Pulse said to both of them. "It's going to be okay."
The night was short. Even if Leo couldn't imagine how her stars perceived time, she knew her night was supposed to end soon. The events of her previous day made it a late end. One stressful moment leading to the next dreadful event. One mishap, one more headache…
She could have told them. As Quark began to pull the thinner rocks out of her feet, she could have said all they needed to do was wait for the night to end.
Even as he carefully separated the stone from her tendons, instead of telling him to stop, she bit into Pulse's arm.
The pain was unequivocal physically. Blood rushed out of the fresh holes in her soles, and she screamed into Pulse's arm as her teeth tore through their jacket and into their flesh.
Magenta blood coated her teeth, tasting spicy and sweet.
It made her sick for a myriad of reasons.
All she had to do was tell them to stop. Her stars would have listened. They didn't know her nightmare would end once her alarm went off in 5 hours, and it'd be over. It was the easiest and the most logically sound solution.
But she needed them to do this.
Why did she feel the need to suffer to test them?
She asked herself a dozen times while Quark pulled out the last vines from her legs, finally freeing her.
The test she gave, which everyone before had failed deliberately and consistently, Pulse and Quark passed with flying, vivid colors.
While she sobbed and hissed and wavered, they held her.
They kept their promise. They came back.
They were here, where not even Ruin dared to go when he was a star, and they held her.
They cried with her and wiped away her tears before worrying about the blood on their bodies; kissing away the last shimmers of doubt to replace it with certainty.
They came back for her. And they stayed.
"You did it!" Pulse's tears glimmered like hot glass. "You did it! We are so proud of you, Leo."
It was a beautiful statement. How could something so lovely hurt so much?
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Leo said. She began apologizing for everything the stars didn't know about.
"We got you, we got you." Pulse took off their jacket to cover Leo's feet. Why, Leo thought, would they worry about her still while their blood dripped off their elbow?
Quark pressed his lips to Leo's, and she could taste something familiar on his lips. "C'mon, let's get out of here."
'We can't. There is no way out. There never was.'
Again, she wanted to be proved wrong. She wanted Pulse to scoop her in their arms—which they did—and carry her. She wanted Quarks' sweater wrapped around her bleeding feet. Even though she needed to warn them about the inevitable, foolishly, she wanted to be wrong.
Like every time before, the Lonely Liminal Labyrinth came to fruition. Identical, infinitely mirroring hallways awaited them outside the doors. White on White. Brick by brick. The signs were gone. The groans of her warped memories slithered around the corners.
"Guys, we can't..." Leo began but trailed into silence. 'I want to be wrong.'
Quark took the initiative when Pulse became dismayed. "I got this, follow me."
Leo couldn't tell what Quark was noticing that she never could, how he looked down separate halls and deduced the right path to go. 'I want to be wrong.'
Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, her cheeks pale and cold, so Pulse filled her ear with their voice. "Stay with us, okay? We're going to make it."
"I don't know, Pulse... I have never been able to."
“You never had us before. We got this.”
'I want to be wrong.' How many times did she hope for someone to stay, to be wrong then?
“C'mon Leo,” Pulse squeezed her when she was silent for a moment too long. “Talk to me. Stay with me, please.”
'They're right. I need to focus.' The moans and shuffles of trauma hid around the corners. Quark would mouth a curse and change course. It was taking too long. How much blood has she lost, now?
'I don't want to see those things. I never want to see them again.'
"Say something, please?" Pulse begged. "We can talk about anything you want. But I want you to talk."
Words escaped her. It was only images and the stomach-rotting ulcers of worry.
If she could have, she would have mentioned the weather.
Anything mundane would have sufficed. Any amalgamation or word salad would be enough.
But there were only memories, surfacing repression she swallowed like bile for too many years.
“I think I want to talk about this place...”
“Leo, if you don't want–”
“But I do. It's time I talk about the river. The bridge. About Moria.”
Pulse had a flash of morbid curiosity. “Moria?”
It took way too much effort to nod her head. “Yes, she was my childhood friend until I was 15.”
"What happened?"
"We grew up together. Since second grade, I considered Moria my number-one; my partner in crime. Both our families had some status in our little town in some yee-haw part of Michigan. Moria's family, though, had more influence, whereas my family didn't. Her mom and dad were nice people,
owned a few businesses, and were expanding out. I always believed my parents were jealous. So they would schmooze them, flatter their egos so they could have a part of that influence."
Yeah, it's all flooding over her.
"I always felt like my parents were crestfallen about my existence. I don't get what I did wrong when I was born, but they were so reluctant to do anything for me outside the legally necessary. I was more of a chore than a child.
"Growing up, I loved books. There is this one by my favorite author—her magnum opus, to be made into a limited edition before her official retirement.
Let me tell you, it was a hefty penny, more than any 15-year-old could hope to earn on their own.
I begged Mom and Dad for weeks to let me have that book.
I always got those kinds that they sold in the checkout area of grocery stores, but surprisingly, maybe thinking it shut me up for a few years, they got me the book.
"Moria was always confused about why I loved reading so much. She wanted to hang out one day with me, and another girl she was getting along well with at the time went to the bridge in the state park. For two weeks, it had rained non-stop.
"I knew Moria and I were slowly drifting apart. She was developing interests different from mine, which led her to hang out with different people, and I was the same old Leonora.