And Then He Smiled (Logicality)

Chapter 24 - Small Slips Back

Trigger Warning: Flashback, Mention of an abusive relationship, insomia mention, paranoia mention, trama mention.

Today he was considering something.

Considering what? You may ask. Well, you'll find that out eventually, but for now, wait. Sorry.

It was a lonely morning when Logan woke up. The eerie silence of the ac errupted throughout the apartment. It slammed itself off of every nook and cranny of the walls and cracks. Breathing into the room, the noise of the city and roads. The squeaking of the tires as they braked at the lights. But he was only alone.

Loved ones were out at school and left nothing but the dirty breakfast bowls in the sink. Smells of them lingered in the apartment before they'd inevitably disperse. The comforting sound of another in the house had abandoned him with his thoughts. Not intentionally, of course. But it didn't prevent the wave of loneliness that drowned him that day.

It was particularly unsual. He never felt lonely without them there. However it was too quiet to ignore.

Focusing was another endeavor. The voices of whoever drained into each other in a blur of white noise, well, today it did anyway. Logan couldn't understand it and he understood most things. Well apart from this.

When his mind wandered away from him, it usually went to her. His mother, Athena. He thought he was over it so many times, it's been 24 years and yet he still feels this way. Every so often he just...slips.

He slips back into those days. Those days of nothing but noise. Just noise. Just the sound of the light shower. The dark patches. The exposed sun. The school day. The knocks on the stores door. Back to the days where he ignored it all as he waited.

The days when the day passed by painfully slow as he laid alone on the cold floor in the dark with the blinds drawn.

Where the sun rose again. The wind blew continuously. The birds chirped endlessly. The cars drove by loudly. The people talked loudly. The boiler mumbled.

When the sun settled down in bed once again as the moon woke to greet the night again. The stars shone. The clouds took center stage. The sun rose again and so did Logan.

When everything was just at peace. When the day went by. The time continued as it always did. Creatures lived and died as they always did. When nothing changed but always did.

His mind was fogged in a hopeless dazeful trance.

Soon his mind drifted into a world of dreams. Then reawoke as the poor boy that sat there, sleeping againest the bookshelf and door. The poor boy that sat there, asleep, alone in that house, unaware of no one that would come back. It was pitiful. At least that was what Logan thought of that day.

He thought he was pathetic, he thought he was pitiful and stupid.

The dryness of his dehydrated skin clasped into his brain. The tastless tongue that laid in his mouth lay back there once more. A sea of emotions dragged him away with the tide into a sea of monster. His monsters.

Then he was back in the apartment.

His skin loosened itself with health and water. His tongue tasted like the dinner last night. His eyes weren't as wet as they were that night. They were almost dry, but not quite.

He took a prolonged breath through his nose, and then let it go through his mouth like his clenched jaw. He smiled as he though of the women who raised him for the younger years.

She had beautiful long, brown hair and brown eyes. Freckles covered a large ammount of her face just like her son. A God sent people used to say. She was. Well in her son's eyes that were clouded by grief at such a young age. She was indeed kind, gorgeous, but she wasn't perfect. Logan wouldn't go as far to insult his mother, but he couldn't ignore her obvious issues.

She'd suffered too long in a seriously abusive relationship with his father. The relationship however was long dead, it died with her. Insomia danced with her every night in a reverie of the past in the lit up palace of his shadow. Trama crept around every corner, watching them from afar. It hid away from the candle light of Insomnia's co-worker, paranoia. Who knows what would happen if she stopped twirling with his rhythm of the night?

She passed out several times a month from exhaustion. That's what happened when her feet got tired of the tune.

Exhaustion took control of her mind. Everything was like a daydream of pain and suffering. One day she just...shut down. She shut down mentally. She was like a phantom, floating through the house. Shoes no longer made any noise as she walked past. A draft shivered past the customers as she smiled with a transparent face.

It felt fake.

But that day, she snapped back out her hypnotised state. It was...

And so did he.

He was back.

The light still poured through the apartment window. The TV still rambled on. The AC still murmured it's breeze through the house. Everything was alright.

Being alone was draining, mentally. Distractions kept his mind from leaving the safe skull of his head. When you remove them, well, it wanders.

He thought back to a few days ago. The day Patton described him. The way he lovingly approached him with what he believed was honesty. It was. Curiousity was something that Logan was known for, so he couldn't help but wonder. What did he look like to himself?

Would he be someone completely different to the man Patton had described to him? What if....

Patton could help though.

Last time was a...hard time for him.

Smashing mirrors and screaming wasn't exactly something he needed with them around. He could scare them. He didn't want that. Logan didn't want to be like him.

Maybe a small peak for today would be...good?

His legs trembled as his mind comanded for them to move. They didn't. His clenched fist crushed its fingers in the new formed sweat. Another time, he told himself to get up.

He stood up.

The tv was turned off, leaving him in silence. Might have been a bad idea. Well that's what Logan thought the moment he turned it off.

His feet began walking themselves through the house. Past the pictures of Yvette, after one year of Patton adopting her. A framed selfie of him and Patton when they went to the zoo, Yvette was too busy looking at the giraffes nearby. A selfie of Roman, Remus and Patton, of course Remus was forced in the photo, it was cute though. An old photo of Virgil and Logan from his teenage years, they were beaten to a pulp the other day but they still smiled. Patton's parents hung next to a picture of Athena, Logan's mother. Even Emile was on the wall with him and Virgil.

Then there was the door. The bathroom door stood in front of him. Almost looming above. Just barely. The pastey white tone of it's face stared down at him with a empty face. It's silver hand reached out to him, twisting his mind, his impulses.

His hand almost had a mind of its own as it reached out for it.

He sighed quietly as the ghosts haunting his mind disappeared as he shook the door's hand. The fog in his mind lifted briefly. The world fell upon his shoulders loudly as the door handle twisted.

The water the monsters thrived in, drained itself, as did the colour in his face.

The pale whiteness highlighted his freckles that screamed out as the door opened to the room.

He walked in.

Then turned towards the mirror.

Eyes locked shut soon opened themselves. And there he saw...

End Of Chapter. 1328 Words.