【 No place for a hero 】

                                    

                                              
💋 Chapter I
                          
For a time, it was only Percy. Day in and day out, kicking around in his cell. Hours faded like the green dye of his hair and he bounced between every cell block like a kid after a ball. That's precisely what he was. Watching him play, hearing him speak, it was easy to forget how much shit he talked, just how far he could spit, and just how low he could kick. But he was a kid.
                          
They walked along with him, the nurse and the warden, his case worker that he called Blondie, flanking him all the while like two mothers leading a child through an overcrowded shopping mall. In his mind, he was miles beyond his years; an old soul, so to speak. He thought he had been everywhere, done everything, Dunning and Kruger be damned. 
                          
Physically, however, he was still quite young; Percy found himself in the hole when he was just fourteen. It's here that he finished school with the help of a tutor. It was here in the prison mess hall that he'd learn to sing, to tie his shoes. It was behind barred windows that he'd watch all his early morning cartoons. It was also here, in prison, that he lived out all his angst and teen rebellion. For every kick he landed, every lunch tray he sent flying, for every hand that he bit, he was to be punished with chores. Chores upon chores upon chores. 
                          
Standing alone in a big sealed room with a wet rag in one hand and bucket in the other, he'd long lost his sensitivity to the smell of harsh cleaning chemicals, to the feel of dirt encrusted along his fingernails. Ever and always, Percy was exhausted before he even got to work.
                          
The only days he went without folding laundry, without washing dishes, or having mopped floors, were the days he bodily struck them. Froth bubbling up from the back of his throat as he convulsed in his seizures. Time and time again, he'd listened to the serious lectures about skipping his methadone and the affects it had on his health. In one ear and out the other as it took him days to recuperate his strength after each episode, lying still in the long hours of malaise. 
                          
He never imagined it would all be behind him. But it was. When his time was up, after all the paperwork, after all the court hearings, and the sitting and waiting, Percy left what had been his home of four years. His eighteenth birthday had come and gone, and he was leaving prison then nineteen, convinced he was ready to take on the world and that there would be no looking back.


                          
"And you're sure they're on their way?" The doorman asked. His tone by then held a drone of concern. He was unlocking the gates and leading Percy to the front of the station. 


                          
"Yeh, should be right now."  Percy was checking his phone after he and the device were at last reunited from its stay in the safety deposit box. It had been returned to him along with his clothes, his wallet, his passport. What lot of good any of it did; he had no money other than the small sum the system provided him with and his clothes from four years prior just barely fit, offering virtually no protection from the cold. His phone had charged for all of a minute before they walked him outside and left him there, flabbergasted and with just fifteen percent battery. "I'll call 'em again" he said, if only to ease the concerns of the lingering doorman. 


                          
What harm could it do? His family had been contacted many times about this, about arranging a place for him to stay. And although his family had never explicitly discussed their plans with him, his mother had signed all of the paperwork for his release. Surely then, he thought, she was on her way. It was Tuesday, November fifteenth, 2 PM. Ever since those words first graced his ears, he had waited for this moment with bated breath. The sound of the date itself was practically musical to him. How could anyone forget? His hard earned freedom, his very life, he felt, depended on this moment. Even still, he felt a pang of hesitation take hold as he lingered on the contact for his mother.