Lev, please.

Release me, let me out of here.

I need to be free, Lev Volkov.

LET ME OUT!

His eyes snapped open. Lev did not remember falling asleep, actually, he remembers trying his hardest to stay awake. Apparently, he failed.

The papers before him were drooled on and so Lev took some time to lay them flat on his desk and fan his hands at them. His eyes felt like they were going to close again but Lev refused them that satisfaction.

He was sick and tired of that woman screaming in his head about being let out. It was just too much harassment.

Lev had finally given up on drying the maths completely and instead lay a dictionary over the two pages and hoped it would squish the papers down so they didn't curl. He sat down on his bed, pulling out the book he had been reading If We Were Villains.

Continuing on in the novel, he began to drift off again and again, only stopping sleep by pinching his wrist with his own short fingernails.

Eventually, when the typed letters on the page began to bleed into each other, Lev's phone began to chime. His alarm. It was finally time to start his day.

-

-

-

School was just as boring and lonely as it had always been. Lev was, however, surprised by Dahlia and her brother arriving at school in two separate vehicles. In terms of high school drama, this was big news.

At lunch, Lev did what he always did and made his way to the stairwell near the music room. It was a safe haven for loners and people who didn't have or want to be part of a group of friends. Lev was a little bit of both, he had no intention of making friends but he sure wished, sometimes, that someone would want to be his friend.

He walked past Brand McConahaigh and his chicken and cheese sandwich, past the two goth girls that usually hung by the opening to the music room, Alyvia and Ellianna. Lev finally ended up right where he had wanted to be, in the music room.

It was a pretty big room and a few kids were in there eating or fooling around with the drums but Lev had his own little corner.

It was by a large window and all that was there was a single blue folding chair. Lev sat down, pulling his guitar out of its case.

Tuning it was an almost herculean effort, the strings so brittle that Lev was always worried he would twist the pegs too far and the strings would snap under his fingers. But they didn't, they never snapped.

Maybe that was a metaphor? For Lev and his life, something about how he had gone through so much but never snapped.

Huh? Oh, he had fallen asleep for a moment. That probably wasn't good.

Lev sighed, ignoring his slip into sleep, and began to pluck quietly at his guitar. It, as every song he tries to play does, turned into an acoustic version of the song Rainbow Reflection.

There was nothing special about that song, it just was the most noticeable banjo riff that Lev had learned from one of his Dads when he was young. His Dad was a fantastic banjo player, before everything happened Lev and his dad would sit together on the porch and play the banjo and guitar together.

Lev could feel his eyes closing and so he made sure to pay special attention to the way his fingers moved against the strings.

-

-

-

"Lev!" a voice called as he began to walk out of the school building and towards his apartment.

He turned around, noticing Rue Miller's head sticking out of her window as the car rolled beside him. "Yes?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted a ride home?" Rue asked, her voice a nice crisp sound. "I mean, we're going in the same direction."

It was nice of her but Lev wasn't sure he wanted to spend time with Rue Miller in a car for any more than 30 seconds. "I'm fine," Lev said, continuing to walk.

Rue sighed, moving forward with him as he walked. "Are you sure? You look tired, Volkov."

"Leave me alone, please." Lev kept walking, not wanting to be rude but being too tired to care.

"Come on," Rue shouted out as he began walking faster. "Are you really going to do this?"

It seemed as if he was. Lev's legs began to move faster but not breaking into a run. He was too tired to run and his guitar case was too heavy to run with.

"You look like you're going to keel over!" Rue shouted, her voice flat. "That would be super embarrassing and, like, totally ruin your reputation!"

He stopped, her points were dumb but Lev couldn't give a shit. He was tired, he was actually cranky, and his guitar weighed way too fucking much.

"Fine." He waited until her car stopped and walked around it, fitting his guitar and backpack in the backseat. Sitting down in the front seat, Lev allowed himself to relax, even for a moment. He knew he couldn't sleep but it was nice to relax for even a few seconds.

Rue began to drive off in the direction of their apartment building. "So, you seem really exhausted, Volkov. What's that about?"

Lev sighed, and shook his head, not wanting to talk to his neighbour about this. Because, really, what reason did he have to tell Rue Miller?

"Why should I tell you?" He didn't say it rudely, just softly and with confusion.

Rue shrugged, putting on her blinker to enter the parking lot. "I know a lot of ways to go to sleep. I'm also pretty good at confronting nightmares if you need any help with that."

"I'm good," Lev said, unbuckling himself from the seat and getting out of the car. He walked around the car and grabbed his guitar and backpack. "Thank you, Miller."

"Yeah," She said, turning the car off and exiting, grabbing her bag from the floor in the back.

He didn't wait for them, moving towards the building and unlocking the door.

Lev didn't want to be stuck in the elevator with Rue Miller but the teen zoomed in and got herself between the doors and was somehow in the elevator with him.

"You know what would be cool," Rue said, her voice so flat. "If you told me what was wrong so we could work on it."

"No."

Rue rolled her eyes, "Seriously? Come on, tell me about the voice in your dreams!"

She froze. He froze. They stared at each other.

"You know about the voice?"