"Oh my god, are you alright?"
Julian was abruptly broken from his vengeful plotting by a young woman's high-pitched shriek, her yellow petticoat and sun hat perfectly framing her slender figure as she came up down the lobby. Her fair blue eyes were shimmering with open concern as she approached the confused boy, her ivory fingers gently caressing his shoulders as though she were offering a lifeline. "We have to get you to a clinic right away! You're bleeding!"
What.
Julian was about to ask the lady what the heck she was talking about as reached back and touched the back of his head. Any words that were about to form died out, however, when he felt something sticky and warm dribbling past his fingertips. With an abrupt flinch, he immediately pulled back his hand as though he had touched a smoldering iron and held it right in front of him. The moment he saw the streaks of red that now adorned his fingers, he completely shut down, his body standing motionless as the image burned itself into his mind.
Oh. He was bleeding. He actually was bleeding.
Joseph had never caused him to bleed before.
"Come one, I'm going to take you to the nearest one! It should be right down the hall!"
Julian didn't object as he was dragged by the arm towards the clinic, his legs stumbling forward on their own like concrete milestones. For the rest of the way, all he could think about was the feeling of viscous liquid dribbling through his fingers, and the sight of crimson stains turning brown under the unforgiving light of the hotel lobby.
~~~
Numb.
That was the only word Julian could use to describe how he felt as he laid down on the examination chair, the feeling of crumpled white parchment paper the only thing that was keeping him tethered to this world. He didn't recall much of what had happened after he had been brought here - given that his head was now covered by reams of spiral bandages, the doctor must have already treated and dressed his wound. Since there didn't appear to be anyone in the desolate sterile void of a room, chances were that he or she probably ran off to find some prescriptions for him. Most likely, it was for some painkillers, just in case his head injury decided to act up later down the line...
The boy once more touched the area where the bandages had been applied, the dull pain a sobering reminder of the past several minutes. He still couldn't quite bring himself to believe that he had actually been bleeding back there, and he didn't even notice.
He...he must have been in shock. That was the only reason he could think of as to why he didn't notice that he had a goddamn head wound.
All because of Joseph.
Julian had no idea where things would go from there. After the doctor came back, they would most likely go call his parents, assuming that they hadn't already. He could already hear the mix of outrage and concern in their voices as they heard that their little boy was at the clinic, their high-pitched yells reverberated across the bare white walls of this tiny room as they discovered just why he was there to begin with. If nothing else, his parents were sure to ground his brothers for life for putting him in the infirmary.
But that wasn't enough for him.
They... his brothers had gone too far this time. Sure, they were dicks. He knew that, they knew that, there was no one who ever thought otherwise. They always went out of their way to push him around or get on his nerves, and he wasn't shy about returning the favor, either. That had been their status quo for as long as he could remember. But never in a million years could have ever believed that they would go so far as to make him bleed. If it hadn't been for luck or God or whatever, Joseph could have killed him that time, throwing him that hard against the wall. What if there had been a spike there or something like that?
And he knew they weren't going to stop. Every time they'd pick on him, for the past several years, it was always the same song and dance. They would cross a line that they hadn't before, they'd act all conflicted and concerned about it, and before long it would become just another regular, everyday tool that they'd use to make his life that extra bit more miserable. It didn't matter how many times their parents chastised them, or how many times they'd apologize to him for going too far, it always ended the same way. Now that Joseph had tasted blood, the others were almost certainly going to start pushing their luck even harder than before. If he didn't stop them right, it would only be a matter of time before... before...!
He didn't know how, but one moment he was lying down on the examination chair, and the next his feet were firmly planted on the cold marble, his chest heaving and panting as his eyes darted around to every corner of the endless white void that was this godforsaken clinic.
He... he needed them to pay. Right now. He didn't care about laying any traps anymore. They... they just had to suffer! He didn't care how, they just had to! He had to make sure that this never happened again!
The only thing was, he had no idea what to do. He still had the medallion on him, but everything felt so hazy. The walls were bleeding together in an indistinguishable blend of sterile white and grey. A strange high-pitched beep was drilling its way through his ears. His mouth tasted of copper and iron mixed together with strawberries.
He tried his best to form words, to move his arms, to do anything, but nothing happened. He just stood where he was, paralyzed. He... he couldn't focus! No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts were nothing but a confused, jumbled mess. The only thing he knew for sure was that he needed to do something, anything to make this stop! He needed to make sure that he punished his brothers before he ended up doing something that he would end up regretting even more. And so, he did the first thing that came to his mind:
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