Prologue.
And as the last breath draws into the middle aged painter’s lungs, he collapses, paintbrush dipped in red clatters to the floor, staining the carpet, staining it as did his blood. It shouldn’t have ended this way, not like this! What did he ever do? He was just painting on this rainy summer’s night, a graveyard dotted by twisted dead trees, a mother and father kneeling over a small grave, the grave of their daughter. Though the scene reflected coldness, the colours were warm, the soft earth a deep brown and the mother’s hair a fiery red.
Oh, his life was this fiery red!
His passion and love burned like this fiery red, his love for painting, his love for his small but beautiful family, his love for his life. He was the sun, and his warm smile ignited and lit a bright path for his family.
Now this red is rusted and dead, the snow white carpet was stained with this sign, the sign of the end... or was it the beginning?
Now, for some, it was the beginning.
Chapter one.
Madeline stood in a sea of people, a red dot in a sea of mourners. she stood out, and sometimes she hated that. why did she have red hair? of the two percent of people on the planet that suffer this fate.... she was one of them. Her black dress was scratchy, and her black boots were too small. She was at her uncle Eric’s funeral. He was an awesome guy. He was her sun. He was her family. Though a small family, her and Eric, a warm and loving family; Madeleine's parents abandoned her thirteen days after her arrival, and uncle Eric took her in. they lived in an old house on an old street in a new part of town, where Madeleine attended a local school which wasn’t in her area. Now it’s late august, and everything, even the black, seemed like a warm colour. Everything seemed… red.
Red…
It was Madeline that found her uncle dead the next morning; she woke up, turned on the stereo, and with the sex pistols blaring in the background, a bowl of cereal in her hand, she walked into her uncle’s little studio. The sky turned grey.
That warm light that brightened her grey existence was extinguished. There was no more warmth, no more light. No more of that fiery red. Everything was grey now, everything has died. There was no more. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the grey that now engulfed her surroundings, replacing the bright, lively colours that used to surround her.
And the only thing she could do was laugh.
When someone murders your family…
The sea of people around her didn’t know that though, all they know is that Eric turner was stabbed from the back at around midnight while he was painting. No one knows who did it, no one knows.
Hah, a bunch of assfucks.
“We are all gathered here today, to honor the death of Eric Richard Turner…”
The funeral director, Mr. Williams, an old man that looked of a vulture, perched above the crowd, proceeded to say some stuff about ashes and death. It appeared that no one was listening.
The casket was lowered into the ground, and everyone tossed in a shovelful of dirt. Madeline thought everyone enjoyed this part too much.
Eric was a good uncle and caretaker. he was such a goofball, had a good attitude towards even the worst in life. He’d be very serious around other adults, but Madeline always caught those half-winks and smiles he threw her way when no one else was looking. He’d spend many a long nights in his studio, but still be very energetic in the morning anyhow. he brightened any day, and lit up the room better than any other middle-aged man wearing a checkered slacks Madeline ever knew. he’d be missed.
