Crimson's Prophecy

An unexpected offer

This one day when he couldn't stop crying because his father had beat him - it came back to his mind as if it had happened yesterday, feeling all the pain no one ever deserved to feel. Crimson often asked himself why he had to grow up in such a family where he was ignored. His parents had never listened to him when he had needed their help most. Unfortunately, Crimson's sister and his uncle behaved in the same way. Those people were the only ones he was in contact with until he turned sixteen.

Andrew was his age. He was the one Crimson always looked up to. The one who had everything and didn't have to worry about stealing food because of not getting enough on his own. Crimson had some experience with doing something illegal. Not that he had had lots of chances to leave the house where his family lived, but whenever he did he tried to steal something small from the supermarket his parents often went to. Something like a chocolate bar sothat the ones who were supposed to take care of him didn't notice what he had done. He seemed to be so innocent with his short, brown hair, anyway, so also the cashiers never recognized when he had stolen something.

That was - more or less - when it all had started to get worse. Only five years ago Gerald had told his son something that was normal, Crimson thought back then: We allow you to use violence if necessary. Gerald never had explained the "if necessary" part to him, but how Crimson understood it was that he could hurt other people basically whenever he wanted - if only he got in contact with them. Whenever Crimson wanted to know why the things that were happening in his life were actually happening his parents answered: We're part of the Cult. That's what we grew up in and you have to accept it 'cause there's no chance for anyone born into it who can escape and survive. It was something you had to live with, no matter how hard you tried to avoid it. When Crimson had realized that there were those couple of hours his parents gave him to be free and not to be surveiled - when they had decided that it was acceptable for them that he could see the world on his own. Crimson had gone outside to a park where he passed the pain he had felt in his life on to a man in his 50s: His hands had clenched around the neck of the other person and they hadn't allowed the man to breathe until he just had fallen down on a small, soft garden in the park. Whether or not he was dead, Crimson never found out, but it didn't matter to him anyway.

Andrew apparently never was forced by his environment to such vicious actions. The first time Crimson and him had met they actually hadn't come along that well. They were too different, they both had thought, until Crimson just had started to tell his story. Everything he had suffered from in his life so far. Everything he was able to remember since his parents also made him forget the really painful experiences sometimes. A couple years ago it was when Crimson just needed someone other than his family to talk to. His parents allowed him to go outside and so he did. Inspired by the story of his uncle Barthen he wanted to find the forest behind Andrew's appartment. His fathers' brother had once said something really unique about again his grandfather who had kidnapped other people, brought them to the forest, made a fire and had eaten their tasty flesh. Those at least were the words Barthen had used when he had told Crimson about it.

The two young men met in Andrew's apartment where he lived alone. It was tidy, there were no weapons lying on the floor, no window broken and unrepaired, as well as no bloody baseball bat hanging from a hook in the hallway as Crimson knew it from home. Before the young man had visited Andrew, he obviously hadn't known a diffrent way of living in general, let alone such a peaceful way. When he had called it "peaceful" in Andrew's presence that one just shook his head in confusion; he associated something else with that word.

By now Crimson had escaped from home a couple dozen times. To be fair, you couldn't really call it an escape because his parents had allowed him to go out only those few years ago. They knew nothing about Andrew though. Crimson had a feeling that would change and when it did he would feel pain again. That's the reason why he just didn't dare to think about it.