Crimson's Prophecy

A sudden plan

One week passed in which Crimson tried as hard as he could to get his thoughts back in the right order. His expectations to succeed at this task were low and that might have been one of the reasons why he in fact still couldn't understand.

Moreover, Gerald and Joanne were more polite to him than ever before. Of course he asked them what was going on and of course they didn't explain it to him. Unlike in most other cases though, this time they didn't just ignore him but tried to find an answer - not one which told the whole truth, but it was another step in the right direction for Crimson either way.

"See, son, we really didn't want to behave to you in the way we have in the past. Quite the contrary, we are proud of having a son like you," his father had said.

The young man only believed a tiny bit of what he was told, having Lilith's words in the back of his mind - if he hadn't talked with her he wouldnt believe anything of what his father said. Joanne and Gerald were happy to have him, in most cases they just couldn't show that to him. Everything Crimson couldn't do was to accept that - and to believe it completely. He deserved to live a life just like anyone else - which is what he apparently got in the moment. It was like an achievement for him, something that pushed him forward. That was the direction he wanted to go.

Lilith wasn't there most of the time. She was outside, "meeting with friends", as she said, although Crimson always had had his doubts that she told the truth right there. After their conversation his opinion about her had changed though. Still, Lilith was gone more often and that just had to have another reason Crimson should probably never find out about.

To be fair, being at home wasn't all that interesting. The house wasn't that big, it didn't even have a basement but only a first and second floor. Six rooms in total, and one of them was the bathroom, one the kitchen and dining room which were directly connected to each other, and another room where Gerald kept his weapons. Crimson never dared to worry about it because the last time he did he lay half dead on the floor after Joanne and Gerald alternatingly hit him on his back and chest. The other three rooms belonged to Lilith in the second floor, the parents and Crimson himself. They also had a garden with a size of ten square feet, so that made it pretty useless.

This one chance Crimson got to ask his sister personally what was going on she ignored him. The tables have turned, the abused son thought, then realizing that noticing that wouldn't help him to figure out what was going on.

So the time passed. Gerald and Joanne allowed Crimson to go outside more often, that's another thing that had changed. They didn't let him out for more than one hour in a row though, meaning he had no chances to visit Andrew. When he was there last time, his parents didn't want to know where he had been after Gerald had beaten him up - that was unusual, too. In other cases he had come up with some excuses, mostly ridiculous ones which his parents never believed. They said they knew he told the truth when he hadn't because what they actually knew was that he told his lies all the time and they'd never be able to change that. At some point you just have to let go, Joanne once had convinced Gerald to loosen his grip around his son's neck so that he could breathe again. Those times had passed by now, it seemed.

When Crimson was outside he tried to figure out how to use the Walkie Talkie. Maybe Joanne had seen it without saying anything. She usually checked on things like that and punished him if she - or the creature controlling her - thought it was necessary.

He held the device in his right hand. It was black and almost shaped like a cube if it didn't have the antenna and its rounded off edges - and the three buttons. One of them was yellow, the other two were black. He pushed each of them a couple of times until he concluded that nothing would happen. The small screen didn't turn on and that's what it's supposed to do, if Crimson recalled correctly what Andrew once had told him about TVs and similar devices.

As he went back, the Walkie Talkie started to vibrate for a couple of seconds.

"Hello? Who am I talking to?" Andrew's voice came out of the loudspeaker.

Crimson pressed the yellow button, not sure at first if he'd be heard. "Who do you think it is?" He was annoyed by the question of his friend.

That didn't seem to bother the person speaking through the Walkie Talkie though. "Is anyone standing near you who shouldn't listen to us talking?"

"What do you think, Andrew?"

"You never know," Crimson heard him say in return.

"What do you want to tell me?"

"Just that I made some progress in planning your escape. I gave you the Walkie Talkie to keep you up to date about that, remember? Anyway, in exactly one week from now on I expect you to be at the other side of the forest. You once told me about the place where your great-grandfather ate other humans. That's the place I'm talking about. Can you be there? You'd have to run a little if you don't want your parents to wonder where you..."

"First of all, I want to know more details about this escape," Crimson interrupted. "Second of all, Lilith entrusted me with everything she thought I should know about the Cult."

"She what?" The college student apparently fell silent. Crimson couldn't hear him anymore, anyway.

"Hey, Andrew?" Five seconds later he still didn't hear anything from the other side. "Andrew?"

"Come to the forest immediately, Crimson. You just have to trust me on this "

"You know I won't do that. I can't trust anyone in my life, did you forget about that? Actually, there are a few more things I got to tell you which have changed in the past weeks since we last..." One eye-blink later the abused young man figured that what he said didn't quite make sense: He believed he couldn't trust Andrew, but wanted to tell him something very important about what recently had changed in his life. So didn't that mean he trusted him nonetheless? "I can tell you some things about me, but why should I go to the forest in this very moment?"

"Do it and I'll explain everything later. Is that a deal?"

Crimson didn't hesitate a second. "No," he said with all of the little confidence he had.

"Come on, man," Andrew persisted. "There's something your sister didn't tell you, I believe. It's that as soon as you talk about the Cult with the purpose of protecting yourself or anyone else from it in any way the creatures will come at most three or four weeks later to earth to take the lives of the ones who acted as whistleblowers - that's what people like your sister are for the Kathrenian universe. You have heard about that then too, haven't you? This world of creatures, I mean."

Crimson nodded.

"Haven't you?"

He was lost in thoughts, now came back to the ground with his mind though. He reminded himself to press the yellow button on his small gadget. "Yes, yes, I have. Will they kill Lilith?"

"They will for sure try and chances unfortunately are high that she won't survive."

There was silence. It had happened lots of times that they both didn't say anything for a while.

"What are you planning to do, Crimson?" Andrew asked - but didn't receive an answer.

His friend let the Walkie Talkie fall and ran towards him as fast as he could. Later Crimson wouldn't be able to explain what kept him going. Maybe it was his will to live and he just hoped to save it by getting to the other side at his highest pace to meet Andrew, to... That's already when he couldn't say what happened next, but Crimson didn't care. He cared more about his own life than about his sister's Was that selfish? He didn't know and he didn't think all that much about it but ran and ran...

...into the forest. Further and further, along the path made of soil and flat pieces of stone. The birds twittered and the trees stood crisscross as always. Peace wasn't that far from here, right?