Crimson's Prophecy

Chest knives

At some point it started to get harder for Crimson to run. He thought it was his bad stamina. He hadn't trained for this. Not that the way was long, but one and a half miles were something for someone who hadn't really ran at all in life.

It didn't take the young man long to figure that his legs didn't have to do anything with him being pulled back... Yeah, that's right, he literally started to get pulled back by some sort of power. Maybe it was his curse after all.

The problem was, it didn't stop. For a moment Crimson thought he ran backwards. Then he suddenly reappeared in the dining room of one of the few houses he knew - it was called home in this case. There they were: Lilith, Gerald, Joanne and him, them all sitting at the table like they had mostly done when Lilith had been younger and hadn't been out of the house that much spending her time with friends and going out with them to eat at a restaurant. They were all smiling, only Crimson was motionless and therefore didn't fit in the picture.

"We're happy to have you here, son," Gerald repeated what he had told the younger man quite often in the past few weeks since Lilith had explained every piece of information about the Cult which she wanted to pass on to Crimson. "The creatures dragged you back in time and space and now you're here to celebrate life with us. That will be a few minutes before we depart."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Silence. So they decided to ignore him as they had done his whole life long basically. That wasn't anything new and that's why it made it easier for him to stick with it - only a bit easier though because he'd never get used to it.

"We should tell him now," Joanne suggested and looked first at her husband, then at her daughter. Mostly it was insecurity that filled out her dark eyes.

"You're right," Gerald agreed and glanced at Lilith.

The smile on her face had worn off slowly. By now the face of Crimson's sister was absolutely stern.

"What are you waiting for?" the father at the table yelled, now fiercely staring at his daughter. "You began to bring us death and now you're the one who's gonna finish it!"

"Alright, alright, calm down, dad!" Lilith inhaled, loading all the energy into her lungs she needed to talk and meanwhile stay as relaxed as possible. Then her eyes met Crimson's. "The creatures which should be here in a couple of years already came to earth because I dared to tell you what the Cult is... I just told you a bit too much. Whenever the creatures hear humans talk about their world in general they can hear us. I have no idea how exactly it works, but that's not important for now. Anyway, as soon as people say something about the Cult to share information about it they come to earth and kill the..."

"...one's who talked about it," Crimson finished. "I already know that. I found that out because of Andrew." Apparently, they all were close to being killed by the creatures which should be here soon, so Crimson said whatever came to his head first without considering the possible consequences. "You don't know him, but..."

"Oh, we do know him, sweetheart," Joanne said with that grin of hers.

The son's face filled with horror, although he knew it wouldn't make a difference now. "But how..."

"Come on, son!" Gerald exclaimed. "You met him a couple of years ago. You talked about the Cult with him more than once and the creatures could hear that because you were talking about it in the Province. Did you really believe we wouldn't figure that out sooner or later?" He didn't mean to be mean at this point of time, Crimson was almost sure of it - if only he could completely believe how different the behavior of his parents and also of his sister was from what he always had experienced.