Crimson's Prophecy

The hidden survivor

Out on the streets there was some time to let all the wounds heal. Dozens of creatures were there, but none of them planned to kill him. They must have been told not to kill Crimson, however that had worked.

He still felt a lot of pain - even at parts of his body which made him believe he might have been raped. That's what Gerald only had dared to do to him twice in his life. It had been the worst of all feelings Crimson had ever felt. Only Joanne had been there to tell his father that he should stop it - that was one of the few situations in which Joanne had tried to convince Gerald to raise their son in a different, at least a bit more harmless way.

There was darkness all around this place, but now the blind, young man didn't care anymore; it had its advantages to be blind and at that one thought of his Crimson couldn't hold himself back and laughed. Here he could and he was happy about it. Whoever saw or heard him, he didn't care because he wouldn't turn into a creep - it was just the pain Crimson chose to let go by laughing. This sort of inspiration of letting it all out came from Sheila. It helped.

The creatures sat in corners of small dead ends and between the buildings. Except for their screeching they seemed to be very peaceful. That they were that loud, on the other hand, belonged to their way of living and didn't necessarily mean that they were looking forward for fights all the time.

With the help of the one hand left Crimson had crawled a couple hundred feet away from the prison of the underworld. He wondered if there was only one of those buildings where objectors would be tortured 24/7. Wondering didn't make him find answers though and he forgot about it.

There was this comfortably cold wall in his back Crimson had found to lean on with his back. Nothing would happen for a moment and if there was someone else who would be there to talk to he couldn't even express how grateful hed be for that. Peace and a bit of silence to remove the tension - that was all he needed and what he had asked for.

Or maybe not, Crimson thought, as his stomach growled. When had he eaten something last time? The torture sessions had taken five days, possibly more. Gyrthon had never given him something, not even a piece of bread. But was that really true or had Crimson just forgotten most of the time in the prison?

Whatever, he'll figure it out soon enough and if not, it didn't make a difference.

He got up and walked past a bridge. There must be a place somewhere with food - an open castle he could break into without being attacked.

Water would also be important. Canisters, and the ones with the liquid he needed rather than the ones filled with poison. How would blind people think? How would they behave? Crimson also needed someone he could trust, but it wouldn't be possible to find someone like that here.

This place was called Yndranium, that's what he knew because one of the workers at the prison had told him that. Scarlet had talked about it once as well. Maybe it wasn't too far away from their home they had in the Kathrenian universe.

On his way in the hopefully right direction Crimson almost fell into a hole of darkness. Now that he was blind he could hear an almost inaudible buzzing sound he hadn't noticed ever before and which came from the hole; here were no creatures who could tear the silence into pieces.

It took him a couple of days to find his way back to the home where Crimson would find Sheila, Scarlet, Hether, Deric and Fiona. It was as if hed had a raffler in his head since he was blind because all he had done was to listen to his gut feeling and follow a direction hed had in his mind.

The rectangular room was right there with its missing door. The young man entered it. "Hello, guy and girls," he said and waited for a reply.

"Crimson?" It was Sheila. She called him by his name again, this time less asking it as a question but repeating it with certainty, just to embrace him one moment later. "We missed you. Where have you been?"