Crimson

9

Give me your heart and your soul
I'm not breaking down

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Wade felt a burning in his palm like he'd never felt before. Sure, he felt pain, but normally it was half as fierce and passed in a few seconds. This pain was burning, consuming, inching its way up his palm, his arm, his chest, everywhere. He let out a low whine of pain, like a kicked animal. It had been years since he felt anything this intense, this real, and although it burned like hell, he felt a clarity he hadn't felt in years. He felt free.

Like everything in Wade's life, though, the pain began to fade. Damn his stupid fucking healing factor. The almost blissful feeling faded and was replaced by a cloying, claustrophobic feeling. He felt unexplained repulsion clawing its way up his throat and he opened his eyes. He was in a small hospital room with a figure he vaguely recognised huddled in the bed in the centre, the strong smell of blood in the air. He shook his head, trying to back away from what he was faced with, but was rooted to the spot by some invisible force.

"My child. I hope you can now see what I am doing. Why I'm doing it. I know that feeling that you had, of freedom, replaced by fear. I can free you. See your palm, the word written there? Killer. You, my child, are a killer. Those hands have taken many, many lives, which is why I have inscribed my message there. A reminder, for next time the occasion presents itself for you to take a life. The physical pain seems to have little effect on you, but there are more ways to feel pain. You must be taught before you can be properly freed." The Prophet explained in that high, hollow voice, and Wade felt his chest deflate.

His mother lay, shrunken and pale, in the middle of the hospital bed, the beeps of the heart rate monitor few and far between. The man that Wade hardly recognised as his father, before he became deformed by hatred, sat by her side, tears streaming down his face. "Please, no. No, no, no. Please, my love, come back to me. I can't raise this kid alone. I can't raise it if I know that it's killed you. Please, please." The man's sobs were swallowed by the long, endless screech of the heart rate monitor as Wade's mother breathed her final breath. Doctors and nurses flooded into the room, surrounding his parents. One of the nurses handed his father a bundle of blankets, under which Wade assumed his infant self slept soundly. The look of repulsion on his father's face at the person who had killed his wife was echoed in Wade's own.

A strange tingling sensation in Wade's palm preceded a change in scene. His parents were gone, as was the hospital room, and in its place was a graffiti riddled alleyway. Wade recognised his fourteen year old self, stood shaking in the alley, clutching a gun in his right hand. The very hand that had been burned with The Prophet's brand. On his knees in front of the younger Wade was a skinny kid, eighteen or nineteen, covered in tattoos and piercings. Wade recognised him as one of the lower members of the street gang he'd been a part of. He couldn't remember the kid's name, but his face surfaced in his nightmares, every night. At the time, he'd thought the guy was way cooler than him, but now he could see the excessive tattoos and piercings as a scared little kid wearing a disguise, desperate to fit in. The guy had been found stealing drugs from the gangs store, selling them on the side to make extra profit. The leaders of the gang had wanted the lowlife dead and in a sick, sadistic test, had asked Wade to do it. An honour, they'd said.

His younger self took a deep breath, trying to steady his hand, and looked into the guy's eyes. Wade remembered the look in his eyes, the desperation, that surfaced in each of his nightmares. His younger self flicked his eyes to his forehead instead, and squeezed the trigger. It was louder than he remembered, the bang ringing and echoing on. The man's forehead had exploded in a mess of blood and brain like a watermelon. That was when Wade had realised that death was far from the beautiful, romantic performances shown in movies. And the part that still haunted him to this day, it was the moment that Wade realised that he enjoyed the act of taking another's life.

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Peter watched Wade's face contort in a kaleidoscope of emotions as The Prophet stood by, his face blank. His chest tightened in fear and desperation as he knew that he could've done something to help Wade. His friend's palm had healed in seconds, leaving behind a scar that looked weeks old, but Peter knew that it wasn't just physical pain that The Prophet induced. Peter could hardly bring himself to look at Matt as his eyes darted from one side of the chamber to the other. As he looked, he realised that he'd lost sight of Myo. In the next heartbeat, a strong blow landed on the back of his head and he was being dragged down to the centre of the chamber. Kneeling before The Prophet, Peter watched a new brand form from his pale fingers. Knowing what was coming next, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. The last thing he heard before the agony began was Matt's begs for The Prophet to stop, to hurt him instead. Peter felt oddly comforted before he was swallowed by pain.

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