Crimson ~Volume 1 of 1~

Prologue: Out of the Fire and Into the Frying Pan

[WARNING: This story is recommended for mature audiences. If you do not consider yourself over the mental age of 15, can't handle heavy portrayals of blood and gore, or are so religious that you'd throw up on mention of the Devil's Number, please turn back now. You can still save yourself. If you do none of the things listed above, sit back, grab some popcorn, and prepare for a bumpy ride. Not that I care or anything, s-stupid.]

What makes one write a novel? An epic saga of angels and demons, or of medieval knights and princesses in high towers?

Sure, insanity might count as one possible reason. However, unlike some certain C.S or F.K or H.H, not every novelist is borderline insane. Could it be money? Could every novelist out there just have an impractical want for the finer things in life?

Art didn't understand either. You see, Art was a simple guy. He liked things written out in black and white. For him, there was no grey area, no room for interpretation. Art was a clever boy, with no major problems like depression, or social anxiety, or even diabetes, and he wasn't necessarily odd; he didn't prefer pink over blue and he definitely didn't practice bizarre religions in his free time or watch strange cartoons. He didn't believe in the concept of 'normal', nor did he consider himself necessarily 'not normal'.

Why was it that a boy like him was chosen as the protagonist of a story such as this? It was as though he won the raffle of 'most boring hero'. He's not special. He can't use magic, or summon familiars, or communicate with aliens. Nor is he a foreign intelligence officer, or an undercover detective, or a secret 17-year-old drug lord. He's just...

...a guy. Your average Joe. So, why was it that Art was chosen for the role of 'protagonist'? It's because Art isn't out of the ordinary. Sure, he my not have a father and he spends an awful amount of time listening to death metal. But, can you imagine if Harry Potter had a lisp? If Frodo Baggins was a nudist? Or if James Bond preferred his martinis with detergent, rather that shaken, not stirred?

So, that's why Art, our normal 12th-grader, is the protagonist. It could've been the carnivore in red braces or the pompous private-school girl, but rather, we chose Art. Because Art's not going to end every sentence with '-aru' or shout every line like it's his last. He's not going to have a gaudy fascination for donuts or buffalo-sauce-and-blue-cheese burgers or finish every enemy with one punch.

Because Art is, give or take a few centimeters, 'normal'.

However, Art understands that most novel protagonists are like that. They're normal. They wonder why they're the protagonist when everyone around them is special. By the end of this paragraph, he'll have regretted calling himself average. And he'll also start writing in first person.

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There's no place I'd rather be right now that in front of my electric heater at home, curled up on the carpet. But alas, instead of between a blanket and the floor, I've found myself between a rock and a hard place.

There was a train station near my high-school, where all the vagrants go to play hooky; there was so much graffiti on the platform that you couldn't tell what color the bricks actually were. Everything was covered in hasty phone numbers and profanities.

Moths buzzed around, sizzling as they hit the burning fluorescent lights.

The trains were experiencing serious delays due to the snow. It wasn't the best weather to be wearing just a flannelette T-shirt and shorts. To make it worse, some old codger in a floral hoodie had started chin-wagging off his life story to me, with a wet cigarette in one hand and a beer bottle in the other.

I brushed the bits of bug from my pants, stood, and waved a 'goodbye' to the old man. It was going to be a long walk home. If I was lucky, my mother would've ordered Chinese by the time I got there.

Street signs and telegraph poles cast lengthy shadows across the road as the sun set. It was one of those nights where you'd expect a ghost or a serial killer to pop out from around every corner. But, where there were no street lights, there were leftover Christmas lights and glowing plastic reindeer in front yards; the thin streets were it with flashing red and green. As I walked, the houses got smaller and lower-class; to the point where decrepit townhouses and apartments had nothing but chicken wire or pickets to hold in the dogs that glared at me from the tops of the yards.

At least there wasn't going to be a robbery in these parts any time soon.

The next street was uphill, lined by stark concrete walls; flyers and graffiti run as rampant as poison ivy  gone wrong. A small, dark shadow dashed between the garbage cans and abandoned couches; the light from my phone was useless against this winter darkness.

"Just a stray cat..." I whispered to myself, feeling the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I'd reach out to pet it, but rabies wasn't exactly my shtick. I looked back; if Buster or Cuddles from earlier were attacking tonight's dinner, I'd probably have a stroke.

There were no cats. No dogs. But, there was...

A small person, standing behind me, wearing little but a dirty black hoodie and rubber thongs. Their head shot up, and they glared at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. Saliva foamed at the corners of their mouth.

Jagged, yellowing fingernails clutched and cut at the side of my face, and I felt blood drip down my neck. I fell to the ground, scraping my knees on the rough, dirty road; I dropped my phone, and heard the screen shatter against the tarmac. The street was once again completely dark.

There was barely enough moonlight to see by as I scrambled away on my hands and feet, and my voice was nothing more than a husky wheeze as I tried to call out. Managing to clamber to my knees, I grabbed this sickly pale person by the wrists as they kicked at me with tremendous strength, despite their thin and frail body. Their teeth snapped at my face and arms as I tried to hold them back.

Every single cell in my body was creaming 'run'.

I was expecting my life to flash before my eyes any second now. Covering my face with bloody hands, I heard that disgusting sound of flesh and bone hitting the road...

The small monster of a person was lying face down on the cold bitumen, in a still, sopping pile. Standing above them, with one black leather boot in the square of their back and the other crushed against the back of their head, was a man. A man in a black trouser-suit topped with red, polka-dot braces. He smiled at me with pearly white teeth. "Good evening. Nice night for a walk, isn't it?"

The man dug around in one of his many pockets and handed me a handkerchief with a rabbit embroidered on it. "Better clean yourself up. Your mother'll have a heart attack if she sees you all bloody like that."