The Blood Red Saga: Revenge Solves Everything

Chapter 7: The Rise of Blood Red

“Well, are you going to fight or run?” Derek said with a chilled voice. It seemed as if he was mocking me. I could barely make out his face amidst the fog and darkened night sky but the flash of a single bolt of lightning reassured me of his presence.

 “I do not back down from a challenge. That is for cowards like you.” I replied with an identical tone in my voice.

“Heh, well then? You enjoy sleeping in alleys do you?”

“…  this is a discreet place for your final moments.” I said mockingly.

“Enough chat.” And with that, he threw a punch at my face which I dodged and returned the favour with one of my own. He swung his arm across his face and knocked my fist to the side. He began to side-step, circling me, both his fist posed for an attack. He swung punch after punch and each missed as I ducked and dodged moving side to side, recognising a pattern in his attack. Seeing this, he broke the pattern and I took a blow to the stomach. As I slid backwards, gripping my stomach with white knuckles, he charged at me and knocked me to the floor with his shoulders. As I lay on the cold ground, he kicked my side repeatedly until I grabbed his ankle and pulled. He slid and fell to the floor, giving me time to recover. My recovery was swift and I rose. I preferred to fight cleanly, unlike Derek had just done, and waited for him to recover and rise back up to the challenge. As soon as he got to his feet, he thrust me against the wall and threw uppercuts towards my chin. I had nowhere to dodge so I lowered my head, taking blows to the forehead. It hurt immensely however it was better than having my jaw smashed up. He grabbed the side of my head and turned it so he had a clean shot at the side of my face. Whilst his concentration was on punching me on jaw, I dug my knee into his stomach and he flinched and took a few steps back. As he was bent over, clenching his stomach, I inflicted a few of my own punches upon his face. He was knocked back against the wall when he drew a dagger from his belt. He swung at my head and I bent backwards to avoid the deadly weapon.

“You’re playing dirty.” I scorned him. My eyes narrowed with disappointment. I preferred hand to hand combat.

“No-one said that I couldn’t.” He replied with a smile and lunged with his dagger in hopes that he’d stab my side but he had no such luck. I stepped to the side and threw a punch his wrist. We both heard a snap as I made impact and his dagger fell to the floor as he let out a scream of pain. He grasped his wrist and winced but he managed to bend over to pick up the dagger but I kicked it out the way. He glared at me, stood up straight and took a few steps back. “You’re dead now Red.”

“You should be thanking me.” I smirked.

“Really, how come?” He asked sarcastically.

“I put Catherine out of her misery. She can never have loved you; no-one could ever love you. She must have hated your guts to die so easily.”

“Shut your mouth Red!” He bellowed. I knew I had struck a nerve and I wasn’t going to stop then.

“Also, I guess that she knew you would heartlessly kill her yourself when you found out about the many nights she spent with me. She was always saying how you weren’t good enough; how she loathed your very existence.” I chuckled so he could hear me but my smile faded when I noticed a change in the air. Derek was glaring at me with an infuriated expression, his eyes as sharp at the tip on my shuriken. Something inside him had snapped at that moment. He roared and leapt at me, knocking me to the ground. I took multiple punches to the head and whilst I was recovering he quickly picked up his dagger from the floor and took a swing at the middle of my face. I attempted to roll out of the way but the dagger sliced me just beneath my eye. My head was bleeding in multiple places but the newly born monster was working away at whatever I had left to keep myself alive. Before he could throw another punch, I caught his fist and threw my own punch at his face, forcing him back and giving me the opportunity to stand up again. He ran at me, dagger clenched in his fist, and leapt at me with a roar of fury. I moved to the side and slipped a shuriken out of my pocket. I grabbed him to stop him from falling to the ground and struck him in the back of the neck with my deadly star. The shuriken sunk into his flesh like a butcher’s knife into butter. He tried to scream but could only manage a muffled exhale. When I thought the shuriken had travelled deep enough into his neck, I pulled it down making a gaping cut in his neck. Drenched in blood, he fell to the ground but he was still alive. He rolled on the floor until he gained control of his still twitching body and pulled out a gun. It was already stained with blood that had soaked his jacket. He pointed the gun at me and fired a single bullet without hesitation. It got me in my left shoulder but if he wasn’t twitching so much, he would have killed me with one blow to the head. With fear I stumbled backwards and watched as he struggled to sit up. I had had enough of these games. I held my shuriken loosely and threw it. It spun, slicing through the cold misty air and struck him dead centre between his eyes. He slumped backwards onto the damp, unforgiving ground of blood, dead. The battle ended there. 

 I stepped forward to retrieve my Shuriken and boldly muttered to the corpse “Revenge is sweet, Justice is swift.”

 I look up now from the dead body. There is someone watching. Was he there the whole time? Did he see the bloody battle and hear how I provoked Derek into madness? I don’t know but… I recognise him; the man in the jet black cloak. It is just a silhouette but the waving cloak gives it away. I now watch him move swiftly out of sight. Derek is dead and the screams have stopped. However, they have been replaced with a new phrase which is now repeating over and over in my head: ‘the fall of Jason Craite’; the words of the unidentified character. This all began with him. I will find him and finish him like I should have done when we were in the murder scene of poor Trish. Derek is dead… and I’ve come too far to go back now. This is not the fall of Jason Craite... this is the rise of Blood Red.

 

 To be continued...