The Crimson Road (1/2 FINISHED)

The Crimson Road (1/2 FINISHED)

I lay unconscious on that hospital bed for a whole week, my life hanging on a thread.
Laying in the bed, half-conscious, I heard doctors come in one after another and explain in a tut-tut manner how I wouldn’t live.
Hearing this only made me want to fight more. I clung to whatever life I had left and I willed myself –demanded my body– to recover.
I’ll never forget the very first thing I saw when I finally had the strength to keep my eyes open and focused. There was a young woman sleeping in the chair beside me. Her long golden blonde hair draped over her thin shoulders and across her cheek, rosy in her sleep. I squinted and blinked to get the blur out of my sleepy eyes. She appeared not much older than I, maybe fifteen years compared to my eleven.
Much too young to feel emotions such as lust and love, I only stared. Though a feeling swept through me, a new emotion that fluttered through my torso and chest. I knew it then, that I was in the presence of a divinity.
She looked so peaceful, so inexplicably serene that for a moment I couldn’t breathe at all, my lungs paralyzed by her radiant visage.
I tried to reach out touch her, to prove to myself that she wasn’t a hallucination, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t gather the minuscule strength together to raise my arm, too weak to even speak. So I waited.
I passed the time by watching her, her facial features change ever so slightly, seeming as if her features have never once been dented by lines of anger or sorrow.
So pure, she was. How I longed to know her.
Suddenly, she stirred. Her eyelids lifted, and for a moment her eyes where blank and unfocused, not comprehending what was around her. Then . . . she noticed me.
The feeling shuddered through me again, still unsure where it was going. A big smile covered her face and she whispered softly in a sleepy tinkling voice
“Good morning.”
“G-good morning yourself.” As I spoke, I noticed how my throat felt as if it’d been scrubbed with cotton. I motioned for the cup of water on the stand beside my bed. The radiant girl smiled sympathetically and stood to fetch me the water. She took the cup in one hand and lifted my bandaged head with another. So gently, she put the cup to my cracked and bloody lips and I drank. I drained the cup of the crispest, cleanest water I had ever tasted.
I had never known quality.
Yet here before me was a goddess. A girl for whom I felt such immediate respect and affection for, everything around her was of quality. I wouldn’t have noticed if she had made me drink mud.

Later, when I had regained a fraction more of my damaged strength, we talked.
“So,” she spoke, her crystal voice chimed.. “Tell me about yourself. Your name...?”
“Ren. Ren Arlen.” I whispered.
“Ren. Nice to meet you,” she smiled. “My name is Emi.”
“Emi.” I sighed.
She giggled gaily and went to sit in her chair again.
“How are you feeling, Ren? Are you in much pain?”
“I-I’m alive.” I managed to mumble with some difficulty, taken completely off guard by the kindness and concern in her simple question. No-one had ever sincerely cared how I was feeling before, I didn’t know how to react to it. The closest thing I had ever gotten to concern was the sneering sarcasm of ‘Does that hurt?’ as my father nailed my hand brutally into a wall before he made “love” to a woman I should have addressed as Mother.
She smiled, a smile so warm and kind that it made my heart beat strong. I blushed, hearing the monitor’s quiet beeping accelerate.

Emi visited me every day of my recovery in the hospital. A few weeks later, I got discharged. The day frightened me. I feared for my recently regained life that the nurses had contacted my abusive father. I clung to my bed sheets, sweating and shaking. When Emi came in from around the corner she immediately rushed to my bedside, fretting about how pasty and clammy I was. It didn’t take long for her to pry my clenched fists from the sheets with her gentle fingers.
Emi wheeled me out of the hospital in a collapsible wheelchair.

“I asked my parents to let you stay with us until we find your real parents, don’t you worry, everything is going to be just fine. The you may go back home and--”
“No ” My body jerked forward, attempting to spring up and run. All I managed to do was smear my face in the dust. “No no, no, no,” The scabbing cuts on my back split and wailed in protest. I could feel the warm wetness enveloping the pain. Emi rushed to my side.
“Ren?? ” She whispered concerned. I relaxed my contorted features, trying to overpower the searing pain. Emi remained panicked for a moment but quickly regained her calm as she dismissed my cry as an inert reaction.

That’s how I for the first time had a real family. They took me in after I was released from the hospital a few weeks later, they thought it was their duty as decent people. My wounds healed perfectly but the raised scars will never fade. They shall serve as a reminder of worse times.
No matter how I pleaded with them not to, they searched for my father far and wide. They hung up posters, sent messages to nearby towns and asked around for weeks. Weeks turned to months and months turned to years.
In the end they had accepted me as a true part of their family.
They cared for me so kindly that I began to throw away my old memories of hate for my father, but no one did I care for as much as I cared for Emi.
She became my big sister, my best friend and my teacher. She taught me everything I know about human life. The morals, the ethics and the emotions. My heart sprung to life the day she explained to me feelings of love and affection.

“Ren, love is such a beautiful emotion.”
“How so?”
“Love makes you do things you normally wouldn’t do. Especially things for another person.”
“Dangerous things?”
“Sometimes, yes that’s possible. But not usually. They tend to be kind things. Like, taking someone out to dinner, or spending the evening together sharing things about one another.”
“I’ve learned so much about you, Emi. We talk so much. Do you love me?”
“Yes, Ren. I love you very much. But that’s a different kind of love.”
“Different kind? What’s the difference?”
“You’re my brother, Ren. I love you as a sibling and as a friend. A wonderful, irreplaceable friend you’ve become, too!”

Now that I think of it, perhaps it would have been better if I had never gotten those lessons about love. I began to wonder about what Emi said about different kinds of love. I wondered if I could love her differently than she loved me.

I woke up the next morning from a night of dreamless sleep. As I wandered into the still dark halls of the house I glanced at the glorious orange morning sun.
“Ren?” Emi’s tired voice rang behind me. I turned to face her.
“What are you doing up, Emi?” I smiled, walking towards my sister.
“I’d like to ask you the same thing.” She said, yawning.
We walked down the hall together, commenting on the beautiful summer sunrise.
“Hungry, Ren?” Emi chimed, waking up.
I shrugged, but nodded twice in excitement for her cooking. Another aspect of Emi I valued was her ability to cook.
“The man you marry will be lucky tohave great food on his plate each night.” I sighed.
She grinned and blushed as she began to lay thick strips of bacon across the pan on the stove top. A wave of heat ran through me as I thought of her boyfriend, Ichiro.
“Yes...how lucky he will be.” I said under my breath, a knotted feeling forming in my chest and stomach.

As I got older my sleep began to be plagued by horrifying dreams. Night after night I watched my sister die a horrible painful death by the hands of a demonic shadow.
How she died was different every night. Sometimes she was cut, sometimes she was burned and a few times she was even eaten.
The same things always haunted me nightly. The pain contorting her face and voice. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, not even after sleep.
I started to fear sleeping to the point of injuring myself to keep myself awake.
I remember sitting in the darkest corner of my room pushing a needle I stole from mother’s sewing kit through the fleshiest parts of my palm and fingers. Scratching and tearing at the skin on my arms and body until my family noticed the raw, bloody patches.
Out of desperation I simply tore my skin open with my teeth some nights, it just got so bad. The pain kept me awake, but for a very limited time. Fatigue overwhelmed me eventually and I would slip back. I hoped the sharp pains would keep me from entering those dreams even if just for a moment, the salt of my tears making the wounds sting more.
The dreams always came in the end, no matter what I did I could never escape them. Now that I think back about it I wonder if hurt myself to keep the dreams away or if that was just an excuse to explore how I could make the body bleed.
For the time being I simply ignored those things, focusing on the horrifying idea of losing my sister.
The dreams kept coming, again and again until I started believing I was seeing her future in my dreams. I started believing I was seeing a future I had to stop from occurring. I had to prevent the shadow from carving away my shining light. I would have to be the one to save my sister, I would be her hero.

I started going out of the house at night, I went into the forest and trained myself. I trained and I trained myself to such an extent, I think it’s a wonder I didn’t ruin my body in the process. I would overwork myself until I passed out. I trained hard out of discipline and perhaps out of simple desperation. I would work myself until my hands bled and my vision swam.
There were so many times I thought of giving up, so many times I just wanted to break down and cry of pain and fatigue, to run home to Emi’s comforting arms. But every time those thoughts entered my mind the picture of my sister’s bloody tear-stained face appeared in my mind. The pain in her eyes gave me strength, gave me the vigor I needed. So I continued.

My training was not of quality. I did anything and everything that put my body under strain. From muscle wrenching pushups to throwing great rocks from one location to another. I climbed the trees strong enough to support my growing bulk. I hiked into the forest, over steep hills and climbing over the tentative scree. I hiked far enough into the forest one day and came upon a roaring waterfall, an old one by the looks of it, seeing how the wide mouth let the heavy water crash vigorously into the shallow pond below. I stood under the waterfall, under the cold thrashing water to see if it would do any good. All I ended up getting was a sore neck and wet clothes.
Somehow it worked. My body became hard and my movements sharp, and my pride and confidence grew alongside.

My name buzzed around town, my strong body was a popular topic, since I had the strength of boys twice my age and size-- but even more then that was my ghostly appearance.
Lack of sleep had tinted the flesh around my eyes a deep bruised color, my eyelids looked heavy with the shade of burgundy they possessed. My skin had become pale and waxy, the aspects of a clean pearl.
Strange stories started to arise, each less rational than the last. I caught a local fruit vendor telling someone I had been killing chickens at night and feasting on the blood after tearing them apart, and I heard the tailor telling someone I was in need of an exorcism from evil demon that legends said once lived around the area.
The rumors struck me hard.. I started to hesitate when I went out to train or run errands, wondering what they were all saying behind my back, fearing what some would do to me if they caught me alone. I found comfort in darkness, so soothing I could lay down in the basement for hours at a time, the cool concrete floor against my alabaster skin. I always felt safe there, like I was being embraced by a caring mother, sometimes the darkness even seemed to move to my will, stroking through my hair soothingly as Emi did when she was there.

I mainly hid away when she was with that, bastard of a ‘man’ she called her boyfriend. I spent most of my time with her when she was at home, we spoke often and become closer and closer still. To this point, I had been able to hide away or excuse the ghastly injuries that I had inflicted upon myself. One day, I could hide it no longer and took Emi aside to explain my inner turmoil.

After a long talk, I felt a great deal lighter, but a new shadow cast over my heart. I neglected to inform Emi about the horrific nightmares in which she was starred. Leaving out the crucial detail left a tight twist in my throat. I subtly attempted to reveal my opinion of her lover, but couldn’t bring myself to criticize what inspired such warmth in her. I could see that she was genuinely worried about me. Alas, as keen as she was, how could she not detect my true emotions?


I fear even dear Emi was beginning to be affected by the rumors about me, she didn’t believe in them of course, she couldn’t allow herself to. She has become wary and inquisitive, but I relished her protective nature. Oh, never has one been so beguiling yet so persuasive. She insists that I have a curfew, but I had to refuse. Emi stubbornly links her arm in mine, shaking her head and letting her blonde hair sway against her face.
“No, Ren,” she pouts, and intensifies her grip on my arm. “ Either be home by the hours you will be assigned-- or take me with you.”
I bit my lip and wrapped my free arm around her. I looked down at her, and noticed that I had grown in the year that I have now spent with the family. I kissed the top of her head and breathed in her scent.
“Oh, sister,” I sighed. A sensation ran downwards through my body and I shifted away, lifting my head from her crown. Immediately changing my tone, I consented the curfew and sent Emi off. The family gave the watchman new hours, so the curfew could be enforced. I had to be at home at eight o’ clock, and lights out at ten o’ clock. I respected the curfew as a command from Emi, and lied in the darkness until sun or sleep broke in.

Then it approached, sly and wicked; the night that resolved it all. It started ten minutes after lights-out curfew. I had decided to try sleep properly for once and was rewarded with an extra long nightmare.
Once again, Emi squirmed in the arms of the Angel of Death. Instead of the blank dark void that was the concurrent setting for the nightmare, the background gradually came into focus. The tile counter tops, finished cabinets and the low table all reflected stale moonlight, and revealed itself as our kitchen and dining room. The shadow burbles maliciously and extracts a glinting knife from the knife-holster. Slowly he let the blade run up my sisters arms, cutting deep, all the way to the blood-stained bone. I don’t take my eyes off the wound of a minute, even as the shining blade drops soundlessly to the floor.
The demon manifests a large bulky hand with clumsy-looking fingers, and it plunges then directly into Emi’s wound. I imagine the tender tissue tearing and breaking away under the cumbersome fingers, her distraught pulse can be felt under and in the flesh. The hand delves in and splits the wound deeper, stripping it from the bone. Her screams pierced me, it was a horrible sight but I was simply unable to look away. I feel myself gag and retch in my sleep, but I cannot feel the relief of vomiting. So, mesmerized, I stared at him cut her up, watched her agony as he retrieved the knife and deftly flayed the meat off her bones.
I also stared at it, looked hard at the monster I would have to protect my sister from. I stared and squinted and slowly, the shadow began to become clearer and clearer, until I could almost see his face, it seemed so clear, I was sure I knew it. I was positive. It was her putrid love.

Sticky with sweat, my breath came fast after I awoke. I rose up from my bed and walked silently outside of my room. The silence of the night screamed in my ears, and everyone was still in their beds, sleeping as they should be. I stalked into the kitchen; it still smelled heavily of last night’s dinner, fried fish and rice, but I didn’t really notice.
My mind was fixed on the long kitchen knife, it was about the size of my forearm both in length and width– a beauty of culinary instrument. More importantly this was the very blade I had seen the shadow use to kill my sister. The bastard would be killed by the blade he used to carve away my sister, even though it had just been a dream, the idea made me grin.
I lifted up my sleeve and let the blade-edge slide slowly over the inside of my elbow, testing the blade’s potential, finding it to be sharper than any razor. I felt the dull pain shiver through my body as three crimson rivers flowed and branched down my arm, coming together at my fingertips.

“This will work wonderfully” I whispered to myself, finding myself walking out of the house. I was grinning, although at the time I didn’t notice it.

END OF PREVIEW