Red Death 1

I was running.
I was crying.
This was the only place that felt right now after what happened.
I remembered the blood spilling on the floor. I remembered shock and horror. And I repressed it.
I ran into this clearing, it was a miracle that I hadn’t broken something after running all this way, yet I hadn’t even tripped.
I slowed down as I reached it and walked into the place, and I saw it.
The Scythe.
It was stupid to name it, and doubly stupid to name a scythe The Scythe but I was 8 at the time, cut me some slack.
Well don’t cut me any slack, but that is because of what happens later on in this story.
I reached it and looked at it. I didn’t know why I was drawn to The Scythe but I was, it was a dark fascination with something I had found old and lying on the ground. But something was odd about it.
The Scythe had never rusted in all the time I had visited it here.
I stared at it, the cool black wood and the glinting steel blade, it had to be old, I had found it buried in dirt when I was digging one day out here I had found the sharp metal and I had carefully excavated it, I was glad my parents never knew what I had found.
And never would.
I started to cry as I looked at it, a curious memento of a childhood just slain, and heard a voice.
No one was ever out here, who could it be?
And why today of all days?
“Hello Ryan.” He said. His voice was soothing even though I didn’t know it.
“Are you a police man?” I asked, guessing he was here to take me wherever it was new orphans go, I didn’t really know where that would be.
“No.” He said, his voice having the same soothing tone, but nothing should sooth me today.
“So you are some kind of rescue worker?” I was surprised they had already started searching for me, my brother wouldn’t be home yet, who could have found out what happened?
I shuddered.
“No, something a bit less respectable than that” He said smiling. I wasn’t in the mood for smiling people, or any people for that matter.
“Than what the heck are you?” I asked this man. It didn’t occur to me to wonder how a man could know where I would go in all this property when no one knew this place existed.
“Someone here to help you in a way no one should be able to.”
“My father is lying in his bedroom with a shotgun in his mouth.”
“You can’t help me.”
“I can if you will let me.”
I should have been crying but no tears came, this was something insane, it was from a nightmare.
I spat at him, too bad my spit didn’t reach him.
“I am here to help you Ryan, just come with me and everything will become clear.”
“You’re a nutcase.” I said, and I prepared to run.
“Where will you go Ryan, without The Scythe?”
I froze, I could feel that he had named it somehow, not just said what it was.
He had named something I never had spoken.
“What are you?” I asked, backing away.
“Michael.”
“That isn’t an answer Michael.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
He picked up The Scythe, he handled it carefully as the weapon I had always pretended it was, and light gleamed off of it.
“You have already run too far Red Death. Let yourself rest for a time and come with me.”
“My name is Ryan Anderson.”
“For now.”
I stared at him again wondering what he could possibly mean.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I am the only man in this world who can help you at all right now Ryan, just come with me and The Scythe.”
I followed him for a time, not really thinking about where I was going.
I was still in shock. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone with him.
I wouldn’t have even gone there if I was thinking straight.
After a while we came to a van.
“Seriously a van? Do you normally go around picking up teenagers who lost their families and take them off to some Happy Place?” I was starting to wonder if I was being abducted by a pedophile.
Well a mind reading pedophile.
“You’re the fourth this week” He said smiling.