Page 4 of Blood Red Woes

I’m not dumb. I know not to pick up random things without making sure there are no sharp edges or used syringes involved.

With the trash bag aside, I’m finally able to view the thingamajig. It’s… a crystal of some sort? I’m not big on that stuff, so I don’t know what kind, but I’d say it’s about six inches long with a point on each end, and it freaking glows.

Yeah, the crystalglows.

What kind of crystal has its own light source trapped inside itself? None that I know of. Maybe it’s some kind of battery-operated lamp or something. Either way, it’s pretty cool.

The wind blows again, and I hear the murmurings a second time. Now that I’m staring at the crystal, it sounds like the whisperings are coming… from thecrystal? No, that can’t be right. That would make absolutely zero sense. What kind of a crystal glows and talks?

None, because this is reality and that shit just doesn’t happen.

My gut is telling me to leave it. That someone dumped it here for a reason. But I can’t move. It’s like I’m fixated on it and I can’t turn away. I’m locked there, staring at it, for what feels like an eternity but is probably only a minute at the most.

Even though it’s a bad idea, I say, “Fuck it.” I reach for it.

I’ll take it back to my place, look it over. Maybe I can sell it for some rent money. If this weird crystal can help solve one of my problems, then I’ll gladly deal with the strange glowing and the creepy whispering.

My fingers grasp it, slow to curl around it. It is surprisingly warm to the touch, and I can’t stop staring at it as I stand. I swear, as I gaze down into it, I see movement. “What the hell…”

It’s right as I say that that the crystal turns from warm to insanely hot, and the sudden shift of its temperature makes me drop it as I jerk my arm back and cradle my hand against my chest. I swear—or at least I think I do. I don’t hear myself.

In fact, I don’t hear anything except the crystal breaking as it collides with the dirty concrete below. It shatters, and then everything goes black.

Chapter Two

I’m falling. I’m really falling. And I don’t mean I fell backward onto my ass because I was startled and couldn’t catch myself. I mean it literally: I’m freakingfalling.

I don’t know where I’m falling from or where I’m falling to. Everything around me is a black empty void, but I don’t feel alone. Someone’s eyes are on me, watching, waiting. Someone I don’t know but can only feel.

And I feel more than just their eyes. I feel their hatred.

I’m trapped in a freefall for a while. No end and no beginning. Everything around me is the same. My hair is blowing up, my body weightless. Like I’m skydiving in pitch-blackness and never signed up for a lesson.

It hits me then: how the hell am I going to land? If I can’t see where I am or what I’m doing, how the hell am I supposed to make sure I don’t splatter like a bug on a windshield when I hit the ground?

Something invisible grabs me by the neck as I’m falling, and though I can’t see anything, I reach up to my neck to fight it off. Nothing is there though; it’s just my own hand, grasping at nothing.

As I fight for breath against the un-seeable enemy, I mutter, “What the fuck?” If this is what death is like, fuck that. I’m not dying. I ain’t going. I have too much to do still.

I’m not going to die yet.

Something pulsates around me, and instead of all blackness, I’m surrounded in a blindingly bright light. I close my eyes, and the feeling of strangulation disappears.

I come to while waving my arms in front of myself, and the second I realize I can see again, I stop acting like an idiot and sit up. I’m breathing hard, and I don’t even know why. I place ahand on my head, trying to shake it all off, and that’s when I see something I shouldn’t. Something on my right hand and wrist.

A black tattoo, curled around the back of my hand and around the entirety of my wrist. Not a solid band, but more of a tribal design, sharp shapes and lines that seem to move on my skin.

I slowly turn my wrist around to study the strange black thing, and I whisper, “What the fuck?”

A snide, annoyed voice comes out of nowhere and says, “That appears to be your question of the day, doesn’t it?” The voice doesn’t sound happy. The complete opposite.

I jump to my feet and whirl around, searching for the owner of the voice… but I’m alone. Alone in a forest full of trees I’ve never seen before in my life.

My heart beats faster, and I temporarily forget about the voice and the tattoo. “What the fucking fuck?” Where am I? What is this? How the hell did I get here? I’m thinking all those things, but the only question I can voice is, again: “What the fuck?”

The voice scoffs, “Please tell me you can speak other words. You can, yes? If not, this is going to be difficult—”

I spin around. “Where are you? Come out!”

---