"Bleh!!! What a taste! That's such a disgusting flavor. Oh lord, what is this pain!?" Ainsley asked himself this question as he heard his bones cracking, but worse, he could feel it. His bones were fixing themselves. "This feels like growing pains but so much worse. How much longer is this going to last?" he clenched his fist and started grinding his teeth as sweat rolled off his body. This continued for another 2 minutes before it finally let up. "Finally! Well, I would love to just sit here for a moment, but I don't have the time. It's time to get moving. I've got to find Vi, and hopefully, we can get in touch with Aldrian[Al] and start moving," he said to himself, determination in his voice.
He started running as fast as possible down the street. As he did, he noticed more people showing up on the sidewalk. They were mainly just a blur as he ran by. "Hmm, I seem to be moving faster than I used to be able to. Well, no time to focus on that. I've just got to get to Vi before she calls either Roger or Veronica."
Violette stopped running as her phone started vibrating. "Well, that's weird, I guess. I wasn't actually out of minutes, but my phone was just being weird instead. Well, that's awesome, that means I can get ahold of mom now. Well, hey, speak of the devil, it's mom calling right now. Hey, mom wha-"
"Violette, where are you guys, right now? You're both in a lot of danger; I need to get to you fast!" her mom asked in a clearly panicked voice.
"Hey, that's Violette. She doesn't seem to be moving. Hey, wait, is she on the phone? I thought it wasn't... Oh, mom and dad did that too, okay, well, this is definitely not good. Who is she on the phone with?"
"Well, mom, we are pretty close to the station, and there are a ton of people around. I don't think we are in danger... but if you're sure, we'll stay put. Just get here quickly; Ainsley is hurt! And in a lot of pain. Okay, love you, bye," Violette said as she pressed the end button. She heard rapid footsteps approaching behind her and quickly turned to see Ainsley.
"Vi, who was that?" Ainsley asked, catching his breath, prepared for the worst.
"It was mom; she said to stay-"
"No, no, no, no!!" Ainsley interrupted. "Come on, Vi, follow me." He grabbed her wrist and started leading her through an alley as fast as possible, looking to get as far as he could from that area before anyone showed up. As they ran, Vi was incredibly shocked at how well Ainsley was moving and wasn't quite sure what was going on. Ainsley continued to run, maneuvering himself and Violette through random throngs of people just sitting against the wall, or sometimes on the emergency exit stairs that led to the alleyways against the buildings. As he did this, he saw one such group of people start to close off the alley.
"Hey there, big guy, why don't you just drop off that pretty little thing there and just scr- BAM!" As the man in the alleyway was speaking, Ainsley let go of Violette and slammed this guy's head into the pavement before grabbing another man's face and throwing him into his buddies.
"Come on, Vi, we don't have time for these scum. Let's go!" Ainsley grabbed her hand and started running again. The other men there were bewildered by what had just happened. They hadn't even finished speaking, and he attacked us. Vi followed behind and spared a glance at the first one Ainsley had hit; he had his head caved in from the pavement and blood smeared on the ground. She trembled but kept following. They ran for another 15 minutes before Ainsley finally stopped. "Okay, we are in a completely different part of the city. We should be safe for some time, but we will have to move again soon. So we should probably try to blend into a crowd when we move next time."
...
"Ainsley, you just killed a man, and you're not even going to stop to talk about that! What in the world? How could... why... what is going on? Why did we even start running? Also, I know they were about to say something gross, but killing is wayyyy crossing the line! You have to know that, so what were you thinking?"
"Well, to begin with, those guys were playing as regular thugs, but they were actually going to try and kill us, or at least hold us until their boss gets here. And if I would have left you like they said, they would have done the unspeakable to you until they were bored and then killed you, while their best came after me. And we ran because their boss knew where we were, and we had to get out of there, and we can't really stop moving now either. Just trust me, okay?" Ainsley explained, trying to reassure her.
"Ainsley, my mom is on her way. We should at least tell her where we are going so we can meet up. And also, how in the world did you know those guys would try to kill us? What gave you that idea?"
"Okay, okay, walk and talk, but you've got to listen and try not to freak out, okay?" Ainsley said as they started walking towards the outskirts of town towards the woods.
"Okay," Violette replied. As they walked, Ainsley explained everything about while Violette was gone, how the note from his parents was given to him, how the old lady he met was actually connected to his parents in some way, and how he took a pill that healed his body. As he explained everything, Violette found it all that much more unbelievable but continued to follow just in case. She didn't want to just leave him alone as he headed towards the mountain. She was all he had, and if he was telling the truth, she didn't want to be the one to abandon him like everyone else had.
What neither of them noticed was that both of them were absorbing some seemingly invisible red threads that had been behind them since the alleyway. At least no one else had noticed either, right?
"Boss, how in the world did he know? Not to mention how in the world did he do so much damage with one blow?"
"Heh, you're all just a bunch of foolish trash. It's because he has already started the blood replacement stage. Though he is such a piece of garbage that he hasn't even cut the blood energy yet. So it doesn't matter where he hides. We WILL find and kill him along with any of his little friends!" The young man with bloodshot eyes and a menacing look on his face finished speaking and started slowly walking down the alleyway in the direction that the two ran. "Don't worry, 'my friend.' I'll be there to help soon no need to fret."