Crimson child? Is he referring to me?
"Crimson…child…crimson…child." The raspy voice chills down my spine as the shadowy figure inched closer, its twisted form contorting with each eerie repetition. My heart pounded, urging me to run, but I found myself paralyzed, transfixed by the haunting words and the creature's unsettling movements.
My frantic gaze swept the room, searching desperately for an exit, any means of escape from the nightmarish entity closing in on me. But the walls seemed to press inward, trapping me, leaving only one terrifying option—the window.
I swallowed hard as my eyes tracked to the opened glass, gauging the two-story drop to the unforgiving ground below. Every instinct screamed at me to take that plunge into the inky unknown rather than remain a moment longer in this creature's clutches.
Its shadow fell over me as it neared, a suffocating miasma of dread and malice. I could feel its rancid breath on my neck as it pulled closer still. My hands trembled, and my vision blurred with panic's icy grip. Stay, and face whatever unspeakable fate this monster has in store. Or risk shattering every bone in my body on the unforgiving earth below?
My heart pounded like a frantic drum as I watched the gnarled appendage drawback, muscle tautening beneath its mottled flesh. Time, seemed to slow to a crawl as the blow descended.
Adrenaline spiked white-hot through my veins as the limb scythed down with impossible speed. By some animalistic instinct, I twisted with a violent jerk, avoiding its blow.
In that eternal nanosecond, a thought of potential futures flickered through my mind's eye—the blinding pain of those razors raking my flesh, the sickening crunch of shattered bone, and the endless night of oblivion that would follow. But somehow, by some miracle borne of desperation, I had avoided that first terrible blow.
The window beckoned like a portal to salvation, my eyes locking onto the gnarled branches of the oak tree just beyond—a desperate lifeline amidst this waking nightmare. I didn't dare steal a glance back at the slavering beast, its ragged breaths and guttural snarls making the hairs on my neck prickle with primal fear.
Sucking in one last ragged breath, I gathered every ounce of resolve and propelled myself toward that narrow promise of escape.
My fingers closed around the rough bark like a vise as the ground seemed to rush up towards me. With a bone-jarring jolt, I caught myself mid-plummet, every muscle screaming in protest. Sparing no moment, I scrambled down the trunk desperation lending me a frantic speed.
My chest is heaving, and every ragged breath feels like shards of glass tearing at my lungs. I broke free from that wretched room, but the nightmare was far from over. That…thing is still here, hunting me with a feral hunger that chills me to my core.
I glanced over my shoulder, eyes wide with primal fear, that creature was now behind me. But where? Where in this godforsaken place can I seek shelter from this relentless evil? Every shadow seems to conceal new horrors, fresh torments waiting to ensnare me. I have to find somewhere to hide, someplace it can't track me… but do such sanctuaries even exists?
How can I possibly evade a monster that moves with such unholy speed? I'm just a person with no combat training, no way to fight back. My only chance is to run, to flee into the night and pray I can outdistance its insatiable bloodlust.
A tremor of doubt crashing over me. Can I truly hope to survive this long, cold night of terror? That abomination won't rest until it had torn the life from my bones. I'm just a helpless lamb, bleating out my final cries as the wold's jaws close around my throat…
No. I can't surrender to despair, not yet. Not when the barest flicker of hope still burns within me. I won't know if can outrun this nightmare until I try. Staying here means certain death—my only chance lies in fleeing, in putting as much distance between me and that ravening beast as I possibly can.
As must as the mere sight of this…thing…sears my soul, I force myself to remain rooted. To observe. To watch with a hunter's focus for even the slightest lapse, the most fleeting opening in its monstrous defenses. One small mistake is all I need to turn and run, to put every ounce of my being into the most desperate of sprints.
Swallowing hard, I study the abomination's grotesque movements, its twitching malformations, searching for a pattern…a tell..anything that might hint at when its guard will falter. My life now hinges in seizing that one infinitesimal opportunity to escape this terror's grasp. I can't afford to miss it.
A blue of grotesque motion snaps me from my vigil as the abomination strikes with blinding speed. Razor-tipped claws hungering for my flesh. Pure instincts takes over as I twist with every ounce of agility, those wicked talons slicing through the space of my body occupied a fraction of a second before.
For that eternal, crystalline moment, the world hangs in slow motions as I feel the displaced air caress my skin, the creature's howl of rage reverberating in my bones. Then the moment shatters and I move, fueled by a desperation born of self-preservation at its most primal.
I run. I run as I've never run before, every stride devouring the ground as I pour everything I am into putting distance between myself and that unholy thing. My ragged breaths tear at my lungs, but I can't stop. I dare not stop. Not with those claws, that gnashing maw, giving chase, hungering for my life's end.
The forest envelops me as I plunge deeper into its shadowed embrace, branches whipping at my face and snagging my clothes as if trying to impede my frantic flight. But I can't stop, I won't stop.
All around me, an eerie silence reigns, as if the very wildlife holds its collective breath. No scurrying of small creatures through the underbrush, no hoots or screeches from the the arboreal hunters, not even the chirp of a single cricket. It's as if the entire forest has bene struck mute, cowed into fearful submission by the presence of the creature that is chasing me.
A small mercy, this absence of the forest's typical denizen. As harrowing as my flight from the unholy aberration has been, at least I don't have to contend with the prowling predators that call these shadowed glades their hunting grounds. One horror at a time is enough to test the limits of my endurance.
If I had to outrun or outfight the stealthy hunters and cunning scavengers of the night while simultaneously evading that thing's relentless pursuit? I shudder to consider it. My chances would be slimmer than a sliver of moonlight piercing the canopy overhead.
No, this deathly stillness, this sense of the forest holding its breath, is a blessing in its way. Let the creature fur and fang slink back into their lairs, let the winged terrors roost motionless until the threat has passed. I'll take my solitary struggled over the chaos of a three-way battle for survival any night.
For now, I run. I run until my legs threaten to buckled, until my rasping breaths are the only sound in this unnatural quiet.
Panting, gasping for air, I tear through the underbrush, branches whipping across my face. The creature's howls, those guttural, inhuman sounds, spur me onwards even as fatigue threatens to drag me down. I can't stop, can't slow, not with that monstrosity giving relentless chase.
Suddenly, shapes loom out of the gloom—spindly claws made of wood and shadow swiping at me. I twist desperately, but one rakes along my arm, tearing cloth and flesh. Another swipe, and I'm stumbling, off-balance. I raced wildly, the forest floor tilting sickeningly beneath my feet.
A roo, a rock, some unseen snare—it doesn't matter which. My toe catches and I pitch forward in a boneless sprawl. Panic lends me speed as I scramble upright, but not enough. Something massive slams into me from behind, hurling me like a rag doll into the unforgiving embrace of a tree trunk.
The impact drives the breath from mu lungs in a strangled cry. Starts burst across my vision as the back of my skull cracks against unforgiving bark. I crumple, dazed, tasting blood on my lips. Above me, the creature's silhouette blots out of the feeble moonlight, its shape seemingly changed from a man form to writhe with impossible, maddening geometries. As it looms closer, I can smell its foul, charnel reek.
Agony lances through me as I try to move, to rise. My vision swims, darkness encroaching at the edges. I clutch at the tree trunk, fingernails scrabbling for purchase in the rough bark, desperate to stay conscious, to keep that…that thing in my sights.
I'm trapped, cornered, with no hope of escape.
"Crimson…child…destiny's…child…"
The creature's gravelly words send chills down my spine, their meaning as obscure as it is ominous. Crimson child? Destiny's child? What fresh horror does it foretell?
Before I can ponder it further, agony lances through me as those wicked talons plunge deep into my shoulder. I cry out, a raw animalistic sound torn from the depths of my being as burning pain blossoms outward from the wound.
Warm wetness spreads down my arm and I know it is blood, my life's essence spilling forth. The creatures regards me cooly, impassively, as if studying a specimen pinned to aboard.
The searing agony is overwhelming, a white-hot brand seared into my very soul. I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught, teeth gritted so hard I fear they may shatter. Is this it then? Is this to be my final moment?
Unbidden, memories rise up—a lifetime of struggle, of hurt, of being cast aside and trampled underfoot. From my earliest recollections, it has been one long, brutal gauntlet of suffering and degradation. I have endures, persevered, risen again and again only to be beaten back down into the mire.
Is this the reward for it all? To die here, along and in unspeakable torment, at the claws of this aberration? Have I truly earned no better end?
Hot tears streak down my cheeks, mingling with the crimsons streams flowing form the ragged gashes in my shoulder. The pain is excruciating, but it pales beside the anguish gripping my heart.
All I've ever wanted was to survive, to carve out some small measure of peace and solace in this harsh, unforgiving world. Is that truly so much to ask? I've harmed no one, wanted nothing more than the simple dignity of existing unmolested.
And yet, at every turn, fate has conspired to deny me even that humble dream. I am forever the hunted, eternally cast in the role of prey for things like this abomination…to torment and destroy on a whim. But why? What cosmic injustice have I committed to warrant such a luckless path?
I tensed, feeling the malevolent presence recoil from me as if burned. Cracking one eye open, I follow its horrified gaze down to my hand…and the softly pulsing crimson light emanating from the pendant clutched there. I did not realized that I had been holding onto this pendant.
My grip tighten on the pendant as the crimson light intensifies, bathing the clearing in an ominous scarlet glow. The creature shies back, hissing and snarling as the radiance washes over its twisted form.
Emboldened, I thrust the pendant out before me, letting the sanguine rays blaze forth unfettered. The light spreads through the forest like a crimson wildfire, driving the abomination back step by stumbling step until it's fully enveloped.
The creature's agonized wails reach a fever pitch as the crimson light intensifies to near-blinding levels. I can barely make out its twisted, writhing form through the sanguine glare, but I watch, transfixed, as it begins to dissipate.
"Crimson…child..." It's words are little more than a rasping hiss, barely audible over the roar of power thrumming from the pendant. "Must…take…"
And then, with one final, bone-chilling a shriek of rage and pain, the abomination unravels into tendrils of inky smoke that are rapidly consumed by the radiance. Soon, nothing remains but the pulsing crimson light and the deafening silence it leaves in its wake.
The crimson radiance fades entirely, leaving me blinking owlishly in the abrupt darkness. As my eyes adjust, I turn the pendant over, examining it closely. That's when I notice—the central gemstone is cracked, a hairline fracture marring its previously flawless surface.
Frowning, I run a thumb along the fissure, and to my surprise, the casing springs open with a faint click, revealing an empty hollow within. But how…?
The answer becomes clear as I catch the metallic tang of copper in the air. Lifting the pendant closer, I see it then—smeared across the interior is a thick, viscous streak of crimson.
My blood.
A sudden shift in the air around me—a subtle charge that raises the fine hairs on my nape. I tense, clutching the pendant lightly as the space before me behinds to warp and distort.
At first, it's little more than a faint shimmer. But it rapidly coalesces into a whirling, chromatic vortex of light and energy that has me shielding my eyes against the intensity of it.
When I risk a glance through splayed fingers, a form is taking shape at the vortex's luminous core. Humanoid, but radiating a sense of profound power that seems to reverberate in my very bones.
The maelstrom subsides as quickly as it arose, and I find myself face-to-face with…her. A woman—no, more than that. A warrior, by the look of the gleaming white armor that adorns her lithe form. Runes and sigils that I don't recognize etch its surface, pulsing with an inner light.
But it's her face that truly arrest me. A striking, angular beauty, to be sure, but there's something…ancient in those ancient green eye. Something that speaks of millennia and a weight of experience that dwarfs my paltry years.
Her hair cascades around those sculpted features in a silver-white torrent, defying gravity's pull.for an endless moment, we simply regard one another across the distance separating us.
Her piercing eyes hold my gaze, seeming to penetrate straight through my very soul. I feel pinned like an insect beneath the wight of that ancient, unfathomable stare.
Then, impossibly, her expressions softens. The harsh angles of her face become gentler, more…human. A faint smile curves those full lips as she speaks a single word.
"Ruby…"
My name.