A friend got me hooked on Transistor a few days ago. I'm only about 2/3 of the way through it, so I did take a few creative liberties, but I like the way this turned out!
He was riff-raff. He was a deviant, not quite a criminal but all but regarded as such by the regular, upstanding members of society. While they made their livings creating things- building, debating, leading, teaching- he made his by destroying them. More specifically, destroying people. He was a boxer. Seven nights a week, he wrapped his wrists and forearms in bandages meant to reinforce the joints, stripped off his shirt, and stepped into the ring. Sometimes he won. More often, he lost. Every time, he spent the early hours of the morning washing the blood from his face in preparation for the next night's fight. He wasn't living the dream, but he was living, and that was enough.
That didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the finer things in life, though. He let his eyes skim the horizon each night as he walked (or more often limped) home from his latest fight, observing the twinkling lights of the city as they flickered out for the night. Every so often he'd hear music drifting from the Empty Set, where concerts were often held. When this happened, he almost always stopped to listen, just for a moment.
After the first few times, he'd found himself drawn to that music. It had been a particularly bad night. Blood still oozed from his left nostril. The corresponding eye would be black and bruised come morning. But the voice he heard... it numbed all the physical pain he was feeling as if the air had been filled with morphine. So he'd hesitated, looked from the direction of the Empty Set to the distance where his lonely apartment sat and back again, and started off in the direction of the foremost. He'd just listen for a few minutes, he told himself. Then he'd go home and nurse his injuries.
That was the night he first laid eyes on her. The posters advertising the concert called her Red. He felt the disgusting glares of common folk on his battered body- he was wearing a shirt now, at least, but that hardly masked the injuries to his face that on some days rendered him almost recognizable- but he ignored these glares. He was accustomed to them by now. He pushed his way through the crowd, gently but insistently, until he found a vantage point. He wasn't sure when his mission had changed from simply listening to her sing to actually seeing her, but he wasn't consciously concerned about that right now.
His eyes settled on her as she began a new song, one she was apparently very well known for if the reaction of the crowd was any indication. Whereas they had been cheering, screaming her name, just seconds before, they now fell silent, watching her as if entranced. Perhaps she really did have them in a trance. She'd certainly captured his attention, to say the least. She stood at the microphone, nothing and nobody occupying the space surrounding her, and sang. All red hair, ruby lips, and a flowing gown the color of cream and gold. He was instantly enraptured by this creature so much more pure than anything he'd ever seen before... but that trance did not last long. He was not welcome here, and those surrounding him were making that well known. So he retreated.
That would not be the last time he saw her, though, or heard that voice like a siren's call. From then on, every time he heard music coming from the Empty Set after a night of fighting, he would detour away from his path home and slink to the edge of the crowd, just close enough to get a glimpse of her. Slowly and slowly, he began to risk getting closer and closer, until the crowds that came to see her perform were well accustomed to his presence. Even if they didn't like it, they came to tolerate it, not that he cared either way. He just had to see her. He couldn't explain it.
He came out of the fight that night still a loser, but a little less bloody than usual. It took him less than a minute to hone in on the faint sound of music, and like he always did, he took that as his cue to maneuver away from his apartment and towards the source of the sound. He found his way to a corner near the front, the closest to her he'd ever dared venture and still well concealed among the safety of the crowd, and watched through shaggy hair that nearly covered his eyes. He brushed it absently out of the way with one hand. Something in the atmosphere felt different, but he paid it no notice. That mistake, he'd later learn, would cost him greatly. Would cost him his life.
She sang that same song again, the first one he'd ever really heard her sing, and within seconds he was as comatose as the crowd around him, watching her,hearing her. It didn't make any sense for him to care so much, for him to hold on so dearly, to something- someone- that had no actual connection to him... but in a way, she signified everything he lacked. She was everything good in this world, everything he'd missed out on. He coveted that... but above all, he wanted to protect it. Wanted to check, every so often, to make sure that it was still there. It always was.
He wasn't sure why he noticed the sword and no one else. In hindsight, perhaps they had and just hadn't reacted quickly enough, or hadn't cared to. In hindsight, his actions had been the epitome of foolishness. He wasn't living the life of a prince, but he wasn't totally miserable either; certainly wasn't suicidal. He had no reason to give his life for another, especially not her... but as soon as he saw the glint of blue emerge from the crowd, it was as if his body was moving on its own accord. And if he could physically stop it, he found, he had no desire to try.
The sword lunged at her out of the thick of the crowd. Where it came from, he couldn't say, and neither could anyone else that was there that night. What he didknow was that it was as if time itself grew still and, without a moment of hesitation, he broke free from the crowd and crossed the distance between himself and her within a single heartbeat. Chivalry and good form were lost on him now; he pushed her aside with all the grace he possessed in the ring- that is to say, none- and took her place, in front of the microphone, watching as the sword meant for her entered him instead. A startled cry escaped him, amplified by the microphone before his lips, and then he was falling... and then blackness. But through the pain, it wasn't himself he was worried for- it was her. It was Red.
Please, let Red be safe.