A/N: I am so so so late and I apologise and I AM sorry but school was a bitch and I

LOST MY FRIGGIN THUMBDRIVE

Ugh. Is almost every writer cursed to lose her/his thumbdrive?! Seriously, it's the most cliché screw-up for a(n online) writer. EVER.

Anyway, I have a new plot and all and I know the first chapter is short, but I'm working on it. I will be working on new chapters for Grey(it was lost with my Goddess-forsaken thumbdrive) and Complicated Triangles and I made an improved first and long chapter for DGH. Huzzah.

Anyway, enjoy.

This is dedicated to a Llama (you know who you are) if you review and favourite everything because you cried when you proof-read it.

Chapter one: The Start of it All

Lenalee

I can't sleep, so I curl into a ball, as small as the brown straps They tie to my wrists allows me, and cry instead. I am so, so tired but I daren't close my eyes. Because then I will see the hot bursts of yellow and red as the fire eats the house and the terrible burning smell. I will see the pile of red cheongsam, embroidered all over with hummingbirds, and the scattered lump of ashes that used to be my mother filling up the red silk. My brother screamed my name over and over again and I knew my father was dead. I still remember. "Lenalee! Lenalee!" Here, they call me Subject 24.

Red

I sit in the dusty corner of the orphanage, getting cobwebs in my hair and dirt on my fingers as I doodle in the blackish grey dust. I use my right hand, pale as the white ceiling and murky as the dirt smudged walls, spotted over with bruises. My left hand I hide under the long sleeve of the rag of my shirt and oven mitts with coloured boxes, like a rainbow. The rest of the children are playing outside in the grass. I hide inside so they don't push me to the floor and hit 'till blood runs again. Demon child! They scream. Devil! The nuns call me "Red". It is the colour of my stiff, wrinkled left hand. I carefully draw swirls and squares with dots in the dusty floor.

Kanda

I can barely remember anything anymore. Just that pretty woman and flowers so pink and pale. Lotus flowers. That's what they were. I can see them now, filling up my world, sprouting from the ceiling, the walls, the tables, everywhere. I tell them but they don't believe me.

Who am I? I can't remember. I must have forgotten again.

"Kanda Yu-"

What are you talking about? I am not Kanda. Mugen. I am Mugen, a blade in my own hands, pulsating with a glow, so bright, so-

"Kanda! You can stop the synchronization now!"

–What? No. No, I am powerful, I am two, I am weapon, I am wielder and I am hungry.

'Slash'

'Scream'

'Thunk'

They're not moving anymore, or making any noise. Red, it's red everywhere. How did it get on my hand? I told you, I wasn't going to do what you want and I'm hungry and now you're dead.

Hungry…..

So hungry…..

Lost.

So confused

Blood. There's blood in my mouth. Death, too. And screaming, all around, in the room, in my ears, into my head, my brain.

Huh? What's that? I can't move anymore, my body and me, the blade, fall to the floor. Everything is dark.

Why is it so cold?

F

The alley kids name each other. I am Fire, they call me 'F' for short. We alley kids stick together, we help each other, feed each other and when the time comes, drag each other's corpses to the wild marshes we call the 'Dead Field'. We have only each other, after all. 'Us and Them' is the only rule of this grim world (which is the only one I have ever known)- loyalty. Grass is getting food today, but it is winter and it is cold and there isn't even a worm, be it dead or alive.

I flip around to face the wall, swallowing a mouth of snow that melts into water that my throat is screaming for, and run my fingers over the dirty bricks. I scratched 'Fire' there, each one of us marks our own corner, this one is mine. I use my arms as a bony pillow and huddle up as the cold wind blows, cutting into me like knives. I shiver.

[and so the week passes by]

Red

They say children are disappearing on the streets, the nuns do. How sad, they exclaim in front of us. Pray for them, they tell the others.

But it's all lies. I know they are glad. Good, they mutter, the little vermin are gone. Good riddance. The way they look at me, frosty-eyed and disgusted, I know they wish I'll disappear too.

At the table in the candlelight, an orange-haired boy- was his name Derek?- blows out the flames and sticks the knife into his cake. I clutch my stomach as thick slices of cake are handed out.

I don't have a birthday. Does that mean I don't exist?

F

I'm hungry. We're all hungry, and it's so cold. I hate winter. The snow, cold and wet, is bad enough and now we're getting Snatched. Grass was the first to go. When he didn't come back, we, Light, Fly and me, went to find him but we couldn't even find a single hazel hair off his head. He just disappeared, matches and all and now we have no fire. The next ones to go were Pink and Hippo from the next alley down the road, beside the fish shop. No one was that sad about it except Hippo's fellow alleyians, because now they have no one to beat other's up to steal their food.

I don't really care about the Snatching but now we have to pair up to get things to eat and I don't have a pair- not anymore- so I have to wait, hungry and cold.

I wish we had real fire.

Lenalee

23 died. I don't know his name, just hat he was a boy taller and older than me, with ginger hair and blue eyes so smart and so kind. He held my hand, dying on the table, as I stood beside him and waited my turn, trying not to cry, trying to be brave.

"Live," he'd said, and his voice was strong and proud though his words were muffled by the mask over his mouth. He gestured weakly but impatiently and I carefully slipped the clear plastic band of the mask over his head, pinkish with blood. "and remember." He turned his head to spit out a puddle of red onto the table.

"Don't forget us, the ones who die." He coughed up a storm, shudders wrecking his body, running up and down his spine.

"Remember."

It is his last word. His eyes were bright till the end. I squeezed his cold floppy hand, slippery from his blood, salty-smelling and crimson, before the grey-coated take him away.

I now lie where he died, eyes squeezed shut. In my chest, my heart goes thump-thump The hard metal table is still warm with his fleeting heat.

I will not be scared.

I hear a switch click.

I will not die. I will live, and with me, the memories of the children before me, all dead from this hell, will live with me.

They will not be forgotten.

Pain hits me like a tidal wave, with the pressure of a million bolting horses and their carriages. I hear myself scream obligingly. Then I am swimming, swimming in the darkness and there is a softly-glowing cube in my cupped hands. I touch it, and it pulses compellingly. I reach out and hug it closer to me, but it starts to glow suffocatingly so I let it go but it is too late and I am floating in the sticky green light, feeling like I am sinking in mud.

I won't go! I won't die! I will not be forgotten! I am alive!

I surge out of the greenish wisps the muddy sludge the light has become and the feather-light ribbons wrap around my legs, encasing it till above my knees in a comforting but icy weight. I am left in the darkness but it greys rapidly and I blink my eyes open.

The bright ceiling lights spin so I close my eyes again. I'm so dizzy.

The scientists are shouting, "Subject 24 successful! Experiment Forced Synchronization successful!" And-

Kanda

Everything is black. I feel Kanda's presence, in the back of my mind, struggling to escape. I don't let him. It is similar to pilling imaginary weights on the heavily locked door I stuck him in.

This body is mine now.

A sound escapes my chapped lips. A laugh, I register. A corner of my mouth pulls up and I laugh again. My voice is hoarse and bounces off all surfaces of the blank, empty room as my tightly-bound body shudders with the rhythm of my escaping breath.

A/N:IM FINALLY DONEEEEEEEE

My Dad is physically trying to pull me off the computer now, so I can't edit. I'll just post this and please ignore any mistakes (or ask if you want to verify something).

I hope this makes up for my slacking….. although I guess it doesn't. Gomenasai.

I'll try and update as soon as I can, okay?

Sayonara minna-chan!

~eternalrose09