Seeing Red
Sometimes he thought he was seeing red.
Crimson veins seemed to creep at the edges of his vision at times, but once he blinked, they would fade away. Sometimes they returned, but with a simple motion of his eyelids fluttering close and open, they disappeared once again.
He didn't avoid how messed up the past few years had made him. He faced it head on, but there was no saving his dwindling sanity. His hands were permanently stained blood-red - while he had not actually killed anyone, he might as well have; he had stopped keeping count of the number of lives he had ruined.
Blood-shot eyes stared back at him when he looked into the mirror, acquired from nights spent researching opponents, arranging his deck, thinking through strategies, pushing past his limits to become better and strong, for his father to acknowledge his achievements; sometimes he awakened from nightmares of his victims, shooting accusatory glares back at him, their eyes red with anger, and he would not go back to sleep, sitting by the window, waiting for the sun to rise.
Another day in pursuit of revenge.
He wanted to help his father, as did his brothers; if they had to harm others in the process, so be it. He only disliked that he had to follow orders, robbed of any freedom in his actions, and was at odds with his father more often than not.
However, he gritted his teeth and pressed on, putting his all in the hope that everything would return to normal once their father recovered. Consequences of his actions were not a priority in his head; if they failed, nothing else would matter. The world could end for all he cared, if his family couldn't return to the harmony they used to have.
Sometimes he's mad that he would even think that, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that there was nothing else in his life worth his while. The bliss he used to have, bliss with his family he used to take for granted, it no longer existed when their father disappeared, then returned in a form that did not seem to retain any shadow of his former self. Sure, he now held the title of Asian Champion, but it was won for his father to notice his accomplishments, just to see if there was any shred of the man his mother had loved, but all he received in return was a wave of a hand and throngs of fans that were no more than annoying flies. He didn't need their acknowledgement, but something beneficiary did come out of his fame. Easy prey.
The lines were blurring. Too long had he been doing the same thing, over and over, it started feeling like second nature. The maniacal grin he spent hours perfecting in front of the mirror was a mask, to ease the discomfort at harming others while he went about his role of a Hunter. He didn't understand the laughter that so naturally spewed out of his mouth one day at seeing the fright on his opponent's face. He understood his brother's horrified expression even less. In that moment, he felt the sheer pleasure of victory, the delight at the fear that was the cowering body on the other end of the alleyway. Fear directed towards him. He was feared. He was intimidating.
Revenge became easier. His hands were stained no longer, but coated. If he stared at them a little longer, rivulets of thick, crimson liquid seemed to seep between the gaps of his fingers, falling to the ground with an audible plop. He knew he shouldn't be enjoy inflicting pain as much as he did, but considering how messed up his life already was, why should it be of any importance?
He didn't expect the fire.
It rose up in a flash, performing a dangerous dance as it spun around her body, devouring almost every inch of her; his ears were assaulted by her tortured shrieks of pain, sounds the then dominant part of his brain told him he was supposed to enjoy; his good sense snapped back in place in that instant, and he rushed to her side, shielding her as best as he could from the onslaught of flames as they avoided fallen debris while finding their way out of the fallen building. She would have permanent scars etched into her; he knew that in the instance he saw the flares rocket towards her in a burst of fury. Jarring flaws that would hinder her for the rest of her life. No matter what came of his revenge… this was one person who will never live a normal life, courtesy of his already blood-coated hands that will now be scorched with the darkest black underneath all the red.
Blood can be washed away - burns took longer to heal, if they healed at all. Impeding, destructive. That's what fire does. Destroy. Her future, devastated by his own hands. It occurred to him, maybe it wasn't just hers; what about the others that he had hurt as well, what had become of them?
He had been naïve. There was no one to blame. He had made the choice to follow his father, his choice was the cause of the hideous blotches on her skin, a map coloured in fresh pink, startling white, gruesome black, and… it always boiled down to the colour red, didn't it? The one scar he received upon his face throughout it all and the sticky, slippery, raw red blood that flooded his eye and coagulated within the hand that tried to staunch the flow, they could never be enough as recompense.
In the aftermath, the only one he could blame was himself. His fault. Everything.
The mask of a fiend returned to his face in every subsequent hunt, a means of forcing down the bile in his throat with every finishing blow he delivered. He had to soldier on. He had come too far to let his momentum stop in its tracks. If he had to lie to himself, so be it. No matter how much red took over his sight… his goal was clear. And he would do anything to reach it.
Whether he was aware of it or not, he was losing control. The strings holding him up had drawn tight, finally cut into flesh, red hot liquid flowing down from thin slits. He wondered if he would feel better if the strings were steel ropes instead, heated by a rousing fire.
In ruining lives, he had ruined his own. Or maybe it had been ruined from the start, when he made the decision to place his family first. The red tendrils that crept into his vision didn't bother him anymore. He was angry, furious that his world turned out this way, but his feet had chosen this rocky path to tread upon, a path he had followed for many years, and until the day his blood ran dry, he would not allow himself to stop.
A/N: From the prompt 'seeing red', and I just didn't want to think of a better title. I wrote more than half of this while suffering from a migraine, and even if I wasn't this just feels like it falls short than what I intended it to be...
Revised: 18/10/12