Y'know, technically, I'm on hiatus or whatever. Lack of motivation and yada yada. However, I still decided to put out a little chapter 1 for you guys. It's a bit past 4am at this point, and it was a sudden oh man let's write thing, so I can't confirm it being any good. Nevertheless, enjoy!

Oh! I should also mention that this contains a few flashback/timejump things, so don't be too confused, haha! I just wanted to add a bit of Allen's past as 'Red'.


Fated

Chapter 1


~XoX~

Red was careful when he did what he did. Smooth. Precise. Apologetic. Oh, but that was a façade. Completely so. But others were just too gullible, too invested in their own lives to know.

His right hand was weighed down with the coins that nestled within it, as well as… a ring, he believed, judging on the smooth, empty circle of metal pressed against his palm. Too big for his little, lithe fingers. The man of higher class walked on after yelling at him for their bump, and Red had apologised so convincingly, too.

Seemed he didn't realise that his pockets were now empty. Idiot. And what other way was Allen to get food and keep Cosimo happy?

His silver eyes were cold as he made his way along, lips twitching with the smirk that threatened to cradle them. He silently slipped his loot into the pocket of his tattered pants, stepping through the snow. He'd almost become numb to the pain of aching bones from the constant cold. Almost. It wasn't something one could completely ignore, not when it dug right down to his marrow. Marrow, right? He heard someone say something about it to a dog eating a bone once… the squishy red insides of it, right? He'd poked it once, just out of sheer curiosity. It wasn't as bad as he had thought – maybe it was edible? He had never gotten so far as to try it, though, as he had been yelled at while his finger remained knuckle-deep in the slimy stuff.

Yes, all the way down to his marrow was cold. Especially in his fingers, but only on his right. His left – red, twisted, deformed – seemed unable to feel the cold at the rate. It made it easy to scrape up snow whenever the damned shovel he had to lug around broke. But he always left his mitt on – no point letting anyone see the monstrous creation that was his left arm.

Shunned. Silenced. Scorned.

Hey, boy.

What?

Red hair – red, his name, all he had been labelled by – flung about his face as he turned sharply on heel. Who had said that? They had been talking to him… he was sure. Never had he been more convinced than in that moment. However, after a sufficient glance all the way 'round and back again, he found nobody the culprit of the sound. Someone glowered at him from afar, paying an overly acute sense of attention to him, someone involved with the law if anything was to be divulged by the uniform, but…

No, they were too far away. The voice had been right there, right in his ear, right in his mind.

Yes, you. I…. tal…. I ...

It was replaced with an absence, the voice, the one that was not in his head, even if it seemed so. However, the absence was hollow – it was not just something leaving, but something leaving a space. The empty, rhetoric static of thoughts did not fill this gap, for some reason. It was like they consciously skirted around it, afraid of what may be resting there.

"Don' be stupi'." It was only a thought, but it came out as a mutter. "There's no voice in yer 'ead," he kicked his foot against the ground, sending a stone scattering down the street, "n' there ne'er will be. That's stupid." Only crazy people had voices in their head, and Red was not crazy. No, he was as sane as sane could be, he was sure. After all, he had lived in this world for a while now and had only ever been met with harsh conditions. He knew more than a top-shelf, rich snob. He knew how life really was.

Without money, it seemed, there was nothing.

Thinking of, he needed to get these coins somewhere. Especially before his odd behaviour became too obvious. Now that he had retracted his mind from such a distracted mind, he realised he had been slipping his pinky finger in and out of the ring. A glance at the sky told him that the sun wasn't in the right position to reflect off the metal, which would have given him away immediately, but it was still a dangerous thing to do. Seemed he had another habit to scrawl onto that mental list of his – don't fiddle when you are distracted.

He'd forget it. He forgot basically everything on that list. Bad habits were harder to break than he had realised. He would admit, though, that he had become much, much better at lying.

He walked, calmly, like he knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing, not of any suspicion to the general public. He was even slightly distracted, as someone would usually be, but Red knew all too well it was for all the wrong reasons.

It was still right there. A pressure on his ears. Something was right there and it wanted him to listen but he couldn't… no, he wouldn't.

He would just go back and forget about it.


~XoX~

Allen had since ventured into opening his left eye, and now knew every little detail of the landscape in impressive memory. If he could draw, he would be able to recreate it on paper. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to draw. Well, he did, he just couldn't do it that well. Not well enough to create intricate and realistic images. Which wasn't surprising, considering his age, but… well… He could still dream.

With a sigh, he slumped back into the chair – was there even a less comfortable choice than stone?

Yes. There is. Don't test it.

If he hadn't been chained to the chair, Allen would have jumped up in surprise. He… He could…

Yes, I hear what you're thinking, and it's mighty annoying. What are you, like, nine?

Despite the awareness that he didn't have to speak aloud, Allen still gave his words to the nothingness that surrounded him. "…Sure, we'll go with that." He was sure that this… 14th, or whatever he had described himself as, already knew how old he was. That did make Allen wonder how much more he would know, then, if that happened to be the case.

God, you sure are rather dark for some little kid. The voice was once again heavy-laden with sarcasm that so nearly dripped from the words being spoken… (Is it spoken, or is it something else? Allen just had to wonder.)

Allen wanted to find something to say, something bitter and equally sarcastic to roll from his tongue, but nothing came to mind. Perhaps it was because it was true? But then again, the upbringing hadn't been great so far, and at the moment it would seem he was being possessed. Really, it brought out a little of his old self, the Red he was before Mana had come along. And after his moment of contemplating what possible sarcasm he could weave into the fabric of something so sad, he only came out with a single word. "Yeah…"

Oh, my god, the voice was a faux surprised – Allen could picture quite clearly someone widening their eyes and placing a hand over their mouth just for the dramatics of it, is that some hint of you being solemn that I hear? No, that's impossible.

Allen's brows furrowed in annoyance at the mocking tenor the voice inherited, making fun of the single moment he had let any emotion break through to the surface. "Shut yer mouth, asshole. If you even 'ave a mouth that isn't mine." He would remember not to let himself fall into the trap of being solemn or saddened again. Not with this… this thing around, gauging his thoughts and pulling apart any weakness it could find.

Woah, woah, woah; who taught you that kind of language? A laugh, deep and rather gravelly, if anything. It was a laugh Allen would deem some type of villain to have. Well, that was from what he knew from villains in the stories that Mana had read him…

Oh, God- Did… What if that meant that the person in his body was a villain-

I'm going to stop you right there. I am not a villain. On the contrary, I saved your life. You should be thankful.

Allen, firstly, took a moment to let that word roll around in his mind. Contrary. He wasn't too sure about what it means, completely, but it must have something to do with the way this 14th person thought they were doing something good. And, with that out of the road, he moved on to thinking more closely about the words… no, definitely not spoken… the words put into his mind. "But only, like… demons take people's bodies, and that's what you've done-"

You want the body back so bad?! Allen actually flinched at the sudden yell, so angry compared to moments prior. Then have it. God, you're so tiny and weak anyway, it's awful to be stuck in it like this."

He was about to answer, snap back something witty about the insults that had just been made, but before he could get them from his brain to his lips he was tumbling forward. The words left his mouth in a harsh exhale, and he simply plummeted downward into an abyss, no end in sight, no bottom to hit, falling, falling, falling…


~XoX~

He flew up into a sitting position the moment his eyes snapped open, inhaling noisily, grasping at his chest with the odd feeling that he wasn't quite there. After a moment of patting at his chest and shoulders, Allen actually took the chance to scan the area, keeping a hand settled on his sternum to monitor the inhale and exhale of breath from his lungs. In a way, it grounded him in the current situation, made him feel a little less nauseous and disoriented.

Air whistled against an empty… train station? No, not empty. On further inspection, it would seem the place was crumbling, stones wearing away and moulding with the weather and time that had been placed upon them. This place had to have been long abandoned.

"Why the hell would you leave me here?" The cry echoed off of cracked stone, came rebounding back to him. Other than that, there was no answer. Seemed whoever it was who had so bothered him just moments prior had chosen now to shut up.

Helpful.

Allen took his time in picking himself up off of the ground, giving consideration to the dull ache in many a place on his body. For a moment he stood, swaying slightly, letting everything that had just happened sink in. But it didn't sink in – instead, it burrowed beneath his skin and infected from within, and it hurt. He tried to stem the tears welling along the line of his lower lashes, but he couldn't. And besides, it didn't seem like the pesky person he had previously dealt with was around either. So he let them fall, silent drops that rolled down his cheeks in warm streaks, the skin flushing with red wherever they touched. And inside of him, something reached out for the comfort of Mana, of lying beneath that tree on the cold nights, of the creaking branches, but none of it was with him. All he could hear was the whistling of an abandoned space and all he could feel was the drowning sorrow and the bite of the cold against his skin.

Where am I? Why aren't you answering? You can't just leave me here like this!

A silence filled the space in his mind that the other voice resided. No pressure, no background static. Nobody is available to talk, it seemed. And it was unfair, so unfair, that he had to deal with this and then wake up in the middle of nowhere, alone and afraid.

So he shuffled his way into the building, dust floating in the stagnant air, swirling as his walking stirred it from a long slumber. The air smelled of water and dirt, and earthy scent that revealed that mould and moss would be trailing up the walls at this point. It was still, however, a shelter from the wind, and for that he was grateful. Benches still resided within the building, coated with a heavy layer of grime and dust – but then again, Allen's skin was the same anyway. His clothes, too. A little more really didn't matter all that much at this point.

He didn't try to get comfortable lying on the bench. He didn't think he would be able to sleep, let alone be comfortable on the bench. It wasn't that he hadn't slept on similar surfaces and the like before. No, it was something different, something he couldn't put a name or a feeling to. No matter what it was, he would simply lie here for a while, recover from aching nausea that settled in his stomach and rose to the back of his mouth. His eyes flicked over the ceiling in imaginary patterns, right hand rested upon his abdomen, his eyes wide and staring upward.

Yes, regardless of how close it could possibly be to sunrise at that point, it was going to be a long night.


...

So, here I am. Alive and doing okay. On hiatus, but I still decided to put out a chapter. It's a short one, I admit, only coming in at a lazy 2000 words, but you know what? I got up, I opened word and I did it. That's a lot more than I can say for the past... well, few months, really. So I'm sorry I'm so slack, even the things I enjoy (writing and drawing and the like) are just so much effort and so tiring and it's really hard to feel like I can't keep up or won't ever be good enough/better than those around me.

But that's enough of that rant. I'm sure you're not here to listen to me whine, ahaha. I'm glad I could get this chapter out, as sure as I am that it has a multitude of mistakes due to it now being 4:30am. We get to hear a bit more from the 14th, a little bit of Red, just a little bit more development before I decide to really get into things in this story (because I do have a plan! Kinda...)

Have a nice day!

CryDon'tSmile


P.S. If you really wanna see more of me/my art, you can head on over to my tumblr under the username 'crydontsmile' or on deviantart, once again, under 'crydontsmile'. Thanks~