A Psychic's Scarlet Dream

On this day that wasn"t supposed to be rainy, Gabriel Was.h.i.+ngton, a 26-year-old h.e.l.lfire of Vermillion, had made plans to meet up with his fiancé. Their engagement had happened out of the blue by the consent of their families and their wedding is due in six months. So, they don"t have much time aside from days like these when they could meet and get to know each other better. However, rain happened.

If that hadn"t already spoiled Gabriel"s mood, he then got a call from his boss, the Phoenix. Reid Vezalius Rosevelt told him to do a job to bring four people, four really important people, safely to him. While it"s reasonable that a job of this caliber can"t be given to anyone but some h.e.l.lfire, it still spoiled all of his plans for at least the next month.

Therefore, as one can a.s.sume, Gabriel Was.h.i.+ngton is not the best person to talk to as of right now.

"Hey you!"

And one can only wonder what is wrong with a guy who can"t understand that from the frowning face and furrowed eyebrows.

"Yes, you! Give me all the money that you have!"

A drunken man says so to Gabriel as he swings his knife in the air. While he is wearing formal clothes like that of a salesman, those clothes are torn and his rough-looking, unwashed face and hands don"t give off a very good first impression. Gabriel, knowing that theft and pick pocketing is common in dark alleys like the one he is in, especially when it is nighttime like right now, decides to ignore it and walk away but,

"Hey f.u.c.ker, don"t you see this baby here!"

The drunken man says while pointing at his knife. This man is even unable to stand properly and if truth be told, he would miss 9 out of 10 times he swings that weapon. However, he is too drunk to realize something like that and Gabriel is too annoyed to care.

Gabriel: "If you want to die, keep at it."

He speaks in a calm voice, which hides his inner h.e.l.lfire.

Gabriel: "But if you want to live, walk away."

He says without even bothering to look at the drunk man. The drunken man, on the other hand, gets agitated and swings his knife at whatever he can. The first strike – misses. The second strike – misses. The third strike – cuts off a piece of Gabriel"s retro suit and the fourth one cuts his cla.s.sic-style trousers. The black colored clothes look inexplicably bad with the little bit of blood coming out and the sight of the man responsible for it starts to truly disgust Gabriel. Therefore,

Gabriel: "You asked for it!"

He replies in a calm, but far from collected, voice, as he brings his hand out of his suit"s lower pockets and picks up the drunken man from his collars.

Gabriel: "You want me to smoke out cash, do you?"

The 6"6 giant that is Gabriel picks up the 5"3 drunken man like he is picking up a puppy and starts dragging him inside the alley.

Gabriel: "Come with me and I"ll give you all the cash I have!"

He says in a calm voice of a demon that terrifies the drunken man and makes him want to run away as fast as he can.

Drunken Man: "No, let go! Let me go!"

Too bad for him, he"s too late.

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In the backside of a parking lot that is the entrance to an alley, a man in formal but torn clothes lays upside-down in a garbage bin. He is trying to move his legs in order to get out but has garbage bags all around him that make him unable to even turn the bin from his weight. Furthermore, those same garbage bags are probably suffocating him.

As a group of friends who have had their fill of late night partying cross by the place, out of the two men and three women, one woman sees this unsightly sight.

Woman: "Ew! What the heck is that!?"

As she asks so in exclamation, the group"s attention turns to the garbage bin and they curiously walk over to it. While two or three of them were reluctant at first, at the end of the day, they all reached the bin and saw the ugly appearance of an upside-down man in a garbage bin. It could even be called a humorous scene, albeit dark humor.

And seeing this scene of dark humor, the group of five who were in their phase of trying to defy the world and act tough, laugh, even if they didn"t actually felt any joy from seeing it. After they were done laughing though, they decided to pull the guy out of the bin to ease his suffering. The two boys pull him out directly by pulling his legs while the three girls pull the bin down and hold it in its place. Unlike what they expected though, they find the task of pulling the man out quite easy. But, for some reason, the man still keeps shaking his legs as if he can"t breathe. The two boys who had fallen backwards because of the impact of it and the three girls who had fallen forwards, all get up and take a look at the face of the poor man they just saved. But, they can"t see the face. They can see the still shaking legs and the waist and the stomach but, not the chest or the face. And seeing so,

"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"  "AAAAAAAHHH!!!" "AAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

-Echoes the cries of the five as they run away as fast as they can. As they try to run away though, one of the girls falls on the dustbin. Without even looking at anything, she gets up somehow and starts running again crying even louder than before because of the fear of something much more horrible being in the dustbin. And this "something much more horrible", the hands, the chest and the face of the drunken man do fall out of the dustbin. Fortunately or unfortunately, no one was around to see the upper part and the expression of terror and regret at the man"s face as he died while his senses were still working. Such a simple thing the h.e.l.lfire did by severing half the mind (the part which controls the heart) and leaving the other as is after giving some extra energy to the limbs to keep them moving. However, this simple thing done by the h.e.l.lfire would be enough to bring terror to every man and woman in the city.

All of this began merely with an attempt at burglary. Rosevelt said that the foolishness of smart people causes for there to be disasters. Maybe this man too had been a smart or a capable individual in some field, just like how everyone is said to be.

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The h.e.l.lfire who just killed a man by splitting him into two halves now casually walks the street of the dark town, darkened more in the night, albeit saved a little by the moonlight. And just like this town, this man is also dark because of his past, darkened more because of his jobs in Vermillion, but there"s just that glimmer of moonlight that saves him. That moonlight is his family. He would never say it to their faces but he loves his parents and their brothers and sisters as well as his own brothers and sisters more than anything else. It"s a large family that values their traditions too much and as a result, things like deciding his engagement without his consent happens and it is not that surprising for him. To be honest, he never really cared about marriage. He knew someday his family would tell him to marry someone of their choice without even asking him first and he was ready for it. In fact, the fact that his family chose a woman for him means to him that woman is something special and so, he will wholeheartedly accept that relations.h.i.+p.

Therefore, he had decided that he"d meet with her a good number of times and get to know her better before they actually marry. However, now that the circ.u.mstances won"t let that happen, he at least needs to tell her all that truthfully, even if that means showing his fiancé how unreliable of a husband he might end up being.

Gabriel: "I hope she"s an understanding woman."

He wishes while staring up at the moonlit sky as he stops next to her house. He prepares himself mentally by taking in a long breath and releasing it. And then, he rings the doorbell.

…

He waits for about a minute and then rings the doorbell again.

…

He again waits for a minute before ringing the doorbell.

Gabriel: "Didn"t expect my in-laws and fiancé to be a bunch of sloths."

He remarks as he starts getting a little annoyed at the wait he is being put through. He has just taken his frustration out on a street-side burglar and had ended up becoming much calmer than he was before. Therefore, something like this doesn"t affect him too much. However, he does start wondering if everything is alright with his in-laws and his fiancé.

Gabriel: "Are they even at home?"

He asks himself a stupid question; stupid because the lights are clearly on, question because he is still starting to wonder about that.

Gabriel: "Tsk!"

He clicks his tongue in annoyance as he starts feeling a bit awry and anxious and finally ends up deciding to break-in.

Well, he doesn"t literally break-in because he just teleported himself inside the house but still, he went in quite uninvited. He can just hope that no one ends up seeing him as soon as he appears inside or he"ll have to readjust their memories. Fortunately for him, no one sees him. He can feel it with his aurreading that no eyes are on him.

Gabriel: "That"s good!"

He remarks to himself and continues,

Gabriel: "Now, where are they?"

The one good thing he had found out from his aurreading was that there were no eyes on him when he entered. However, one bad thing he found out was that no one was present in the house at all. But, if so, why are the lights on? Not even a burglar is present in the house. So, why the heck are the lights on?

He soon finds his answer as he keeps searching with his aurreading. In the two-storey house filled with luxuries everywhere, there is only one room that was completely empty and looks dull compared to everywhere else in the entire house. This room is … the sight of a murder.

Gabriel: "The f.u.c.k!?"

He cannot see it but he senses the aura of death from that room. And because of that, he runs. He runs to the upper floor, where that room is.

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