CRIMSON GUARD

Harry woke up with his body aching all over. "Wait a minute, shouldn't I be dead by now?", he asked rhetorically while clenching the side of his abdomen where the sword from Frank's attack had pierced.

Looking down to check for any sign of a mark or scar, he had seen nothing but bloodied bandages. At least that was what he thought. Bandages which had been used to patch up his pierced skin. The skin beneath the bandages felt ticklish as he twitched his roughed up body.

His face reddened with unbearable pain as his wound opened up a little. Harry hadn't calculated this outcome when he had tried his best to move. "Don't move or you're just going to end up hurting yourself", a voice had said from not far away. Harry quickly turned his head to the side while taking a clear look at the one who had spoken.

It was Stellar, the one person Harry wasn't expecting to see in heaven. His eyes darted around the place while trying to take in the tiniest detail into consideration. The place was dark with the only source of light being some campfire Stellar had started.

She glared back at Harry when she had noticed his blue eyes staring at her. After what she had been through not long ago she wasn't scared of the stares of men anymore. In fact she had no interest in a dumb guy anyway.

Staring ahead though she shrugged her shoulders while staring at the other body on the ground—the squad leader's body. It laid stationary on the ground as if it belonged to that of a dead person. Harry had noticed this and that was why he was staring at Stellar without flinching.

She quickly noticed this later on and the thought about Harry been into her since she was half naked at the moment straightforward, went out the window.

"Oh don't worry about her, she is just unconscious. I didn't do anything to her after you had saved me from that monster..", she said out loud with a smirk on her face. She knew the kind of feelings Harry had for Mina and wasn't going to risk hurting her after he had saved her from that atrocious pain.

When she was at the verge of being molested and abused by that sickening man, it was Harry who had rescued her at the final moment. This simple act of bravery of his had changed the mentality she had about him and had calmed her down when she was in a state of mental instability due to the death of her brother.

For this her respect for this dumb guy had totally skyrocketed at the moment. Without knowing what to do since he couldn't move elsewhere due his injuries.

He placed his elbow on his chest whiles the other one was gently tugged under his head. Though his cheeks had swollen a little due to the kind of fall he had had when he fell inside the crater, he felt a bit better since it wasn't hurting like how it was when he was in the hole.

He closed his eyes and stared deep into the darkness behind his eyelids. This darkness was what he had always experienced in life and what he had been used to. Images of the kind of life he would have been living at home if not for this supernatural occurrence were pouring into his head.

In one of the images though he could see his mom and dad watching tv in the living room. A smile had crept up on his face when he had realized what he would have been doing at that time if he were suppose to be at home.

'8:30pm, I would have been heading to the fridge to grab some water after finishing what I had kept inside my room. I wonder where I had learnt those stealth moves of mine…'

'I guess I might have adapted to the situation by creating those moves…', he continued.

He wondered why he had to always be in such a situation everyday. 'Aha, I remember. It was that day, the day I had called her mom after dad had warned me not to. I wonder why she hates me that much. Thank my lucky stars that I don't resemble her even though she is my mother.'

His body shuddered slightly when he remembered the kind of damage he had taken on that day. A broken nose, cracked ribs, swollen cheeks, broken fingers and a couple of sprains across the joints within his body.

The doctor who had taken care of him when he was sent to the hospital the next day was taken aback by the kind of state the small boy was in. "Who did this to you?", he had asked but Harry remained silent since he knew what his mother was capable of.

Beads of sweat ran down his face as he stared at the doctor who stared back eerily at him with a saddened expression on his face. "Do you go through bullying in school? Have they told you that they are going to hurt you if you tell anyone?."

Harry's younger self wanted to clear the air of melancholy that surrounded him. He quickly shook his head vigorously while closing his eyes. While shaking his head though, the doctor had quickly noticed something the rest of the people who had brought him couldn't. There were bite marks around his throat where his vocal cord should be located.

Harry's heart thumped louder than ever as his gaze had followed that of the doctor's and had realized where he was curiously looking at. He quickly tried his best to use his hand to cover the place where the doctor was looking at.

Without realizing that his fingers were no longer functioning because they had been snapped, he had brushed the broken fingers against his throat and it had shot an unbearable pain throughout his hand.

The pain had caused him to sob in pain. Though no sound came out when he had done so, tears dropped down from his eyes and they told a story about the kind of state the boy was in.

The door of the consultation room they were in had flung open and walking into the room was a tall white haired man. His figure was a bit frightening as he stepped through the door but his face said a different story.

He quickly rushed towards his son and embraced him into a tight hug. Harry's mouth had closed up on instinct after noticing whose hands were around his body.

The doctor could feel that something wasn't right and was about to reach for his phone. He was a doctor and understood several human expressions and he fully knew the meaning of the kind of expressions Harry was showing.

"What do you think you are doing?", a deep and heavy voice had spouted out from where Harry sat. Though it sounded like a simple question the tone behind it had sent shivers down the spine of the doctor who had his hands around his phone and was dialing away as fast as he could.

Before he could finish typing in the three-digit phone number he wanted to dial, a huge hand had encircled his throat and prevented him from continuing with what he had wanted to do.

Turning the doctor around, the strange man's eyes started to glow red as he stared into his eyes. Suddenly the air around the man tended up and became heavier than normal.

Harry wanted to tell his father to stop but he knew how aggressive he could become when it came down to matters that was going to affect the sanity of his wife. He therefore knew that the doctor was doomed.

"Hey I've got one good news for you fella. I don't know if it's going to help lighten up your mood but I know that it is going to help us complete the mission…", Stellar blurted out and knocking Harry out of his thoughts.

Harry's eyes glowed with excitement when he had heard her words. Though good news was or were something he couldn't deny that he liked to hear, it wasn't the reason why he was excited. It was the fact that he had almost relived one of the darkest moments of his life if it wasn't for Stellar's interference.

"Should I go on?", she asked while eagerly waiting for how the dumb boy was going to react after hearing the supposed good news.

"Okay, I have found the orc village. I had stumbled upon it when carrying you two into this cave. It's at the foot the mountain in which this cave it located."