CRIMSON GUARD

Seconds turned to hours and the world around Harry had begun to spin a couple of times. His head which had been pummeled vigorously was hurting like crazy. Daggers, axes; that was what he felt had been stabbed and struck into his body.

He mustered all the strength he could and slapped his hands on the ground while trying his best to get up. Strength was all that he needed to overcome this agony and misery. He knew his brother was never like this, he had been with him for most of his time. Everything had changed when his friends had made fun of him because of his brother's disability. Since then he had decided to make Harry suffer the same way he had during that day.

That was why all these things had struck him deeply in his chest. Love was a double-edged sword had now shown its dark side to him.

He gnashed his teeth in pain while trying his best to stand up to his feet. He had to get out of the place before his parents come home.

This was the only laid-down rule he was to follow, he wasn't going to risk breaking that simple rule at all cost. Twisting and turning, he had finally dragged himself to a nearby table. Harry pulled himself from the ground and trotted into his room.

There he had tried his best to patch up where he had been hurt. School was going to commence tomorrow and he couldn't go there looking like crap. He didn't want people to get the kind of idea that he was a creep or a weirdo or anything.

The bathroom door flung open as Harry stormed into the place. The blood from his broken nose had clotted and all that he had to do was clean and then patch it up. From the miniature wardrobe above his pasting sink, he grabbed some antiseptics. He squeezed a glob of the antiseptic and smeared it all over his face.

A piercing scream had exited his mouth when the burning sensation of the antiseptic had already begun its work. 'You will pay for this Toby!', he screamed in his head while trying to calm his unsettling nerves.

After patching up though, Harry had already wasted all the energy he had and went straight to bed, trying his best to forget whatever had transpired between him and his brother.

———

The next morning, Harry had woken up after hearing an alarm in his room go off. Today was the day school was going to reopen after a long vacation. A smile appeared on his face when he had thought of meeting, Mina Rodriguez, his crush. He had had a crush on her since age 5 but he couldn't succumb to the feeling of telling her how he feeled. How was he even suppose to do something like that— he was dumb. Who would love a dumb boy anyway?.

This sort of rhetorical questions were the ones which had always held him back each time he wanted to do something. The feeling of everyone staring daggers at him supposed Mina rejects his proposal. What would Toby even say when he hears such a thing. Knowing him though, Harry knew he wouldn't give a damn about him when they are in school but when they get home, that's where the true horror begins.

Harry shrugged his shoulders in defeat as he opened his closet. He closely checked all the clothes before selecting his school's uniform.

It was a long suit which went down all the way to his pelvic girdle. The coat had some golden trimmings on its edges. The insignia of the school was elegantly embedded at the back of the coat. The symbol contained a sea serpent encircling itself in a ring and trying tirelessly to bite its own tail.

———

Harry had a bandage on his nose— the area where Toby's kick had landed. He buckled his shoe while his backpack hung loosely from his shoulder.

The ground floor was as quiet as a cemetery and Harry wasn't surprised by this. He was rather used to this kind of atmosphere, it was what he had been introduced to when he was born.

The front door of the house opened slowly with Harry stepping out of it with his lunch box in hand. He wasn't embarrassed by this act since he didn't expect any form of admiration from anyone.

Honk!

His mother's car honked violently signaling that she was already pissed off by what he was doing. He made a run to the car and with a swift movement had opened the car's door, hopping into the backseat and relaxing.

The car smelled very nice because of his mother's perfume. Opening his mouth, he had tried his best to tell his mother how beautiful she was looking but once again he lacked the voice to do so.

His mother's black hair dazzled, giving off a feint but immaculate glow. One which Harry had never anticipated. This had happened because his mother was currently looking at him in the eye. Harry remained stunned in his seat—- her beauty had knocked him out.

Toby had taken his pale impeccable skin from her mother. Her skin was as white as snow and was without any blemish even though she was a bit older than an average youngster. No one would have ever believed that this woman was a mother to a seventeen-year old and a fifteen-year old boy. Her eyebrows narrowed and her blue eyes sparkled like precious stones.

"Don't you ever keep me waiting like this again ", she had warned with a caring tone but Harry understood everything these words were trying to tell him without a second thought. She had noticed the bandage on his son's face but had decided to ignore since the boy was of no importance to him. Therefore she didn't actually care about any thing that happened to him. All she wanted was to see the boy eliminated by school authorities because of his disability. With this method all she had to do was to feed this dog and lock it up in cage. This way no one would be able to know about her disabled son.

——

[1st lesson begins]

The school siren had communicated this message throughout the hallways of the school. This was to tell all the students to get to their classrooms.

In class, lessons had progressed quite a bit early. Harry sat closer to the window, so as usual, he had a nice view of what was always going on outside. This most at times prevented him from concentrating in class. Today was also of no exception and he was looking outside the window.

The teacher had seen everything but had decided to ignore it since he knew that Harry was disabled. That wasn't the only reason why. Harry was also a genius in his classroom and no matter number of times he didn't concentrate in class he was still able to pass with flying colors.

Harry who was lost in his own world had no idea that the teacher was looking at him. Harry had thought that coming to school was going to help take his mind of certain issues in life. He had forgotten that he had no friends in the school. Such a pity had even prevented him from speaking to Mina about his feelings.

Within the classroom, several students had noticed that Harry wasn't paying attention in class and had decided to tell the teacher. This caused an uproar in the classroom and had left the teacher contemplating on what to do.

Without further ado, he had thrown a chalk at Harry aiming for it to hit him right in the forehead. Before the chalk could hit him though, it has stopped mid air as if a time spell had been casted onto it.

The hairs at the back of Harry's neck stood upright and he could feel danger lurking at his back. Turning his head though he had realized he was no longer in his classroom.

———

In his classroom though, most of the students had vanished into oblivion. This had come as a surprise to everyone when the boy who always sat by the window had disappeared out of nowhere when the teacher's chalk had reached him. This had caused the chalk to hit the nearby window and break into pieces.

Turning their heads, they had also been met with a similar scene as before since about 80% of the students in the classroom had also gone missing.

The teacher stood in awe with beads of sweat gliding down his face. He was mesmerized by what he was seeing. What was he going to tell the parents of these children?

What he wasn't aware was that several people all around the world had also gone missing as a result of this issue.

This was just the beginning of the dungeon system of the world.

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