Red. Just Red.

Half-Blood / Rogue

Submitted character story

[_____] was born from some crazy magic experimentalists messing with forces they couldn't control, trying to create the perfect soldier. [_____] and his sister Roísín (nicknamed Rose) were the successful results of the experiments. They were raised as experiments, not being allowed to play or learn as a child should. They couldn't read, write, fly, or even swim. All they knew was how to fight and obey orders. 
When [_____] was about 8, a failed experiment killed his mother. It was then that he figured out how to
disobey his wardens' orders, and also how to escape. He blew up a corner of the stone facility they were in,
and with his sister in hand, ran towards the raging sea and torrential storm outside. 
One moment, he was holding onto Rose's hand and about to be free. The next, he didn't feel her anymore. Her 4-year-old legs had tripped, and the wardens chasing them were close enough to grab catch her, bringing her back into custody. [_____] hadn't felt her hand drop, and by the time he turned around to see her, she was gone.
Next thing he knew, [_____] was falling from the hole in the facility towards the pointed rocks coming up
from the seafloor. Then he remembered he couldn't fly or swim, and his plan was a terrible idea. He hit the sea with the force of a giant, and everything went black.
Sand. Sand everywhere. In clothes, hair mouth, even places he didn't think possible. Voices. Someone was
speaking. He couldn't understand them, though. He began to stir, but as he sat up, a sharp strike in the back of the head sent his mind plunging back into darkness.
This time, a shake and bump startled the boy awake, whose eyes immediately went wide. Bad idea. The
blinding light from the midday sun seemed to burn holes straight through his eyes. He jolted to curl up,
protecting his eyes from the sun and his concussed head from the jostling of whatever he was laying on. The thing is, he couldn't move the way he wanted to. After a few minutes of letting the fire and throbbing in his head settle, he strugglingly moved his way to a sitting position. As he opened his eyes, slowly this time, he saw an old man sitting across from him, wearing nothing but rags and shackles. He was dirty and unkempt.
"Welcome t'the slave trade, m'lad," said the old man. "Ye'll get used to all the binds and bumpy rides in no
time."
The boy just stared at him with squinted eyes, still trying to focus on the pain in his head that he'd have sworn was on fire.
"Well, don keep me in suspense," the man prompted. "What's yer name, lad, 'fore they steal it and give ye a
slave one instead?"
[_____] tried to answer the man's question, but when he tried to say it, no answer came. It wasn't that he
couldn't speak, but the boy didn't know the answer to the old man's question. His name. He should know his
name, right? Did he have one? He didn't remember it. Actually, it was more like he didn't remember anything.
He tried to reach deep into his mind to find any memory, or even a hint at who he was, but there was nothing there. Wait, there was something right there. What was it? A feeling... a word. A single word. What was the word...?
"Rose," the boy said. "My name is Rose." It was the only thing that the boy could think of, the only thing left
in his mind. Why it was the only thing, he didn't know. There was a sense of urgency that came with the word,
but for what, he didn't know. 
"Rose, ye say," the old man chuckled. "That's no name fer a led like yerself."
The boy flushed and looked down at his hands. They were tied with ropes, and a metal shackle hung around
his neck, digging into his collarbone. After a few more minutes, the boy dozed off, leaning his back against
the inside of the strange cart he rode in.
The boy spent about a week with the slave traders, and found a way to escape in a large town. He survived in
that town for about a month, stealing and scrounging for scraps of food. He became quite the good pickpocket, but one day he picked the wrong target.
The man was quite large, so that meant strong but slow. All he had to do was nip the pouch and disappear into the crowd. Little did the boy know, the man was a practiced thief himself. The man caught him immediately, and chased the boy with his coin pouch until he was cornered in an alleyway. After some persuasion and punishment involving sharp objects on the man's part, the man's acquaintance found them. He was the man's boss, a crime lord who went by the name the Ringmaster. 
"Kingston, who is the brat, and why did you go through the trouble of catching him if you haven't finished him yet?"
"I taught the kid a lesson, and he'll probably never steal again, or maybe even walk." He was right. When
Kingston had caught the boy, his idea of punishment was to pin the boy to the spot he was standing by
piercing his foot with a dagger, anchoring the poor boy to the ground.
The Ringmaster slowly walked towards the child, his cunning yet menacing aura seeming to suck the warmth out of the air. The boy tried to back away, but when he moved his foot pain shot up his whole body, and he fell back onto his rear end. "This child caused you enough trouble to warrant this?" He crouched down, invading the frightened child's space enough that he forgot to keep breathing for a minute.
"He's a worthless brat who needed to be taught to respecting adults. I felt in the mood, so I gave him a lesson."
The Ringmaster stood and sneered at the boy. "You've done enough. He'll not last long in this condition, and I have better things for you to do."
"Alright, Boss. Lead the way." With that, the two men left the boy with the dagger in his foot in the alleyway.
The boy reached to grab the dagger. He pulled hard, and with a fresh shock of pain through his leg, wrenched the dagger free. He tossed the dagger away and tried to stand, but saw the ground moving up towards him and fell into a familiar blackness just before he felt the collision.
The Ringmaster noticed about an hour later that he was missing his own coin purse, and the two men stormed back to the alley where they left the boy. Seeing him there unconscious, the one called Kingston felt a hint of pity for the boy. No one had seen him there, or if they had, they hadn't cared enough to help the dying child. Kingston searched the boy for the purse, and returned it to its owner. Then, to the surprise of his boss, wrapped the child's foot and slung him over his shoulder. No one on the street questioned the group, as the child was wearing the rags of a slave. When the child awoke, Kingston called him by the name "Red," after the strip of fabric tied to his wrist. That name would have to do, since the boy wouldn't tell him his real one.
Since then, Red trained to be a henchman of the Ringmaster, as well as a gladiator in his underground arena.
After all that had happened, the significance of the word "rose" had faded into the back of his new collection of memories, but it never fully disappeared.