• In a house, no…a mansion, on a grassy hill, there are two people shouting at each other. One is standing at a doorway, backed up against a stained glass door. The other is advancing quickly, his face hidden in long black hair that has become knotted and tangled from hours of stress.

    The frightened one cringes as he sees the other, his former friend, approaching. He sees anger in the face of his friend, well the face he could see. Eyes red from crying, and a throat still marred by a previous attempt at release from life. He tried to keep some form of composure, keeping himself from crying. He hid his eyes in medium length brownish-blonde hair, avoiding eye contact after he was frightened by the little he saw.

    But it did not have its intended effect, for upon sight of this, the aggressor became even angrier, his hands clenching and unclenching rapidly. He was already a very frightening figure, without even trying. He typically wore dark clothing, and had a very bittersweet outlook on life. In his eyes, he was going to die sooner or later, so he might as well make an impact. This time, the impact would be made upon his former friend, the kid named Nicholas, or Nick as his real friends tended to call him.

    Nick had no clue what he had done to anger his old buddy, John; all he knew was that he was scared. John was gentle most of the time, but something had changed about ten minutes ago when Nick had answered a seemingly simple question. All John had asked was whether or not Nick disliked him as a friend.

    “Damn it, why’d I have to go and say that?” Nick asked himself, still on the verge of tears. He had answered truthfully, only saying that there were some moments where he wasn’t quite sure what to think any more.

    John had taken this as Nick saying that he was a bad friend, or something to that extent. For whatever reason, the thought of this made John crash, hard. He had started crying, and nothing Nick could do would stop it. John was devastated at this news, he was angry and scared at the same time. With his limited understanding of his own feelings, he had picked the more noticeable one, anger. With this new, strong emotion, John proceeded to break whatever came into his contact.

    Broken glasses and broken picture frames lay around the pale green room, making the darker carpet hazardous to most people. Around the various desks were statues of pigs, which once had crystalline wings. But in his anger, John had snapped off every single pair of wings on those pigs, throwing them at the retreating figure of Nick. They embedded themselves into walls and other such objects, giving the appearance of a warzone.

    A warzone about to come to a bloody conclusion, to be precise. Where there weren’t pieces of pigs, there was blood. Apparently, somebody had walked through the glass and had sliced open his or her foot on the remnants. Blood smeared itself into the carpet, adding to an overall haunted look. It dripped in a pretty normal fashion, leading to the person with the injury.

    This person just happened to be John, the sight of his blood causing him to go beyond what anger could normally do to him. He’d normally have broken down into sobbing by now, but the whole experience kept him going.

    The whole thing just creeped Nick out, feeling suddenly like an actor in some sort of horror movie he had no script for. The blood, the broken glass, everything; It all just scared him so very badly that he was trembling. He hadn’t meant to cause such an outburst; he really just wanted to be honest. And now, to see John in such a craze, he felt saddened, and very frightened.

    His clothes were tattered; John had tried to rip them off to stop him. His long black sweatshirt was ripped in so many ways; he could make bandages out of it. The only part left untouched was the part at the back, where the hood was folded up. ‘Well,’ Nick thought, ‘at least I’ll be able to hide in my hood, maybe wake up from this horrible nightmare and find myself safe again.’

    Sadly, that was not to be. As he was thinking this, John was walking closer and closer, staining the forest green carpet a more sinister color, a sickly brown. Once it had saturated the carpeting, the footsteps changed. Instead of a loud thud, they turned into squishing noises, not very frightening under normal conditions.

    Under normal conditions, this would have ended a while ago, too. Oh, how lovely it would have been for that to have happened, if it had ended with Nick comforting John on the floor, watching the floor get damp with tears. Instead of tears, he got blood, not a very nice exchange. One was certainly a lot scarier than the other, and a lot harder to get out of carpeting.

    That odd thought brought a slight smile to Nick’s face, getting him out of this position for a moment or two. But it was over as soon as it began, and a look of terror snapped back down into place, erasing any traces of the smirk.

    The blood overflowed now, soaking the once-dry socks Nick had on, turning them a shade of pink most normally associated with cotton candy. The dye-job wasn’t all bad, though. Nick had been complaining about not having anything to match his bright pink slacks, earlier. The pants matched the socks perfectly, now if only this procedure could be sold worldwide. Oh, wait, it already was. It was called murder.

    Damn, another perfectly good plan foiled by society! This just was not Nick’s day, it seemed. First, he pissed off his friend, and then he had to go and think of something that was already trademarked. Maybe he shouldn’t have even crawled out of bed this morning.

    Nick was certain now, he should have just slept in and ignored John when he had asked if Nick wanted to visit. Maybe if he had said no, things would have turned out differently. “Oh well, might as well make the best of it…” He said, preparing to bolt. Would John try to stop him, or would he escape unharmed, he wondered.

    Nick steeled up his courage, and he ran. He managed to avoid slipping on the carpet, a good start. He ran as fast as he could, ignoring John. He sprinted for the back door, hoping John had forgotten to apply the locks again, like he usually did.

    To Nick’s relief, the polished ivory door opened with little to no resistance, leaving John panting, the redness in his face fading, leaving him pale as a ghost, once more. Lonely as one too, Nick would guess, for he was running down the steep hill as fast as his long legs would take him. He leapt from one area to the next, not once looking back, never caring what he was risking.

    There was only one person who could help him now: Vincent.