Bloodwalker

Prologue

Trigger Warning/s: kidnapping, mentions of blood

Pre-chapter notes: none

Art: Nauris, or @Namatnieks on Twitter. They are a pixel artist and indie game developer. The cover image is something they created in Paint. They also make wonderful pixel art animations and do 3D modelling. Please show them your support if you can. Reach out to me if I need to take down the picture.

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A calloused, unfamiliar hand, roughly encircling your arm.

A young couple; a man, with short, black hair, tied at the nape of his neck; a woman, with long, flowing locks, reaching down her lower back.

Both of them clinging tightly to each other. Both of them, screaming.

These are your earliest memories.

In the car ride to what your kidnappers are calling 'your new home', you wail and scream bloody murder. The driver opts to stay silent while the woman in the backseat tries to calm you down with a lollipop - to little avail. Not your fault you never liked Chapo Chaps, not since the neighbour's kid stuck one up your nose (it's always the neighbour's kid). When you start having a nosebleed out of sheer panic and the blood starts wafting in the air like cigarette smoke (you don't really have a handle on your quirk, oops), the flustered woman begins stuffing tissues up your nose to clog the leak.

Talk about a dramatic entrance.

It's only about halfway through the drive to who-knows-where that you finally calm down a bit. Unfortunately for you, the lady takes that as a sign that you're mentally stable enough to be bombarded by her questions.

"So what can you do with your blood, kid?"

Without questioning why or how she knows about your quirk, you perk up at the question.

"Uh... I can make shapes!"

"Anything else?"

"I can make Anpanman!", you respond, and pausing, you ask, "...do you want one?"

The woman who clogged your nose contemplates this for a second. Does she really want to hold your hardened blood in her bare hands?

But, this would be a good opportunity to assess her quirk. "That'd be good."

With a blinding smile, you pull the bloody tissues out of your nose. The blood starts wafting out again, but this time, as you promised, you shape it into a small, badly misshapen imitation of the picture book hero.

"Here! Take it!" Beaming, you offer it to her. It's almost as if you haven't screamed her ear off for the past half-an-hour.

The lady deflates an inch. She had hoped you wouldn't ask her to hold it. Even though it's no bigger than the palm of her hand, she can't help thinking that this isn't the most sanitary road-trip activity. To her misfortune, you're too young and eager to notice her reservations and dump the blood coagulation into her hands. What's more is that you're infinitely proud of your creation so you start trying to make another one. Unfortunately for your unlucky seatmate, your concentration on the character in her hands wavers because of this, causing it to lose its solid form and melt.

"Oi! You got blood all over my hands, you brat!"

"It," you sniff. "It broke?"

Uh oh.

Devastated over the loss of what was your blood, sweat and tears (literally), you begin wailing again. The turbulent emotions cause blood to waft out your unplugged nose a second time.