Don't You Forget About Me (a DHMIS Fanfic)

Red

Slowly but positively, London got used to have a giant red thing within its inhabitants, as he got used to the real world. Coffee tasted better there. An elderly and probably senile couple took him under their wing, mistaking him for their giant English Shepard that had been lost for years. He lived on a tiny room inside their hostel, with a bed just big enough for him and a little duck, and a wooden box customized as a lovely bed for a little boy.

People at the hostel got used to this quiet red presence who always flinched a bit when asked about the time, hated the word "creative", stared at their chicken dinners with a distant and melancholic look, and didn't want to get near the computer. They even got used to his screams at midnight, though for him it was way more difficult to get used to the nightmares, especially since he had no green duck to hold.

The red creature also had a strange routine: Every day he would walk to the park, with the same decisive expression on his eyes, clutching his handmade scarf. People who saw him say he would stare for hours at the same spot at the park, waiting for something that hadn't happen yet. At night he would leave the park, go back to the hostel, fall asleep, and scream.

It was always the same dream: a weird kitchen and the eternal singing objects, this time a spinach can and a giant piece of meat. He would try to warn his friends, but they couldn't even remember him. He couldn't enter the house, at least not completely, only by bits. He would see Robin get increasingly anxious, and when he could finally get inside the kitchen, Robin would have a breakdown. And he would try to calm him down as he always did, especially since every day was June 19th, but no one would listen to him; then the weird noises again, and the screeches of his green duck, and the hallucinations of his confused little boy, and howls that poured into reality, and there would be a bunch of people outside his room as he went back to reality, where he had awoken the whole hostel. Again.

Slowly but positively, he got used to the real world. He started wondering if maybe the red box had been an isolated event. Maybe only if his friends escaped, he would see it again. If they escaped, of course.

But he was mistaken.

One day, he didn't know when -calendars made him uneasy, always scared to see the eternal June 19th again- he went to buy some coffee for the hostel when a red glimpse of hope shone through the leaves of the trees. Skeptical at first, he ran inside the park, forgetting the coffee and his almost normal life in London, and feeling as anxious as the first day he escaped his world. Was it because his friends had escaped? What did they do? Robin was smart but weak, and Manny was strong but gullible. But maybe if they fought against the singing objects instead of fighting each other...

He didn't realize he was running until he lost his breath and stopped in front of a shiny, empty red telephone box.