The Crimson Rain Report

What are you.... a bruiser or a bleeder? That was a common expression at the time. I would usually look to the floor and murmur 'both' when asked. As a consequence of past events, people have been laughing at me. To my face, and behind my back. All for a problem I can't fix. Empathemia. I can't control mine, along with a few others who share my existence. It's everyone's problem, but for me, it's an exhausting one. What I wouldn't give to be able to hide how I feel, and how I have felt. This bruising and bleeding when we feel like utter shit, and I mean overwhelming dark feelings, well mine got bad. I mean real bad. It was enough to push someone over the edge. The body self harms itself with little to no warning, like being beaten with in an inch from your life by an invisible man. (Particularly round the face and torso for me, that's where I get it real bad). I wish the human race had a choice when it came to self harm, but we don't. Dark emotions manifest themselves into the open air. Pray you be able to control yours. I’m so nervous right now, so nervous at the thought of sounding stupid. I mean, I’m famous, but for something I claimed I did, but didn’t do. But technically, my little white lie (I use the word little loosely) changed a lot of things for the better. As of the present, I’m now a man, in full control of myself, and all my faculties. I write this as a man of means, often described by drunken strangers, in a slurry kind of drunken way at functions as a ‘man of influence’. But before that, I was out of control, and heading for self-destruction, like most young men I suppose. Before I explain myself, and what I did, I feel I should explain what the Catacombs were. Because not a lot of people will have heard of them. In a nutshell, some genius knuckle head Marines after World War Two took a tropical island, riddled with underground tunnels. (No one claimed it after the war, it originally belonged to the Japanese... I think...) It was a paradise, a piece of Eden. So in fear of the prohibition coming back, they used it as an 'off the books' military outpost, somewhere to blow off steam. It kinda stayed like that for a while. Until a gang known as the LA Guerrilla Family (or just the Family) got their greasy hands all over it. They turned it into a hotspot for celebrities, a haven for politicians and a black hole for untested, illegal drugs and prostitutes. (A nice list of things to have in one place, right?) Well, that's where the majority of this story happens, and I happen to be main character. (It's nice to meet you too) I've had a lot of names. I was christened Ethan Bar-Lev, but in my earlier days I was known as 'Peach Boy' or just Pee. I've also been known as 'Clean Bean' for my lack of participation in narcotics. Briefly I was also known on a national level as 'Bandit Bar-Lev' for my... shall we say 'defining moment'. Empathemia... the bane of human existence. A man I knew once nearly found a cure, but he found other pursuits. I could just use a dictionary definition to define the retched word, but I'd rather use my own words. An un-dignifying response of the human body to negative emotions. Anything unpleasant felt, in an awesome way, rips through flesh in a barbaric fashion. An overwhelming dark emotion, can put down a man worse than any manmade weapon. Sometimes it's a nosebleed, alerting everyone around you to how you are feeling. Sometimes, only in rare cases... it can cut you down. Getting 'cut down' is something no man wants to happen, nothing screams weakness like being cut down. It simply means, that whatever negative emotion has a hold of you, it overwhelms you so much... your body... simply shuts down. Mainly to prevent grievous bodily harm, but waking up in the shabby hospital ward for 'sensitive' guys, who have been 'cut down', is a wake up call. But before I start from the beginning, there are a few things you need to know... First of all, it was a dark time, for a lot of people. The first few bits of my story are dark, I'll admit, it may not be a walk in the park. But I'll get ya around chapter three or four... Also about ten years or so ago when I was coming up, men of religion ruled one half of the population, and the other half was controlled by the gangs, and were fixated on where their next hit was coming from. It was hard if you didn't fall into those two categories. There was no room for the emotionally honest man. When emotions tear through the flesh like a hurricane, (I couldn't be more precise about that analogy), and leave you withered with a bloody nose and a black eye, you either go to church to embrace it, or you ignore it with chemical compounds. Why can’t you accept it and move on? (Or do both, and go to God's house looking like you dived headfirst into a pile of snow after running a marathon). That’s what I did, I accepted it, and it didn't bode too well for me. I would have dreams and memories of myself with ex-lovers, girls that meant something to me. I picture their faces as they say 'it’s over'. I ask why, and then I wake up. I look down at my bed, and my bed sheets are covered in blood. The traumatic dreams would set me off, I would bleed in my sleep. That’s how things used to be. Everyone was the same, they learn, they love, they feel, then bleed if it all went wrong. When that happened, for most it was either wake up early on a Sunday and side with the Big Man upstairs. Or stay up late on a Saturday and block it all out, because you can’t feel much when your brain doesn’t work. (I don't recommend trying it, feeling nothing with fuzzy vision is a scary sensation).