Battle Scars {An Iron Man FanFic}

Chapter 1: Seeing Red

A/N: After a three month break, I decided to finally write this story in June of this year. Now it's November, and as I am editting all of my chapters in a crazy rush, I'm so shocked and happy that, not only did I complete my first novel, but I also did so in only five months.

Please enjoy and feel free to hit me with constructive criticism, thank you ^-^

Dedicated to my amazing friend @Firemoonlight :D

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Chapter 1: Seeing Red

I gulped down hard. Not again, I whispered to myself as I rolled over in bed and clutched my teeth. But it was already too late; the nightmare had pervaded my mind. I was thrust back in time, back to the day when I lost my only friend and mentor, my father. My dad was a hardworking genius, a caring and supportive man who put me above everything else in his life. I could tell this by the lifestyle I lived. We were rich, but we never lived that way. For most of my life, we lived in a small brown shack between two mountain sides. There used to be a working shed, a small animal pen, and an even smaller safety vault buried deep into the ground. All was still there today, except for the working shed.

I used to like to think that I looked more like my dad. We both had brown hair and there were similarities in our facial expressions. The only differences were that he was taller than me (I was stuck at a meek 5') and that he had darker skin than me. However, lately I've started to see my mom in me. I was given the paler skin of my mother and my blue eyes. I guess the reason for me ignoring the obvious was because it was just too hard to see her in the mirror but turn to see no one. My dad always said I had her eyes, and for a long time I felt like Harry Potter. I didn't want to see her eyes, but my dad's, which were filled with pride and dedication.

I was making my dad his usual lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich when I heard it. His terrified scream sent me running though our small home frantically. I passed by the window above the sink and saw the workshop in bright orange and red flames.

Just as I ran outside, the building lost the last of its flames. It hadn't caught on to anything else and reduced the wooden building to black ashes. It had collapsed on itself and, at a blink of an eye; half of it had gone in the hot wind. I stared at it all day, unable to make sense of what had happened. I had left the house door open and our small dog Al had walked through it and to me slowly. He sniffed around the remaining ashes for awhile before coming up to my closed legs and laying his head on them.

As I sat, I thought. The shed had spontaneously caught flames and was now reduced to nothing. I had been in there before and most of the machinery within probably wasn't fireproof. As for my dad, there wasn't a trace of him at all. No body, no clothing, not even a gruesome sign of bone or skull. That was what really happened, but in my nightmare, it was taken to the extreme. I saw my dad contorted in pain as flames enveloped him. His eyes were wide, pleading, and staring right at me. I tried to help him, to do anything I could to get closer to him, but I couldn't. Every time I walked, it had the quality of a treadmills surface. I tried to run and I simply tired myself out beyond function. I knew the dream was almost over now; I just had to bear the last part. I tried to shut my eyes, but couldn't, as usual. His body went up in flames, the skin melting off like candle wax in only certain places. His face was a horrifying mix of white bones and dark skin. Just before I knew I was being warped out, a pair of glowing red eyes shone for less than a second, directly behind my father.

I rolled over in my bed, forcing air out slowly though shut teeth. After a few quick breaths I sat myself down then stood up to stretch. I set to work immediately, making myself breakfast and feeding Al half of it plus the scraps from the pan. The house consisted of one long room, and two square ones right behind it. The longest contained a table, a stove, a bookshelf, a refrigerator, and a bed to the far left in the back. The small rooms were the bathroom and my father's old room, separately. I sat myself down at the table and started to eat.