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The hand that fed him was a kind one.
The man that came into the room to prepare Red was tall, old, and grizzled, with white hair and a face pockmarked with wrinkles and warts. His work-lined features softened a little upon seeing how Red huddled in the corner, whimpering as he stared at Ari's glassy-eyed corpse. They hadn't taken Ari away, to motivate him, the bald man had declared.
"So you're the new inhabitant of Harris' body," the old man said, placing a dish in front of him. Red looked at the plate of boiled meat and rice, a clear glass of liquid sitting next to it. It smelt wonderful, but he hardly dared to partake of it.
The old man chuckled. "Eat, kid. I prepared it myself, and I wouldn't hurt you. Red was a good boy." His hand shot out. Red flinched, but the old man only took his arm and squeezed the bony appendage. "He always needed to eat more. Too skinny, I always told him. He reminded me of my son---who's probably forgotten me by now, I haven't been home in so long."
"I'm sorry," Red whispered. This must be the person Red had mentioned in his letter...the one who told him he was going to die. He reached out for the meat, his stomach growling despite his disgust at the murder he'd just witnessed. Normally, back on X9-7, they used sharpened wooden tongs to eat, but Red didn't care that he was acting like a savage as he picked it up with his bare hands and shovelled as much as he could into his mouth.
The man's raspy laugh was a dry snicker. "You're a nice boy, but there's nothing to be done about it anymore. I can never go home, and neither will you." Then his eyes saddened. "It's a shame. You have a future. You're too young to be caught up in this."
Red's new brain tried to recall what the original inhabitant of his disgusting new body had done, but there was a blank space where memories should have been. "What...what did I do to get sent here?"
"Your...well, Red's, anyway...father sold him off to pay some debts. The government snapped him right up for their game." The old man shrugged. "Then he 'misbehaved', and they killed him. Somehow or other, you ended up here, left to carry his burden."
Red's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's as he tried to process what hell he had been thrown into. By the sound of it, Earth was a terrible place. The last time someone had tried to sell their child off on X9-7, they had been publicly executed, which was the way it should be everywhere.
Humans were terrible.
The man leaned forward on his haunches, face scrunched like he was about to tell Red some important secret. "We have five minutes before I dress and sedate you, so I'll give you an important piece of advice. Your chances of survival lie in beating the rest of the players. There can only be one winner, and the prize is their life." The old man clapped a hand on Red's shoulder. "I'm hoping it'll be you."
Red tried to say something, but his voice came out as a terrified squeak.
The man's gaze was foggy and unfocused. Were those tears in his eyes? Red couldn't tell. "I'm telling you, boy, the most important player in the game is a girl named Alisa Lee." That sounds familiar. "She has a twin brother. You can use that to your advantage. There are two ways you can go about this: find her brother first and use him as leverage against her. Or, you can be a nice guy and suggest working together, but you'll probably die faster. She's a cutthroat spitfire. She isn't easy to work with, and she'll do anything to make sure her and her twin get out of Vanguard alive." He shrugged. "But she can help you. She's easily the most intelligent of all the players."
