This is my first Beyblade fic and I've actually only seen two episodes *sweatdrops* I'm not sure if anyone's going to like it, but that's never stopped me before!

Warnings: Eventual yaoi, maybe death, this is a dark fic! And it's completely AU because I don't know the characters very well! Any hints/tips would help!

Pairings: Unknown as of yet, but Rei's kinda the main character.

Oh, and if anything goes wrong, blame my muses.

Um, title means 'Red Death' in Elven.

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Prologue

Day 143:

It's been one hundred and forty three days since the world ended. It's still hard to believe that that only adds up to about three months. Three months ago we were all living peacefully, going to school and living normal lives. Nobody knew that Wirwhill, our neighboring continent had nuclear weapons and were planning their own Armageddon so the world could take a break from everything humans have done to it and regenerate itself before starting over again. It had worked for the most part, but they forgot to calculate one important factor into their equation of destruction.

Not all the humans died.

After the blast everyone who didn't die suffered horribly. Most of them caught this disease caused by the radiation from the bombs they'd dropped on us. There was no name for it because we'd never seen anything like it before. It had been nicknamed 'Red Death' though because before the victim parishes, they become flushed with fever and they cough up blood. I've learned that the lungs and stomach become flooded with blood and the person drowns.

I have yet to become infected, though I'm not sure to consider myself lucky or unlucky. There seems to be no other life around but the two of us and the wild animals that seem to be roaming around our once beautiful city. Max has gotten worse, he caught Red Death about a month ago and only now are the symptoms beginning to make themselves known.

I'm going to take him from here, our home. We need to know if there are any other people out there and there is nothing left for us here. There's little food that the animals haven't gotten at and there is no fresh water. Max will not like leaving what is left of the orphanage, but we have no other choice.

And to think that only three months ago, my biggest worry was a math test.

***

Empty amber eyes stared through the darkness of the ruined city. As the boy the eyes belonged to leaned against a crumbling brick wall he sighed softly to himself. A breeze blew past him, moving his hair about his face. Ignoring the dark strands he turned toward the darkened void of the demolished room.

Quietly he made his way passed the rubble that was once a roof and safely made it to a ratty old mattress that lay in the corner of what used to be a comfortable room of what was once the local orphanage. On the mattress was a smaller figure wrapped in a thin blanket torn in various places. He could hear the soft breathing coming from the figure and carefully he pulled the cloth away from his friend's face, blonde hair coming into his view.

The young boy's face was pale, deathly pale, seen even in the blackness of the night. Extra heat radiated off of the small being at an alarming temperature, but he was unable to find the exact temperature without the right instrument. He rested his own pale hand against the heated forehead, unintentionally waking the boy. Dull blue eyes fluttered op and stared, unfocused at him. "Rei?" The voice was soft and the obviously older boy 'Rei' couldn't help but wince at how weak it sounded.

"Yeah, it's me. I didn't mean to wake you up Maxxie, go back to sleep." He whispered softly as he gently brushed the unruly bangs away from Max's forehead. The hair was damp from the small boy's perspiration and it lay limp where it had fallen. Max was about to say something but the breath caught in his already abused lungs and began to choke and cough. Rei, knowing how much his friend was suffering, quickly pulled the body into a sitting position. Gently, he rubbed the back of the coughing boy until the blonde calmed down. When Rei knew he was okay, he lay Max back down on the bed and tucked the blanket in around him. It was the only thing they had to keep warm and Max needed it far more than Rei did. "Try to get some sleep." Rei whispered.

"Stay with me." Max whispered as he turned his pleading blue eyes on his long time friend. "You won't catch it if you haven't already." He muttered.

"I'm not afraid of catching it." Rei shook his head as he stretched out along the mattress, only to pull Max to him and then curl around the boy for extra cover. "I don't want any of the animals attacking you while you sleep." He whispered.

"Do you think that if animals survived anymore people survived?" Max wondered, as his eyelids grew heavy. They had watched as the last remaining people who had survived the initial attack had died from the Red Death within their city.

"I hope so." Rei whispered as he tightened his hold on the small boy. He watched as Max slept, the dark circles around his eyes a clear sign of the illness he had been infected with a while ago. Rei could not sleep, he kept thinking about what they'd do if they found that they were the only two who survived the attack.

/No! I can't think like that!/ Rei scolded himself, the way the head master of the orphanage used to scold him for doing something wrong. /We can't be the only ones who survived!/ He told himself and with that one final thought, he fell into a cautious slumber.

***

Miles away crimson eyes stared up at the sky as their owner wondered the same thing.

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So, what'd ya think?