Praying Blood (2)

“Come on, six Cont for that man?” A croaking voice calls from an alley to my right. The words are distant, but I hear them clear as day.

My feet falter. For a moment, I want to keep walking, to ignore the voice and pretend I didn’t hear anything. But something within me—some force I can’t explain—compels me to stop. I can’t just walk away. It’s like a wave crashing through me, an urge I don’t understand.

My finger twitches.

My blood boils.

I feel the heat of it—hotter than the sun itself, hotter than my skin can stand. It burns through my veins, coursing in my blood. I feel it in my brows, in my eyes. Every inch of me itches, as though my very body is rebelling against the stillness, against the calm I’ve been trying to maintain.

I feel the change.

It’s like something snaps inside of me. The world around me warps, and everything turns red. Crimson. The same color as my blood. The asphalt beneath my boots becomes a purplish hue, and the two people I see ahead of me—they glow. Their bodies, their insides, everything. I see their offal, their organs, glowing in blue. I can see their vessels, their bloodlines pulsing beneath their skin, glowing blue in the mist. It’s an odd sensation, a terrifying one. But not the most terrifying.

No. There’s something else.

The third person in the alley—a man who doesn’t look like the others. He doesn’t glow blue. Instead, his blood, his very body, glows red.

He is one of mine.

One of my kind.

I can feel the heat inside of me continue to boil, to pulse with an urgency I can’t control. He’s mine. My blood calls to him, a part of me I thought was lost, a part of me that is still alive.

I shouldn’t care.

But I do.

The feeling is... cool. A strange sense of possession. But the anger toward the blues, the monsters who made me this way—that is what makes my blood burn even more.

“Man, I can’t go any further down.” The other voice echoes, tinged with annoyance. Their words are weak, fragile, like the statues they are. “Look, I paid Five Cont and eight Celi. If I went even one Celi lower, hell, why would I even bother with these deals?”

I crouch, concealed in the thick mist, my presence veiled from their eyes. They continue bickering about the human—my kind—tied up before them, branded with the same mark that I bear. My knees are wet, soaked through by the mist. It feels as though the cold wind cuts at my skin, refreshing against my burning cheeks.

“Alright, I’ll go one Celi dow––”

I silence him, my fist crashing into the skull of the blue who dared to sell my kind. The sound of bone meeting flesh fills the alleyway. I watch in a moment of disbelief as his body slams to the ground. His partner stares at me, confused at first, but I don’t hesitate. My next step is instinctive, a surge of power that drives me forward. I charge. Fists raised, I land blow after blow, sending my punches into their faces.

It feels... good.

The satisfaction of delivering punishment to those who’ve wronged my kind fills me, though a part of me can’t quite understand it. Why do I feel this way? Why does it feel so right to break their skulls, to watch their blood spill and feel the weight of their lives slipping away under my hands?

I don’t have the answers. I don’t need them.

The world outside this alley may as well be an illusion. These blues—these creatures who enslave my people, kill without a second thought—have no place in this world. No right to exist in this space, beneath the same sky I walk under.

I kneel over the one I just struck down, straddling his limp body. He’s gasping, barely able to breathe. But it’s too late for him. There’s nothing left for him but a quick death. His final moments will be spent choking on the air I’ve stolen from him.

I twist his throat.

The life drains from his eyes as he lets out one final gasp, clutching at his throat in vain. But I’m already moving on, charging toward the next. He recoils, trying to pull back, but I dodge his fist with a simple flick of my wrist. The strike is swift, my elbow crashing into his temple with a sickening crack. He stumbles backward, his knees buckling as he gasps for air. But there’s no time left for him.

I don’t stop.

The words of the world around me blur, turning to noise, to meaningless babble. All that matters is this—the beating, the death. The satisfaction of their last memories being the sight of me, the Red who has come to reclaim what was taken from us.

I don’t know why I’m this strong. I don’t know why I have this overwhelming urge to destroy them. But I do it because they deserve it.