Red Blurred Into Orange (2)

They dig their claws in and refuse to leave.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, this time with desperation, like it could change the past.

I see their eyes—the other ones. The ones that burned my world. Black silhouettes crowd my shoulders. The stench of rotten flesh chokes me. Their hands grip my body, their nails hot with fire, their laughter chewing into my spine.

I blink—

And I’m in that house again.

Our house.

The day it fell. The day they came. The day I lost her.

I can smell the burning. I can taste her last cry.

I reach for my shoulder—but it’s gone. My arm—my real one—is missing. Gone like it was that day.

The girl is gone too.

Vanished from the bed. From the floor. From my world.

And I fall again.

But something breaks the spiral.

A sound.

A voice.

Small, scared. But unmistakably human.

It draws me back.

My vision clears. The hallucinations vanish. The silhouettes dissolve into dust.

My metal arm gleams in the firelight.

I’m here.

She’s still here.

My face twitches into a smile—crooked, pained, but real. “Are you okay?”

My voice is hoarse, like I haven’t used it in years.

My hands hover in the air. I reach for her—then pull back. She shrinks behind the blanket again, her tiny nose peeking out.

“Y–yes,” I hear her stammer.

I nod. Step back to the edge of the massive bed.

My tears are drying. My throat aches. The screams fade, slipping into silence.

“I’m okay,” I say. To her. To myself. To no one.

I stretch my hand again—just a little. I want to sit beside her. To hold her. To feel that she's real.

But she’s not mine.

She never was.

I let my hand fall. I turn, walking away. Every step echoes too loud in this house of dead men.

She’s small. So fragile. But to me, she’s everything.

The room feels too big. Too empty.

“If you need anything,” I say without looking back, “I’ll give it to you. Cas—”

I catch myself.

“Girl. I’ll give you anything.”

I leave.

Behind me, my lips curl into something I haven’t felt in years.

A smile.

…

I walk the corridor between corpses.

Their stomachs open. Guts spilled. Blood dried to black.

I didn’t pretend to be someone else when I killed them. No shapeshifter mask. No justifications.

When I walked into that room—saw what he was about to do to her—he was already dead.

He just didn’t know it yet.

They all knew. Every servant. Every noble in that house. But no one called for help.

Because they were afraid.

Because they knew they might be next.

They were right.

I left through the window. Carried her in my arms. Her body limp. Drugged. She didn’t wake for hours.

I wandered the streets, looking for something—clothes, food, shelter.

I thought about shops. But nothing decent lives in shops. What a child needs is found in homes. Clean clothes. Warm beds. Safety.

So I took a home.

A noble one.

Now, their blood stains the floor.

Their mouths hang open, gaping like fish at feeding time. Waiting for help that never comes.

The servant—I mourn her. Slightly. But I couldn’t risk it.

No one good lives behind blue walls.

They never did.

My boot lands beside the body of the butler. An old man. Half-dead before I finished him.

I study him.

His face… it’s the one I wear now. The shape of his jaw. The color of his hair.

I shaved the beard I grew over the last three months. Combed back the hair. Wore his skin like clothing.

My eyes are brown now. Hair the same. But my lips are still blue.

My tongue still green.

I’m a half-breed.

My father’s blood runs through me. But his face is lost.

Gone.

I walk through the silence, letting it press in.

The smell of fresh biscuits drifts from the kitchen. The servants had been baking. I can still smell cinnamon under the blood.

I wear simple clothes. Not the butler’s. I left them on the corpse. Threw the body into the sewers.

I let my fingers trail over the kitchen counter. They find a single burnt biscuit. I take it. In the other hand, I hold a bowl of perfect ones.

“These are for her,” I mutter.

I step over the blood again. It’s stopped spreading.

My daughter…

“Avenge,” I whisper. “I have to avenge my family.”

Softer, this time.

I place the bowl down gently beside her half-open door. I sit in front of it.

I don’t sleep.

Sleep is a memory—a myth.

The day is only sixteen hours long. Greens like me need only a few; for me, blinking is enough rest. So I do not sleep, I only let my head rest against the wall, watching the corpses of the blues I have killed.