Origins of Blood (RE)

I don't know this man. I don't know if he's taken Reds as bed slaves or bled them dry in darker corners of the city. I don't know if he has children, a wife, or a family that will search for him. All I know is that he is dead, and I am alive, and the weight of that sits heavily.

I look up to the sky, where the last light of the azure sun fades into a deepening gloom. Kneeling, I touch the wound at his neck, where blue blood swirls sluggishly around the jagged splinters of bone piercing through. I want to look away—take a drop, enough to change my form, and leave. But I can't. I must meet his eyes, even now.

There is fire there, even in death. A familiar warmth, the echo of every azure gaze I've ever known. Yet it feels impossibly far away, as unreachable as the sun. The pupils have already clouded, and blue blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, staining his chin before dripping to the ground. The rats will come soon, and they will feast on him.

I lick my finger, my nail tinged an unnatural blue, until the last trace of that other hue fades and only the faint stain of my own blood lingers beneath the skin. It's not as if I would transform in an instant merely from drinking blood or letting it seep into me through a syringe—no, transformation comes when I focus, when I choose to summon it. And now, in this place, with these people, I force myself to decide.

I take a few measured steps away from the man on the ground, the one I had been watching. He lies now beneath a heap of garbage bags, most of them reeking with feces, the stench almost gagging in the damp air. I know why—it's because some sewage line nearby has been blocked, a fact I picked up from idle voices in the distance, after all, this district suffocates in filth, as most do.

Supporting myself with one hand against the wall, I begin to undress in front of the others. There's no ceremony to it. My upper garments go first, then my trousers. By the time I'm halfway naked, eyes are darting away from me, one by one, avoiding the sight. Only the other blue remains close enough to take my discarded clothing. He holds them behind his back, balancing on top of them a pure gold watch—an almost absurd detail in a place like this. His face is turned away from me, gaze fixed anywhere but my bare skin.

With each heartbeat, I gather my thoughts, my will, my intent—pulling them together until they feel woven into the surface of my skin. I start at my left foot, willing the blood there to surge upward through my calf, into my thigh, then on to my stomach and chest, my head, before cycling down again through my heart into my right foot. Over and over. Each loop draws me deeper into focus. I grip at the sensation of my own blood cells, trying to hold them in my mind—the ones in my fingertips, in my toes, my eyes, ears, and chest. My breathing slows. It has become routine now, not the clumsy, uncertain process of the first time.

Heat blooms beneath my skin. A crawling sensation follows, like something more viscous than blood moving through my veins. My breath catches in my throat. My vision tinges blue, the pupils shrinking until, when I glance down at a puddle nearby, my reflection seems to vanish entirely. Air burns in my lungs. I cough. The dim light from an oil lamp flickers sharply in the corner of my vision—light I hadn't noticed until now.

Flies drift lazily through the air, their erratic movements needling at me. I want them gone. Dead. A few circle too close to my face, and I clutch at my head, nails dragging across skin, tangling into my hair as the itching begins. It's unbearable—like fire under the flesh, like a sentence passed down by the golden for blasphemy. My nails rake across my scalp, my chest. Cold water seeps between my toes from the shallow puddle beneath me, yet the urge to throw myself into it and roll is almost overwhelming.

I keep scratching. Harder, until my skin tears beneath my nails, peeling away in strips, the sting sharp as razors. The pain is exquisite—half agony, half relief. This is the cost of wielding another color's power. My voice escapes me in a dull, raw scream as my neck tightens.

Skin sloughs away in wet sheets, my veins exposed beneath crumpled blue flesh, spurting faintly before they, too, break apart. The pieces fall with strings of slime into the puddle, or my waiting hands, before sliding free.