TW // BLOOD

After exhausting five hours of getting yourself dirtier than a pig in the clay and seeing many insects you preferred not to, the daunting task had finally ended. So much effort for disfiguring a corpse that was wrapped in a carpet like a birthday present.

It took you four exhausting hours to dig the six-foot-deep grave and half an hour more to dig it back up. Thankfully, the storm that crept up on you over the forest didn’t start hammering until two in the morning. By that time, you had turned the grave into a pile of leaves and decorated the other half an hour with rocks you had found behind the tree.

The rain filled up your shoes and flooded your clothes. But that didn’t stop you from giving a little preach to Millicent in the end. It was actually Qi’ra’s idea while you were throwing the tools in the car, ready to escape to the hot shower and your cozy bed.

Who would have guessed that she had a little of sympathy left?

After the wet ride, awaited you at home a big cup of tea. Like three little hobbits, you sat wrapped in thick blankets on the couch and sipped your brew in peace while the wind howled through the curtains, making you sneeze from time to time.

Was that their usual tradition after burying a body?

Strangely, your tiredness did not kick in. You weren’t sure what kept you up awake: Was it all the confusion keeping you from closing your eyes, or the darkness that low-key scared you? And after such a night, you believed you weren’t going to school the next day, anyway.

But of course, you had to.

Every time the bus rumbled over something hard, your head banged against the glass, leaving a print on the steamed-up window and a bump on your forehead.

In the beginning, the pain bothered you, yet you quickly accepted your new purple spot on your body. You as well stopped bothering to keep your eyes open. Your head hung off your neck, and you were sure a fly was buzzing next to your ear.

The other passengers were sitting fixed in their seats, reading the newspaper, or being on their phones. You could sense their stares jumping over to you, wondering what you were up to last night that made you so tired.

If only they knew the roller coaster you went through yesterday…

Dark Dramatic Soundtracks - Darkness of Light - YouTube

Suddenly, the bus braked and woke you up by slamming you into the seat in front of you. The bus driver cursed at the pedestrians and the cars, while the passengers insulted the bus driver. Having to hear such bullshit in the morning couldn’t be the worst part of the day.

You seemed to be sensitive to the irritating babbling that tore you out of your sleep. When you rubbed your sore eyes and took a glimpse at the window, you noticed something extremely odd.

Time stopped, and the clear raindrops that fell on the window now appeared to have taken on the red color.

You shook your head at the image and stared at the glass more closely. So much blood was coming from the sky, as if they slaughtered something that was now bleeding out. The windows had darkened, being covered with the liquid, which made it impossible to look outside.

You swiftly spun your head, expecting the others to see the same phenomenon you had now witnessed for the first time in your life, but what you saw took your breath away.

The passengers’ skin turned deathly pale, with blood dripping over their clothes from a hole in the middle of their foreheads. Their mouths hung open, and with their twisted eyes, they stared at you, muttering gibberish to themselves.

A shrill yell emerged from your mouth. With no time to question reality, you plunged out of your seat and rushed to the door, pulling and hammering against it.

“Help! Please, somebody help!” you screamed, your eyes scanning the bus for anything that could help you escape.

The fear that came closer and closer with the steps of the passengers in your direction turned on your life instincts. They surrounded you, continuing to talk in muffled voices. One, two, three hands grabbed onto you, trying to stop you from getting out while you kept banging with your fists on the door.

“You could have prevented it!” wailed an elderly man. “I didn’t deserve this. None of us did!” His eyes and teeth melted word for word in disgust.

No one without a shot in their head was here to help you get off the bus. You tried to fight against the crowd while the passengers pulled you by your hair, your skirt and scrape your tights. They lifted you up by your legs and pulled you backward.

You quickly grabbed the bus straps and tried with all your strength not to let go. This couldn’t be your end.

Like a miracle, you noticed the red distress hammer hanging above, where a tall girl with long, dry hair was standing in your way. You acted quickly by releasing one hand and pulling her down by the hair. She collapsed on the ground, leaving you a clear path to the hammer.

You let out a sharp cry as you felt an unknown pain in your leg, daring to shoot a glare behind, only to see your own open flesh hanging there like a chopped piece of meat. You bit your tongue and stretched out your hand further to the hammer, ignoring with all your sensations the severe pain. Every muscle tightened inside you, and every drop of sweat ran down your nose.

Your fingertips brushed against the object. You were so close. So close to holding the key to your release in your hand. So close to not joining the headshot zombies. And for a while, when the last seconds seemed endless, it felt just like swimming under the surface, trying to keep calm and breathe through your nostrils.

You took one last deep breath and slammed your other leg in support against the neck of another man, who was pulling on your shoes. By that, you finally grasped the emergency hammer and let out a triumphant sigh. However, this was not yet over.

“Mörderin, Mörderin, Mörderin!” you heard screeching voices accusing you.

You slammed the hammer against the door as if your life depended on it. It seemed to you that with each strike; the bus turned more and more to the side. The pieces of glass became more and more fragile with each hit.

Your hand was about to give up when suddenly, out of nowhere, you broke through the glass door towards a bright light.

This was also the light that immediately blinded you as you flipped onto deep solid ground, landing on your belly. You let out a cough, feeling the burning itch of dirt and powder tearing at your eyes.

Epic Build Up Music - The Storm - YouTube

You stood up and brushed the dust off you, only to notice your legs and your school uniform remained unharmed. The emergency hammer and the attack on the bus had never occurred.

When you rubbed your hands together, revealing your palms, an abrupt shock affected you. You stared at your hands, which were smeared with unfamiliar blood.

And even though it wasn’t cold, your body shivered, your heart raced, your breath didn’t seem to find any regular pace, and once again, you let out a disturbing scream.

You instantly scratched your hands, feeling the unpleasantly rough itch. Long enough, you tried to rub the blood off your clothes, yet your skin was the one now burning in red, and you couldn’t care less. An idea was to spit on your hands in the hope you could wash it away. You even tried to sink your hands in the ground and get it off with dirt, just so you wouldn’t have the sight of blood again.

But even the tears that rushed from you couldn’t help. The tears became more and more intense as they fell to the ground that became muddier in the circle you stood in.

“It won’t go off. I tried it already many times.”

A one-to-one, familiar voice had come from behind your back. You steadily tried to cool down, drying off your tears. When you slowly turned around, you expected to be confused, but you seemed only to be reassured.

Only now did you realize you were standing in a two-meter-deep grave when you looked up at the other human, who had the high ground and was leaning against a large shovel.

It was you or a person who looked exactly like you. You might even think you were perfect twins you could never tell apart. The only difference: she looked way more polished.

“This isn’t my blood, right?” you wondered calmly.

She nodded. “It’s actually the blood of those who didn’t deserve to die. And yet,… they still murdered them in gruesome manners.”

“But I didn’t kill anyone!” you sneered in defense. “How can I possibly have blood on my hands from innocent people I don’t know about? From those, I have neither seen nor touched?”

“Well, this is not entirely true…” She seemed to toy with your words, eyes high in the air. “The blood only sticks to those who feel what we believe experiences the reluctant possessor of the key.”

“But I never wanted this!” you protested, your voice breaking as you stretched your arms out for her to see your remorse glued on your skin. “I agreed to play this role for the security of my mother’s life! The sake of not losing everything I love… everything I’m still holding on to.”

She observed the bright blood on your arms and how it disgusted you. She knew the truth when she tried to read your body language. You were ready to cut your hands off or even decapitate your skin and throw it away if a sharp object would lie next to you.

“I am supposed to bury the not guilty ones first,” she revealed, blocking the sun with her hand while looking for something. “However, since I can’t reach them for now, I’ll start with you, and then I move on to the smuggler, the betrayer, and so on.”

With the shovel, she threw the soil down on you, so you stepped away.

“This is madness!” you shouted back one more time. “You are practically burying yourself! Why are you doing this?”

She stopped and tried to analyze your reaction with her curious expression.

“Because you will die… that’s why.”

You tensed your muscles in your face, your eyes widened, and your mouth twitched to utter your words.

“But — I — I’m still standing here, breathing with decency!” you emphasized fiercely. “I still see a little light!”

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Don’t worry, this will all extinguish once we set your soul on fire that will make you go beyond your limits.”

“I was told not to go to the abode of the damned.”

“I know,” she answered, the right corner of her mouth turning up in a smirk. “It’s actually not that bad once you find pleasure in the right motivation.”

“Please don’t bury me,” you pleaded with puppy eyes.

“I know the fear that haunts you. I feel it too.” She spoke in a soft tone, giving you the impression of comfort. “But it’s the only good way for you to get the taste of darkness that will make you unbreakable and therefore destroy your weaknesses.”

You tilted your head. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, look! Deadly nightshades are already blooming!” she expressed in an exciting tone, pointing at your feet.

“Please! I’m begging you, don’t bury me! I’m not yet dead! I deserve to live!”

“If the roles had been reversed, you would do the same thing!” she insisted, and the kindness in her voice fainted away. “And I would want you to bury me.”

“No, no, I swear I wouldn’t!” you cried, echoing your name repeatedly as if the other you were a stranger.

And indeed, she was.

Please don’t bury me, were the last screaming words you remembered fainting away. The pictures disappeared as someone shook you back again into consciousness with a hand on your shoulder.

“Fräulein! Alles gut bei Ihnen?” the bus driver asked, his face gleaming in concern. He looked at your ghastly face that was drenched in sweat, assuming he found a dead passenger in his bus who needed an ambulance.

“Where — where are we?” you inquired in a weak tone, looking with half-closed eyes out of the window.

“Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof,” he announced.

On the other side of the street hung a gigantic clock on a building, the arrows pointing at a quarter to eight. When the light turned green, crowds of people walked rapidly with their gigantic umbrellas through the crosswalk to get their train that was already running late because of the weather.

“Ah shit,” you sighed when you realized you had missed your bus stop and were now running late for school. You were close to considering driving back home as you bumped your forehead against the window, wanting to stay like this forever.

“Hux is going to kill me.”