This is so dark, oh my gosh. Wow. But it's only like this for now. It will get...happier...ish. I really enjoy this style. This is my preferred tense and perspective and how I usually write. I wrote the others in second person, past tense because the books were written that way. Either way, I'm still an obvious fan of romanticism! Please review!
The world is bleeding. It's wounded, like a dying animal, bathed in its own blood. Red is everywhere. I can taste it on my tongue, coppery and thick like oil. The stones are oozing crimson and I have to close my eyes to keep from seeing it.
Fury mounts inside me, a wild anger that I'm helpless against. I slam my fists against the wall, accepting the distant throb of pain, but that's all it brings. The world stays red.
I want out of this. Out. Out. Out. Out.
If I could tear down the walls myself I would. If I could bend steel I'd break through that door and take out those that did this to me; whatever this is. Maybe they've done nothing. Have I always been this way?
I grind my teeth in frustration, jaw clenched so hard I feel a tooth crack. Over the last few days, the forty two seconds have been stretched to minutes; two hundred and thirty of them to be exact. Nearly four hours I'm forced to wait for the syringe's dose. I expect every day to die before the suits come for me, but I don't. Though the hunger makes me feel like I'm burning from the inside out, it doesn't let my heart stop. If anything it makes it beat faster, stronger, until I actually believe I can knock the door from its hinges. My arms are mottled in bruises from trying.
But worst of all is the silence in my own head. It's too quiet and I imagine this is how a body must feel like without its soul. It makes me feel like a shell, like a living echo quickly fading in the distance.
Two hundred and one.
I bang my fists against the walls, letting my head rest on the stone. When the pain starts to numb my hands, I rap my forehead against it instead, desperate to feel something other than the pangs stabbing at me. I want my mind off the feeling, but I have nothing to distract myself with. There's the red and the hunger and the pain. Everything else has been pulled from me. I've departed from the walls to become a palpable shadow. A Grim Reaper of the suits' own making.
A grating noise sounds to my right and my eyes drop to the origin of it. There's a small panel at the base of the door and the metal screeches with age as it slides open. A plastic tray is pushed through, laden with a portion of venison and a small cup of water. No fork. I glower. I guess if I'm an animal now I'm expected to eat like one, too. But I don't crave food.
I crave the red.
In one swift movement, I'm at the tray and I garb the glass cup. I hurl it against the wall and it fractures into a hundred pieces, scattering across the floor like diamonds. Water droplets decorate my arms. I do the same to the tray, but it doesn't break like the cup, so I smash it against the door instead. I want it to shatter. To hurt. I want to feel it broken in my hands, unfixable and ruined.
It takes a few tries, but I do it. The one piece of plastic snaps into two and I'm left, breathing heavily, with the jagged parts of it gripped in my hands.
So maybe I can't break down the suits' door. But I can break their tray.
The days drag by. Or I think it's days, but it's hard to tell. Every passing one is the same, except for the lengthening intervals between doses. They've switched my glass cup to a steel one, but those are the only noticeable differences. I still wait. I still crave, but it's getting harder to control myself when the hours are finally up and the suits come for me. I think they use the device more often but it's hard to sort through it with the ever-growing hunger.
It isn't until the day I actually try to attack the suit that brings me the syringe when something finally changes.
The usual shriek of the device goes off and I stop mid-attack. My knees buckle and I don't feel the hands that are suddenly gripping around my wrists, locking them together with thick, metal cuffs. Though the inside of me is screaming, I stay silent, quiet as the dead as they heft me up and I'm shoved forward. The small confines of the stone walls disappear, but I can't even lift my head to see where I'm going. It takes me a minute to realize how I'm even walking but then I catch the suits on either side of me, supporting me, touching me, and I suddenly want to tear myself away from them. My finger barely twitches as they carry me down some sort of hall, as red as the rest of the world.
The screaming seems to go on forever, shredding apart my eardrums and lacerating every nerve in my head. With my eyes down, I watch as the hard floor turns to dirt and I'm pushed again. The arms supporting me disappear and I hit the ground in a lifeless thud. The sound repeats again, and again as more bodies drop around me. How many others there are, I don't know. I didn't even noticed them until now.
My cheek is in the dirt and my vision swivels forward as someone steps in front of me. I recognize the black shoes in an instant.
"Do you want to know what's better than an inanimate weapon?" the man muses above, but I can't turn my head to see him clearly. He goes on: "A sentient one. You see, it isn't the bomb that brings down the enemy; it's the person who gives the orders for its launch." The man crouches down, until I can finally see his face, device in hand. The shaft of light coming from it makes his eyes shine. "That's what you are," he tells me. "You're my weapon and anyone just beyond those doors is your target."
The suited stranger motions to someone beyond my line of sight and he's handed the syringe. The moisture in my mouth goes dry and my throat feels raw, as if I've gone days without water. The thirst is unquenchable even through the pain in my head and I want nothing more than to tear this man apart, to break him like the tray. But the device renders me immobile and I can't do anything but wait for him.
He plays with the syringe and I stare at the liquid, drifting back and forth, small air bubbles scrambling to the top. "You need this," the man says, his voice tantalizing as he gazes at me. "I need something too, and you're going to get it for me if you want that uncomfortable feeling to end. But don't worry; to make sure you understand what I'm telling you, the first will be a test run. And you've proven so good at tests."
"Sir," a suit steps forward, but I can't see anything more than their protected legs. Their tone sounds wary. "Do you really think the subject is ready? He's more...unstable than the others in his round."
"That's because he hasn't been broken in yet," he answers confidently. "First, we bend him to our will, a little more each day until sooner or later, his breaks on its own."
A muffled sound escapes me and the man's smile widens. "Now, your task is to bring me back someone. I don't care who, so long as they're human. That's when you'll get the Red." He waves the syringe dismissively in front of my face. "You can try to run away, but this is something you can't escape by leaving. The pain will just worsen the longer you go without your dose. Trust me."
I hate him. Every atom of me despises this man, but the anger pales in comparison to everything else. I stare back at him as he looks away from me and nods. Then he stands up. I watch as he recedes from view, and I'm left on the ground until the sound finally breaks off behind the closing of a door.
I drag in a strained breath and pull myself up, waiting a few seconds as the last remnants of those screams fade from my head.
I look around, at the rising of other bodies-half a dozen, I think. Black eyes find me, and my fingers instinctively curl into claws. None of them attack me, though. They just force themselves to their feet and begin walking, down the stretch of tunnel curving ahead.
The device has made me confused and disoriented. But then my hunger is back and everything is clear.
Red. I want the red. So I stumble forward, my feet sliding over the dirt with rocks digging into my heels as I scan the uneven channel before me, carved from the Earth. some low growls and derisory glances are tossed my way but I ignore them. They don't matter. The only thing I care about is that dose. My blood thrums in my veins for it. My heart pounds for it.
I only have to walk a few more meters until the end of the tunnel meets a large, circular door. Others are there before me, already pulling it open and I don't have a moment to brace against the blinding rays of light that suddenly split through the opening. Fear shoots through me and I fall backwards, waiting for the horrible pain. For the screams. But they don't come.
Slowly, I rise to my feet. I lift a defensive hand up, blinking rapidly to clear out the light. Around me, the men hesitate, too. Some cower away from it, slinking back into the shadows and it takes me a physical effort not to do the same. I will myself to step forward, into the sun, the fire, and out into the world beyond. I push the door the rest of the way open.
Light consumes me, spilling over every inch of my skin and for a second I stare at it. In this moment, my vision clears as I watch the golden liquid pool in my hands and play across my fingertips, burning them.
But then I blink, and the red tint is back. The light cupped in my palms suddenly looks like blood.
I drop my fists to my sides and stare out ahead. At the red ground. The patches of red grass. At the red treetops spearing a red sky.
My eyes lower, pausing on a small, red blossom nestled inside a clutch of pine needles. Five petals shine with beads of dew.
I grimace. What a foolish flower to think it's strong enough to survive winter. Frail things that fight are just more liable to break anyway, so to prove to the bud its own weakness, I don't hesitate to crush it underfoot.