Origins of Blood (RE)
Chapter 23: I Am a Monster (2)

Chapter 23: I Am a Monster (2)

I brace myself with my aching hand as I continue to gaze at the passersby through the narrow street. Only a horse-drawn carriage, and behind it, I see another seemingly peaceful family. A little girl, just about the age of the one I slept beside yesterday. Beside whom I mourned my little brother. But they are dragging someone along. A small boy. One who stands out to me in the pale blue mist. In the murky, cold, and abandoned world. A red spark. One like me. Yet they drag him behind them. The apparent father holds the girl’s hand as she eats a piece of bread the size of her hand. Half-eaten. Innocently, she tears it in two. The little red boy, probably half my size, runs half-naked, unlike me, wearing only underwear. Like me, with a burn mark along his neck, less disfigured than I was a few days ago, more than I am in my current state. The girl holds out one half of her bread to the brown-haired little boy. My fingers reach toward the ever-dimming light. The little boy reaches for the bread, only to be pushed by the slightly older girl. He falls into a puddle. The girl throws the half of the bread at him, it too landing in the dirty puddle. Other passersby walk by, some laughing like the little girl, like the father or the mother. Despite their humanoid form, they are not human. But neither am I.

I turn away, my gaze lowered. I can’t help, not in this state. Not with my current form, not with my limited knowledge. I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.

My bare feet leave green stains on the wooden floor. Though they are fading in intensity, even after twenty aimless steps around this house, they still leave marks. Olive-colored wallpaper. Cabinets reminiscent of visits to my grandparents in my childhood. The kitchen, cutlery, porcelain plates. Ticking clocks. Clocks with 16 instead of 24 numerals. Everything feels so antiquated.

I continue walking, see a newspaper, and read a headline: The third week after the Reds’ breach through Apollo, and already resistance? I turn to the next page and the bluish paper sticks together, the text italicized and orange. My eyes delve deeper, and they begin to ache from the script. I sigh, slamming my fist onto the hard wooden table in the apparent living room. I turn around, walk over the amber-orange carpet, still reading the newspaper, and sit on a sofa that reminds me again of visits to my grandparents. It’s hard, not comfortable, more for show than for actual comfort. The edges are hard, bulging slightly, and I sit with my bloody back and buttocks, but I don’t care.

I glance at a bowl, sigh, and reach into the exotic-looking fruit. I’ve never seen it before, never even heard of it. As I try to continue reading the newspaper and bring the bluish fruit, resembling a pear, close to my mouth, I throw it against the olive wallpaper, causing a hanging picture to fall. The newspaper follows, though it doesn’t fly nearly as far. "What the hell am I even doing here?" I curse grumpily, clenching my hands into fists. Reading the newspaper as if I were my own grandfather. Peacefully waiting to die? For someone to come, preferably a green one, who would kill me without batting an eye?

I swallow and look around thoughtfully. I walk out of the living room into another. It’s a smaller hallway, but where it leads is the X on my treasure map. A bathroom. I stare into the mirror framed in apple green and don’t recognize myself. Ashamed, I look away, approach the tiled bathroom. Wooden toothbrushes, an oversized bathtub, and a showerhead with thumb-sized holes. The ceiling is the showerhead, the half area above the tub, in which I would fit one and a half times. The pale blue tiles, which, like the mirrors, reflect my pitiful body, are drenched in red, but much more in green color from my body.

I look around briefly, grasping with my trembling hands over the edge of the tub, which is at knee height. As I place my toes into the still-empty tub, I look at myself for the first time in weeks. I could only roughly imagine how I would look now, but it was worse than I thought. I stare at myself in the crosswise mirror among the several and show nothing. I just stare. Look at my uneven skin. In copper color, green and blue spots. I thought my jaw was healed; I can move it again, bite, but it still looks deformed, as if only half pushed back. My nasal bone is indented, my hair grisly and oily, falling over my reddened eyes. My hair looks like ash amidst the embers.

I breathe in and out more deeply, staring into my reddened eyes. I thought my eyes were blue. Blue like the sun, but they are, as I see. Red like my blood. Pupilless. I don’t even bother to be speechless. I continue staring, my eyes wandering to my neck, which no longer seems present. Replaced by red flesh. Blisters, like a pizza from which the cheese has been pulled away. My eyes wander further down, and I see the small scratches, accompanied by blue and violet spots. My fists tremble, hanging down at my hips. Red blood drips from my fingers into the tub below.

While my face is hairless, the rest, especially down there, is all covered. I want to look at my feet and knees, but the ice-blue tub blocks the view, and I don’t bother to step out again. Instead, I just sigh, directing my stiff shoulders, my hands searching for a faucet. There’s no curtain. No window, just the room full of cold tiles. It’s slightly darker than in the hallway, but compared to the chamber, like the blazing fire around which one warms oneself while camping. My fingers hardly obey me, so I press a long, cold part with my bloody flat hand.

Splash.

At first, I don’t think much of it. Just a breath. But then it stutters. Sharp. Disjointed. As if it might be my last. I suck in air instinctively—but it’s not air. It’s water. I gasp, choking on the cold, and pain slams into my chest like a stone. My lungs seize. My arms lock up. For a moment, I feel as though something is pressing down on me, trying to drown me slowly.

I want to scream, but there’s no voice—only bubbles rising. But as I fight the suffocating pressure, it shifts. Not the water. Me. My body adjusts, numbing to the cold. The shock dulls, and I breathe easier, though my breath still trembles. My body shivers violently, jaw clenched, arms drawn in. It’s not the kind of cold that prickles your skin. It’s the kind that seeps into your bones and soaks into your soul.