Origins of Blood (RE)

I walk alongside my elder brother—though, truth be told, we stand eye to eye. No, that’s not accurate. I might even be a touch taller. Yes, I am taller than him. Amusing, in a way. But there’s nothing amusing about our surroundings.

Reds. Men, women, the aged, and the young. Their lives, already brief, have been rendered even more arduous. I keep my gaze steady, betraying no emotion. My chiseled jawline, like Lieben’s, casts a shadow over those around us. Not that it’s difficult when more than half are mere skeletons, and the rest appear as though they’ve been beaten into pulp.

The Blues who’ve spent weeks aboard the ships fare no better. The few Greens and the rarer Oranges among them are rugged, masculine. Lieben and I, while masculine, possess a more refined appearance—softer skin, elegant attire, though perhaps not at this moment. But that hardly matters now.

Outwardly, I remain composed; inwardly, I shudder. I yearn to free them all—the frightened children lying atop mutilated corpses, the fragile elderly who are scarcely older than I will be in two decades, the unfortunate women who seem to have endured daily violations for weeks.

My once-clean shoes now squelch through the coagulating red blood of the people my family has enslaved with their own hands. I feel nauseated. No, I truly am nauseated, but I swallow it down. Some of the acidic bile escapes through my nostrils, forcing me to suppress a coughing fit.

By the gods, why was I born into this family?

I wipe my blue lips and gaze upon the heaps of corpses. Why must they all suffer so? Why can’t we live normally? Why must such a power structure exist?

But I answer my own question as I look up at the cyan, slightly turquoise sky. The Golds. Gods. Apollo. They are the reason, even though we know nothing of their existence. We merely extract their powers through the rituals of the Nine—nine deities who have orchestrated this dystopian world. Nine divine beings whose blood is golden, unlike our blue, yellow, brown, or red. Simply because they are more powerful.

I stare into the sky with cold eyes, then shift my gaze to the sail. A ladder, a small platform, and at the top of the mast hangs a naked Red man. Nailed, hanging upside down like a cross, like the prophet of the Reds. Hypocritical, humiliating.

I continue walking behind Lieben until he stops.