Chapter 37: Praying Blood (2)
“Come on, six Cont for that man?” A croaking voice calls from an alley to my right. The words are distant, but I hear them clear as day.
My feet falter. For a moment, I want to keep walking, to ignore the voice and pretend I didn’t hear anything. But something within me—some force I can’t explain—compels me to stop. I can’t just walk away. It’s like a wave crashing through me, an urge I don’t understand.
My finger twitches.
My blood boils.
I feel the heat of it—hotter than the sun itself, hotter than my skin can stand. It burns through my veins, coursing in my blood. I feel it in my brows, in my eyes. Every inch of me itches, as though my very body is rebelling against the stillness, against the calm I’ve been trying to maintain.
I feel the change.
It’s like something snaps inside of me. The world around me warps, and everything turns red. Crimson. The same color as my blood. The asphalt beneath my boots becomes a purplish hue, and the two people I see ahead of me—they glow. Their bodies, their insides, everything. I see their offal, their organs, glowing in blue. I can see their vessels, their bloodlines pulsing beneath their skin, glowing blue in the mist. It’s an odd sensation, a terrifying one. But not the most terrifying.
No. There’s something else.
The third person in the alley—a man who doesn’t look like the others. He doesn’t glow blue. Instead, his blood, his very body, glows red.