Chapter 56: Red Through Blue (4)
A scream tears from my chest like my soul’s being ripped out. The smell—rank, sour, human—chokes me. “Eos!” A shrill voice.
Sharp, caring, distant. But it makes my insides twist. Saliva floods my throat—I gag.
Then vomit.
Into dark, shit-streaked sewer water.
I’m on fire. My skin, my veins. Boiling. My throat tears open with every scream. My face is half in blood. I must look like a corpse. Pale. Lifeless. I stare ahead, unblinking. The red world stares back.
A man shouts again. “Are you alright?!” But I don’t respond. I can’t. My mouth won’t work. My head won’t move. My knees are buried in blood—green blood.
And I break again.
I don’t move for what feels like an age. The tears don’t stop. The dam has cracked. And not because I wanted it to—but because it had to. My body remembers how to cry even if my mind forgot. I sit in it—half an hour maybe—still, trembling.
They call me twice. “Eos.”
Again. “Eos.”
Then silence.