The Blood Thief

Wailing filled the empty air. There was no wind. No birds calling to their lovers. No leaves rustling together. Just the sound of pain ripping through the woman behind me. Boots pounded against the street as the Old Guard ran towards me. Maybe it was windy, maybe the birds were calling to each other and the leaves were dancing among themselves. But I couldn’t hear any of it. I couldn’t feel the cold air on my skin, I couldn’t feel the hand on my shoulder or the warm blanket being pulled around my body.

I could feel the blood.

It was seeping into my pores, getting under my skin and infusing with my own blood. It was being pulled back to life with my own heartbeat, branching out into veins and arteries and continuing its purpose in someone else’s body. It was wet with the warmth from my skin, it would dry and crust over soon and then I would have to scrub at my skin until it was the colour of blood even when none of it remained. I could have a bath, but then I’d be sat in a bath of blood. If I had a shower then it would splatter around my bathroom much like it was splattered over me.

The hand on my shoulder held weight, like it was bringing the world around me back into focus. The street started to litter with sounds, there were gasps in the crowd that had enshrined the scene and I had a supporting role in this tragedy. My shoulder crumbled under the grip of the hand and suddenly it was gone. I was left on my own again and the world left me with it. I wanted to turn to see where my hand of life had gone, to tell him to come back, to bring the world to me again, but if I turned I would see the man whose body was being held together by the wailing woman. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry. I wanted to tell her that I had tried. I wanted to tell the hand not to leave me. Instead I looked at my own hands and watched as the blood whirled around my skin in patterns. Swirling and-

“What happened here?” My hand, he was back. “Can you tell me your name?” I could have cried at the force I was being held with. Both of my shoulders were encased by the blanket and held in place by a set of hands. Hands connected to arms, arms leading to shoulders of their own, and sat atop of those shoulders was the face of a man. The world came back too quickly with both hands wrapping around my skin. The only light in this dark place being the green of his eyes. “What’s your name?”

“I tried to help him. I did.” Words spilled out of my mouth, I didn’t understand them but they couldn’t be stopped. It was a waterfall of sounds and I don’t know if they could be strung together to make sentences. All I knew was that I had to speak. “He was on the floor and I-I tried to stop it. There was so much of it. He kept moving.” The pressure on my shoulders changed.

“I put my hands over it. I thought if I pressed hard enough...” I couldn’t look away from his eyes. “She said you’re supposed to press down on it. That’s what I was supposed to do, so I did.” my lungs were running out of breath. “I did.” My eyes dropped to his mouth as it moved but no sound was reaching me. “I pressed as hard as I could but it was everywhere. I couldn’t find it. I kept trying to find it, I didn’t st-“.

“GET OFF OF HIM, DON’T TOUCH HIM. NO!” I flinched as the wailing woman screamed over my voice. Tears were falling from my face. When did I start crying? My chest hitched as I tried to focus on his eyes again, to use him to gain my bearings but all I could see was my own face in the sea of green.

“Is he dead?“ I didn’t want him to answer me, not really. His eyes looked through me to the world clawing at my back. That was his answer. The man was dead.

“Oh Gods. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tears tore out of me as violent as his death. My own bloody hands tried to reach out and grasp at the man in-front of me, to weak to really grip onto him. He didn’t move, he didn’t push me further away by my shoulders, nor did he pull me closer to his safety. His hands remained firm as the top of my head collapsed into his chest. I was surrounded by darkness now and it felt like the safest place for me to rest. Exhaustion was bubbling at my surface, every tear that left my face seemed to bring me a tear closer to sleep. I was still mumbling words into his chest as I cried. I could only let them out as whispers.

“We need to clear the street and get the body back to the tower.”

The chest reverberated as it spoke back. “I know but these women cannot be left like this.”

“Who is she?” The sounds were coming from above my den of darkness, I had wanted to hide in it forever, to never have to see the world again now that it had changed. “I don’t know, she can’t tell me her name. We can get them taken to the sanctuary. They will look after them until we come back.” The sanctuary. That was across town on the other side of the wall, was he going to make me go there with the wailing woman? I just wanted to go home.

“Take them to healing house, they don’t belong in the sanctuary.” Mother. Mother was at the healing house. She couldn’t see me like this. She would worry. “Home. Please, just let me go home.” I begged to the chest, his hands had kept me safe so far, maybe he could keep my mother safe from this pain as well. “Please. Home.”

“I can not let you go home yet, I need to make sure you are alright.” The chest made his case for not giving into my whimpers and I was too tired to make a case of my own. “Can you stand?” The chest was asking too much. His hands pulled my shoulders towards the sky without waiting for a verbal response. Encouragement rolled out of his mouth as I let my body be guided by his strength. My head lifted up, my hips straightened as my knees extended until I was standing. His hands slipped from my shoulders once my feet had taken the weight of my body, the warmth side stepped past my blanket covered form and walked behind me, with him gone all I could do was close my eyes and shield myself back in the darkness.

I focused on the sound of his steps moving away from me. His cadence was confident and strong. I kept a count of the steps, trying to stay connected to the living instead of reeling in the blood that was still being consumed by my skin. I felt my eyelids tightening and my back hunching over a little in my desperation to hear him again. His voice floated through the air, low enough that I could feel it before I could make out any words. I focused on the image of his eyes, pulling on the connection that had been built in my frantic state, picking out sounds that I could make into words; manage, take them, house, will stay, back, morning, her name. All pieces of a conversation I couldn't decipher because I couldn't just turn around and look. Look at his hands that held my strength. Look at his eyes that held my focus. Look at his lips that would tell me what the string of words had meant. Look at the dead man.

His feet started to move again. The stones beneath his shoes groaned as he turned, it was like listening to him crumble a mountain beneath his feet. My lungs started to fill with hot air as I waited for them to come closer, only the steps got lighter and were over taken by the sound of shuffling and dragging. Whoever was coming towards me was not a pillar of strength. A cold grip on my arm pulled my eyes open and I staired at the boy practically carrying the wailing woman on his right side. His left hand chilled my skin to the bone even under the blanket shrouding me from the world. His eyes were not green and his skin was pale from tiredness. The greying skin was noticeable under his eyes as he cleared his throat ready to speak.

"Miss, I need you to come with me." He was all soft edges and lacking in colour, I wanted my hands back. "Miss. I need you to come with me, do you understand?" His grip on me pulled at my arm as he tried to remove my feet from the stone they were being held by. His eyebrows scrunched in as he looked at my face. The wailing woman beside him sagged over and he had to shift her weight higher against him before pulling at my chilled arm again. I couldn't move, I couldn't even shiver at the coldness his hand had spread across my arm. A quiet growl sounded from the guard, his frustration was slipping out of his mouth, intentional or not, it made the stones pull my feet further down into the street. The hand reflected his growl and tightened around my arm as he bent towards the wailing woman again, instead of pulling her back into his right side he fumbled his shoulder into her gut and lifted her into the air. I could hear her sobs breaking through the guards back as she hung down over his shoulder. He pulled at me again, "MISS. PLEASE. Walk."

Stones rumbled and rolled as the green eyed mountain moved across the street. The groaning of the earth getting louder as he moved back towards my direction, maybe back towards me? The grey guard moved away from me, his hand dropping my arm and taking the chill from my skin with it, he walked away from me. The wailing woman swaying like a cloak draped over his shoulder, the guard walked until he could turn down the street on the left and continue his quest to reach the healing house. My shoulder sunk under the hand that brought the warmth back to my bones. He had come back. "please". I whispered to him as his green eyes came back into my line of sight, he had moved around my frozen figure and stood in-front of me once again, never making me turn around. "please, let me go home". I was begging him now, it wasn't simply just a request, it was desperation. I couldn't go to the healing house, I couldn't kill mother too.

A sea of green washed over my face as he searched me for an answer for his own actions. Would he help me as he witnessed the anguish on my blood soaked features? Had the blood still not dried yet? I dropped his gaze as I looked at my hands to see the sticky red still bright and dancing on my skin, still suffering as life rolled into it from my own body. The hand slipped from my shoulder and glided across my back and down to my waist, he was reaching behind me to my other side as he found an anchor just above my hip. He pulled and lifted me out of the stone floor as if I was simply standing in a puddle and not a statue that was built into the ground. He dipped to the side as his hand brushed from the back of my skirts to the front, sweeping up my legs in the process. I was cradled into his chest once again, the sanctuary of the darkness called to me and I slumped against him as he moved for me. I hid within the chest of darkness, I pushed harder against him and pulled the blanket further into the exposed side of me not covered by the green mountain man.

"Pull the blanket over your head." His gravel voice was full of quietude. It wasn't a request he was asking of me but a direction, low and slow enough to anchor me back to the world of movement. I did as he asked. I lifted my arm and brought it over my head, shielding my face from the outside world and tucking my hand into his shoulder. I hope my hand would fill him with warmth as he encased me in fire. I hope my hand wasn't cold like the grey guard, that I wouldn't spread a chill across this man as he turned us both and started moving us over the street. He couldn't be taking me home, I never told him where I lived. I wanted to move my lips and tell him where to travel but I was entranced by the steady beat of his heart. I thought it ought to thunder in its cage of bone but instead it pulled at my own heart until our rhythms were intertwined. I couldn't utter a word in my lulled state even if I wanted to. I was safe in the darkness. The twists and turns of the outside world couldn't be felt in my chest cave, I had no idea that we have even reached a stop until his voice shook my cave as he spoke.

"I need a healer to take her." Care had removed itself from his voice, he now only spoke with commanding reason. I wished to crawl further into our joined heartbeats, using the steady drum to drown out the bustle of the healing house, sighing in the defeat of not being taken to a home he did not know.

"Bring her here." Mother. Her sweet call to me ignited another round of sobs and shaking and incoherent words. My grip released from its place on this mans shoulder as I twisted. His hands fought against the movements of my limbs and almost crushed me into submission. I was pinned in my cave of darkness, cries echoing out and into the world. The blanket had been pulled and dislodged from my red face and off of my red shoulder, still wrapped around my red arm and encased in my red fist. I could see her, surprise soaked her like rain and just as quickly it had dried up as if the sun had come and chased it away. More sobs slipped from my lips. Chocking out the start of a word. "Mam-"

"Quickly now." She was commanding the mountain. She looked at me the way a healer looked at someone they had never seen before. Assessing my shrouded form as she moved into our orbit to guide us the remaining way across the room and to the tables. I was still pinned to the man, any attempts of movement taken from my muscles as if they had been turned to the stones from the street. This wasn't my mother sharing comfort, this was a woman trying not to get us all killed. This wasn't a man who had kept me warm and concealed, this was a man carved back into indifference. The wooden table splintered through the blanket and into my skin as he let my weight be taken from him, he had set me down on the surface but still held my back as if I would fall right off if he let go. The blood had spread across my clothing and body, across the mountain where the blanket hadn't been tucked between us. I could see his outline through the tears in my eyes waiting to fall off of the ledge in which they sat. I turned to mother and shook from the chilling air being allowed access to me now that I had been taken out of my cave.

"I did what you said, I pushed down as hard as I could. But it wouldn't stop, It still won't stop. He was screaming at me to make it stop." Mothers eyes took count of my body, of the blood covering me, blood that refused to dry. "This isn't your blood?" The mountain answered my mother for me. "It's not hers." Everything had become clinical, there was no more comfort here, the coldness forced more crying to rip through me as I mumbled more words of sorrow.

"Keep her sat up, I'll get something to settle her." I wanted to tell her that I didn't need anything, that I was fine, that I just needed to go home like I had pleaded to do so many times. I wanted to be clean and to be wrapped up in my mothers arms away from the healing house and within my own walls, where she was just my mother and I was just her daughter. "Here, drink." She pushed the clay cup to my lips and tilted my chin so the drink trickled into my mouth. Spices stung as they made their way into my system, already clouding my mind and settling the shivers. My stomach burned as warmth from within was relaxing my muscles one by one. Mothers voice filtered through the haze, I could hear her talking about getting a bath to clean me of the sticky red.

"Can you bring her through into the baths?" The wood disappeared from beneath me. My body floated from the table as I was cradled into the bathing room. With my head rolling I could see a figure in front leading me in the fog, it looked like an angel. Mother. She stopped at one of the baths and gestured for me to float down and into the tub. "Thank you. You can leave us." The angels were talking above me. "Keep her clothes, I'll be back tomorrow for them. And her." The angel nodded and turned away and dissolved into the fog. Only one angel remained, she took the cloth from my body and filled the tub with warm water. I melted into the solid sides of the bath, her hand reached out and touched my cheek. Silk skin brought me comfort as it stroked the remaining tears from the corner of my eye. The fog in the room settled to a mist, mothers tea was strong and the world around me was on the brink of collapse. An angel left a kiss on my forehead as she left me with a cloth in my hand. The warm water moved the blood from my body and into the tub. Patterns were forming around me, shinning and sparkling with the promise of life. It didn't mix into the bath water, it formed ribbons and twisted around my limbs until it disappeared entirely.

The water was clean. Gods, what had mother put in that tea?