Crimson [UNFINISHED 5/01/2018]

    In all her days on this earth, Scarlet Rengir had never felt so cold.

    Even as the embers of burning huts floated around her like a smoldering snow, she could feel nothing but the dead chill the crept up her chest and took hold of all of her senses. She absently looked to her right, the world seeming to move in slow motion. She could see figures moving among the smoke, watching in surprisingly sharp detail as they fell, dying by the swords of men clad in the King’s seal. She felt her own chest and the wound that had ripped straight through her, pulling her hand away and seeing the bright crimson that stained her skin. Even the warmness of her own sword-drawn blood didn’t register in her mind; she was completely numb. Her focus drifted a little, and her eyes fell on a shape in the background. It was a man, his back to her, still and silent as he lay on the cobbles, a pool of blood blossoming around him. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew exactly who he was.

    “Hermes…”

   Although she said the words aloud, they were lost in the thick mist that was blanketed over her mind, stolen away in the silence. Hermes… he was the chief of their village, her husband, and a soon to be father. 

    Father…

    Her hand fell limply across her mid, lying on the lump of her womb. He was going to be a father, and she a mother… it was their first child together. A cold tear ran down her cheek, the light of the fire glimmering in her glossy eyes. She could feel no life within her now; the small flame that had once been her expectant child suddenly blown out by the ever growing darkness that filled her vision, plunging her into the eternal silence of death…

***

    They had lied. 

    The King had sent a messenger to their small village on the outskirts of the kingdom with a message: Eviction. Their village- founded only two years ago- had failed to yield enough crop to satisfy their yearly quota. On top of that, the king had appointed a new member to his council- a Lord by the name of Westiville, if she remembered correctly- and needed a new plot of land in which to set up his homestead. With these two factors in mind, their village was the prime candidate; every man, woman, and child, was to pack their belongings and relocate to a newly assigned village.

    Although this deeply angered Hermes, he agreed to their terms. He cared too much for his village to put them in any kind of danger, which he knew would come if he disobeyed a direct order from the King. Within the coming month, the entire village would be gone… but little did they know that being evicted from their home wasn’t the worst thing that had befallen them.

    Nearly two weeks later, in the dead of the night, Scarlet awoke to the most gut-wrenching sound she had ever heard; a woman's cry of primal fear, suddenly cut short with the sound of metal piercing flesh. The noise had awoken Hermes as well, and he was on his feet in a second, heading towards the door. More screams could be heard, shredding the silence of the night.

    “Stay here, Scarlet.” Hermes ordered, grabbing his armor and sword from the wall, “Bar the door.”

    Scarlet slipped out of bed, a hand on her womb, “Hermes, what’s going on?”

    “I don’t know…” he replied, reaching for the door, “But whatever you do, don’t let anyone inside--” 

    He opened the door to a terrifying sight: A few huts on the edge of the village were engulfed in flames, and the silhouettes of soldiers could be seen tearing through the streets, cutting people down as they exited their homes. 

    The King’s men were attacking the village.

    “No…” Hermes breathed, taking a step outside, “They had promised us…” He began running down the path, calling over his shoulder. “Run, Scarlet!” he cried, slipping his armor on as he went, “Run as far away from here as you can! I need to protect the village…!”

    Scarlet stood in the doorway, watching as her husband ran into the smoke. She quickly ran back into the house, throwing on her boots and grabbing a coat. She ran out the door, not even bothering to close it, heading in the opposite direction of the fire. She weaved throughout the streets, running through pegs of people who were also drawn out by the screams that echoed through the night. She didn’t want to leave her husband and her village behind, but in this particular circumstance, she had to; she was pregnant with Hermes’s child, and as it’s mother she had to do everything she could to protect it. Suddenly, there were more screams ahead of her, and through the haze she could see more of the King’s men coming down the street. 

   They had surrounded the entire village.

   Scarlet stopped, a cold dread washing through her entire being. Why were they being attacked? They had agreed to all of the King’s conditions, they were going to leave within the allotted time… why was this happening?

    She turned, fear driving her forward. She ran back into the village, the flickering of the burning huts casting everything in disorienting hues of gold and crimson, causing shadows to writhe across the walls like a chaotic pack of demons. She found herself in the town center along with nearly half the village. They were mostly women and children, as many of the men had been slain in the streets for resisting. They were being corralled into the square like a herd of cattle, every possible exit blocked by a wall of sword-wielding kingsmen.

    There were no announcements; no explanation as to why they were being attacked, no grand climax to this horrifying tale .

    Instead, they hauled a captive Hermes out to the middle of the square, kicking his legs out from under him and forcing him to kneel. Scarlet tried to run to her husband, but a wall of terrified townspeople blocked her from reaching him. They grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking his head back to expose his throat. For a single moment, their eyes met, and Scarlet could see his expression morph into that of defiance to one of sheer terror as he realized that his wife and child would not be spared from the massacre. 

    Then, without a single word or moment of hesitation, they sliced his throat open.

    It almost felt like the world had stopped there and then, hours passing in the duration of a single heartbeat. She watched as her husband fell to the ground, beads of blood falling from his wound. All the while, his eyes were on her, and she watched as the life left them, bleeding out in the crimson drops that oozed from his throat. He hit the ground, and the world rushed back to speed, the screams of horrified townspeople reaching a crescendo as they realized that their leader had just been executed in front of them. Scarlet was swept in the current of terror, and the rest after that was a blur… all she was sure of was that no one- be they man, woman, or child- was spared that night.

    And here she lay on the cobbles, still, a halo of her own blood spreading around her like some twisted saintly icon, draining from the wound in the center of her chest as a final breath escaped her thin lips.

    Scarlet Rengir was dead.

***

    Or so she thought.

    Scarlet woke with a start, gulping in as much stale air as she could. 

    She was alive. 

    But how? She had been run through with a sword and left to bleed out on the street…  She looked down to her chest. The wound was still there, fleshy and torn and completely real. She jolted back at the sight of it, putting a hand over her mouth. The movement seemed to trigger a spurt of blood from it, and the drops hung, suspended in the air like drops of oil in water. She watched them, both terrified and curious at the same time. She slowly lifted her hand, swiping it across the droplets of blood, causing them to separate and swirl in an invisible current, like small crimson galaxies spiraling within the depths of the sky. 

    Where… what was this place?

    Above her spanned an overcast sky, the clouds so thick and turbulent that she may as well have been staring into a sheet of granite. She was standing in the middle of an uneven and lumpy field, the dead grass flattened by ages of footsteps and dotted with dark pools. She had never seen this place before… but the more she looked around, the more she could feel a curtain of dread begin to descend upon her. 

    What she thought were mounds of dirt on the field were actually bodies, and the dark pools that peppered the ground were pools of blood.

    She felt her stomach grow sick as everywhere her eyes seemed to dart, they uncovered more and more bodies, piles of them. No two bodies on the field were the same. Some were men, others women and children. Some were clad in armor, others in peasants clothing, and she even thought she could see the glimmer of a golden crown somewhere within the mass grave. There were even figures dressed in clothing she had never seen before; some ancient inhabitants that had walked the earth, long before the invention of kings and queens, castles and armies…

    Despite the bloated corpses that lay in every direction, there was no stench in the air, no flies feasting on dead flesh, there wasn’t even a breeze; Everything was just… still.

And that's all she wrote, folks :)