Origins of Blood Chapter 7: Chapter 6: Enslaved

Read chapter 7 of Origins of Blood by Bloody_Potato on NovelPedia.

Elliot’s POV—Red Blood “Light. My light. Your betrayal is a sight.” Nearly two weeks after Elliot was captured and imprisoned aboard a ship heading for Elisia. My fingers sweat. My toes turn numb. “Brother!” I hear, or scream. Shadows swallow me—a star flickers. “Brother!” My neck twists toward the light. Whatever it is, stares back. “Don’t—” My toes curl, but I can’t stand up. “Steh auf—” Words blur as light fades. My neck tightens; I can’t breathe. “Don’t leave me!” Screams silence one another; my world spirals—something burns … like chicken, it fills my nostrils. “Brother!” Something thick and warm moistens my face. “Aus den Federn, ihr Ferkel!” Again, those blurring words, foreign. Light fades still. It must be the warmth of the sun, as my world burns red. But why is it wet? Dull sounds ring in my ears with a pounding heart. “Brother!” says the light. Light— my light! Laughter echoes with something warm crossing my chest. I can’t help but join in—a hand pulls me up from deep waters. Pulls me from my suffocating state—from my grief. My eyes snap open, and the sun disappears—no light, only its shadows remain. “Brother!” I wipe my tears, stagger backwards, and look into the eyes that could be my brother’s. “Ben!” cries the woman, chest shuddering, eyes glistening. Her hands bleed against the lattice; she, I, and all the others are trapped in it. I follow her gaze into a nightmare I thought I had only dreamed of. I puke whatever’s left inside my guts, and hunch forward with ragged gasps. Dead eyes stare at me. I stagger back an inch, sweaty backs pressed against one another. Behind the lattice, there stands a man. No, a monster : blue lips; skin as deep as the grief of oceans yet edged in the innocent baby blue of light. “Don’t hurt him!” she pleads, one of many trapped inside a cage. But as the blue-tongued holds the boy, it bites into his neck and brands the wound with a glowing stick. Steam airs, and grilled chicken fills the air once more—someone next to me retches. My gaze remains lost in the blood on the ground. “Please!” she sobs, “don’t—” Only now do I realize that two others lie on the ground: a man and a woman, far beyond their midlife crises. Just yesterday, they held each other in arms—now they are dead. I can’t look into their eyes and instead look down at my bare feet. “Steh auf!” The sailor-dressed beings kick the boy just before the stairs leading to the hatch above. She won’t stop crying till her heart breaks—though it must have been broken already. My vision flares like the blue hanging brass lanterns surrounding us. I try to move away from the puking man, but there is no space to flee. Once more, I swallow fast, and everything tastes bittersweet. “Ein Liter. Nicht mehr.” A silhouette walks down the brittle stairs, slowly revealing itself against the sun. It wears a simple suit, no face, except for a grin. Flocks of birds scream with the howling wind behind; then there’s more of the language I can’t understand. “Eine Dosis pro Kopf. Punkt.” The boy, unconscious, is dragged by the thickest of the sailors, and the others follow, leaving us in solitude. “Give him back!” she breaks, but eventually stops, her voice extinguishing together with the flickering light and the closed hatch. —break— It’s been days in shadows and nights in utter darkness, and more—too many that everyone started to eat and drink their own fluids, myself included—those who refused starved to death days ago. Each day—whatever a day is called anymore—I can barely see my fingers, even inches from my face; however, now and then, they open the hatch, letting in slivers of salted air and light. I still see its socketless face, still smell its stale breath—those rotting gums. Like then, I want to spit, but my saliva is even thicker, clinging to my chin in slow, sickly dribbles. My mouth hangs open. Breathing in this odor of fish and inner fluids is worse than standing in a crowded bus at the height of summer. I rest my head against the older m