Her Red City (WattyAwards2013 entry- new version)

Her Red City-Chapter One, 'Many Steps'. Part 2

This walking went on for some five thousand breaths, and I began to wonder whether we were all just endlessly circling,  getting packed tighter and tighter until the sheer mass of flesh between those infernal white walls would be enough to kill us all over again.

But this did not happen, and the only notable thing to my bizarre journey was the sight of a small child in plastic hospital scrubs, on a stepladder, surrounded by crime-scene style tape with ‘WALK ON’ written in stark blue lettering. The boy had a paint tin in one hand, and smoothed the white matt contents methodically onto a patch of red with the brush in the other- the bloody substance seemed to be leaking through the wall itself. We walked on.

After an amount of time quite impossible to describe, I noticed the corridor widening, and the solid, fluorescent light-spotted ceiling gave way to a lattice of lacquered wooden beams. These let lazy rays of hollow sunlight leak through to us and covered the structures we were approaching- a long row of booths and turnstiles, with faceless humanoid organisms leaning from windows to stamp inked symbols on to the hands of those at the front as they passed through the revolving metal. They bore the same 'WALK ON' command printed on the fabric on their shoulders, though other than this wore simple, plain clothes, each the same as the other.

The pace became ever more excruciating as the goal tempted ahead, but I eventually made my way to one of the outlying booths. Two others were before me, and I peered over their shoulders to see what would happen upon my marking. The thing had to lean from its window for the first; a small boy with many angry lumps on his skin, who inhaled sharply as the stamp touched his flesh. His symbol was of a pair of gates. The second was a pale woman in a ruffled business suit, a bloody dagger protruding from her white neck. She did not flinch, and I saw that her symbol, when she pulled back her hand, was a palm tree. Then it was my turn.

 Raising my hand, I almost shivered as the thing took it, with fingers cold as their Sun, and pressed the wet stamp into my palm. The ink burned as acid for a microsecond, then the pain settled, angry flesh creating the outline of a crown, to simmer at a dull throb. I looked up from the design to see the creature’s almost-gaze, head cocked.  Its head righted when it saw that I had seen it, and it gestured with grace for me to move on. I noticed an almost imperceptible blush appear on its skin, just a faint pink. Turning, I had just gripped the bar when I heard a muffled commotion to my right.

The man I had walked in next to, in the infuriating cords, held his mouth wide in a silent scream, and people pushed to get further from him as he floundered, clutching his wrist as if in agony. I saw a faint glow on his palm, which became a flickering flame, and then his arm caught fire, and all at once there was only a pile of ashes left where he had stood, and, amongst them, a white hot gun.