The Insurgence: Bleeding Silver

Bleeding Silver

I felt sun on my skin today. I can't remember the last time- maybe that day we went into lockdown. I wish I were able to say it were under happy or at least good circumstance.

At sunrise the inhabitants of the base went outside, some had waited longer than me to feel the sunlight. Out of fear? Out of comfort?

Jasmine stood directly in front of a body covered by a white cloth, two other hidden bodies on either side of it. Her face was rigid, fixed on the cloth with her hands clasped. She looked respectful and maybe even empathetic. Jack tells me it's not often she breaks down like this but I didn't see any signs of breaking down, only intimidation, maybe even anger. She looked regal and powerful.

A crowd formed around the body, leaving Jasmine in the center with him, Nicholas, his night watch partner who couldn't save him, even if she had heard the scream. I wondered if he was one of the boys who was there the night she put her hand on my throat.

A shiver ran through me and Mavis instinctively took my hand. "When the bodies freeze, they're not really dead." She looked to Jasmine before looking down to the bodies. "They're trapped within their own body."

My mind went back to the night I found my parents sitting happily at a kitchen table, a sight I couldn't fathom. They had never looked so happy until they were put in a trance.

"Jasmine doesn't think it's right to keep them here, locked in a room while we make no efforts to figure out what's going on." Mavis let out a sigh. "There's nothing we can do and there's no explanation. They're collecting dust and... we have no idea who could be next."

Jack took his place behind me and Kyle stood to my left. Both were wearing all black- at least that was a change for Kyle. Neither made a sound as the rest of the crowd snapped their attention to Jasmine who at last started to speak.

"I came to this cause seeking redemption for simply sharing blood with the man that looms over us like a plague." She took a knife from her pocket and held it against her chest, visibly taking a deep breath. She was sneering, glancing up at the sky and shaking her head. From this distance her eyes looked almost completely white.

'Jasmine is Martin's niece,' Jack lurked to me. 'Eveline was the only person who ever trusted Jasmine and didn't use her for her looks. She knew Jasmine was tough, a better fighter than half the men on the Silver Primes.'

"I wore my name with guilt until this cause gave me purpose... and now it's a joke." She snickered to herself. "I fought for the people who were suspicious of me over a fate I had no say in... and now we fight for nothing at all... Silly isn't it?"

"Oh God..." Kyle whispered beside me.

Jasmine held the knife horizontally, staring at the gleaming blade, catching the colored sky in its shine.

           "I shouldn't be the one to do this..." A faint scoff escaped her lips. "It's what a leader would do... but 'leader' is just a word, it's just a title that'll excuse someone else's inaction. And that inaction comes from the very predecessor we allowed to take over a revolution that never saw anything but a dream state."

           Mavis let go of my hand and leaned over to face Jack who was pale as a ghost.

          "Our leadership first turned us into monsters, and now it turns us into bystanders!" Jasmine's voice began to increase in volume and carry through the woods. She cried out as if she were in pain, holding her stomach with her free hand. "Allowing living souls to rot- but that's exactly what we all are, right? Reanimated corpses."

           In a quick move she grabbed the first body and sliced through the sheet into its neck.

           I gasped, my hands quickly covering my own mouth as I stumbled back into Jack, my friends on all sides catching me and shushing me. No one else in the crowd reacted, a couple let out a few stray sobs. Not even the friends around me flinched as she sliced the necks of all three bodies.

           Blood poured and pooled into the sheets from each slice just like any ordinary person but another color followed, from the crevices of the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, a silver substance.

           "They're free now." She tossed the knife away next to all three bodies.

           "An Insurgent never stays dead til' the second time," Kyle murmured.

           Mavis gave me a sad smile, "I know you don't understand but they'll be at peace now. They spent their second life confined to their altered bodies, to be stuck forever is purgatory."

            I did understand, because it's what Jasmine means is happening right now. The rebellion is in purgatory. It's just as Mavis said, it's not the powers but the institution. Insurgents play with a natural order of life and death and unwillingly wake up with a new life and purpose to follow... This connected everything Jack had said, about hating himself, about seeing himself as a monster. We gave each other a new purpose.

          They're alive- but only halfway. Confined. Trapped. I... felt like that once.

           And I never want to feel that way again. But to not go back is to break their dream.

          "And guess who never showed?" Kyle said with a smirk. "We really just watched Jasmine smile over Headmistress who didn't even show up?"

          Jack rolled his eyes, "But she surely heard our thoughts from outside."

         "Anarchy?" Mavis wiggled her eyebrows.

          Kyle gave her a high five and we walked back into the base laughing but I was still reeling with a permanent picture of a body being cut before my very eyes. I seemed to be the only one who was still focused on the scene outside.

          "Was that... a ritual of some kind?" I asked Jack as we walked back inside.

          He nodded, "Back at the other base we always had funerals for fallen soldiers. The white cloak is what Insurgents wore to worship um... the man who created us and the white cloak is put on the body to soak up the silver that drains from their body." He stopped and looked down at me, "I am so sorry I am painting a picture in your head right now..."

          I shrugged, "A little heads up next time would be nice... Jack?"

          He looked down at me, "What?"

          I grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze. "Just don't let it be you."