Sam - September 21st, 38 AN
The east Utah desert stretched like God's gaping maw. Sam imagined the windcut rocks, skeletal shrubs, and red sand spreading across the landscape - sucking sweat and blood from the unworthy until the world was new.
Heat rose off the asphalt river in shimmers against the midday sun. She languished in traffic behind a caravan of RVs, each one desperate to pollute and degrade the sacred arches of Moab.
She snatched an ice cube from a grimey plastic cup. The kind of massive, hedonistic cups that gas stations fill with dayglow syrup. She held the ice to her neck and churned hot blood past it, dragging the precious cold deep into herself.
She stared into the rear view mirror, touching up scarlet lipstick and smoky eyeshadow, both flecked with gold. A sign of respect, and an aspiration to be more, to earn more of His love.
After two hours of the gratuitous self flagellation that was sitting in summer traffic, Sam pulled into the parking lot for a small airstrip. She grabbed a backpack and a map of the New York City subway system from the passenger side seat before heading toward the terminal.
Sam pulled a white handkerchief, embroidered with a golden lion's head, from her pocket. She wiped it over the sleek chrome push bar before stepping inside.
The air is... sparse. A dull itch tickled the edges of Sam's lungs. She stepped in front of a central ticketing kiosk. She wiped down the worn surface with her handkerchief. She entered 'Leah Irkalla' with rapid, choreographed jabs, grabbing her boarding pass before heading into the short security line.
"Oh wow! Heading to the big city?" The homely security agent gawked at the ticket. "Didn't know we could handle flights that far."
There was, unfortunately, no line forming. Sam scoffed. "Handle is generous. We're renting space. Even that was painful." Sam's blood churned.
"Oh I bet it was." The security agent chuckled. "ID?"
She pulled a bundle of documents out of her backpack - her sister's legacy. State ID and a Social Security Card were stuck between the pages of a passport, all bundled and wrapped by a birth certificate and a recent utility bill.
"You New Yorkers sure come prepared." The security guard deliberately looked at the empty queue as he pulled the documents apart.
"You government workers sure come stupid. In what world do I look like one of those wretched narcissists?" Drops of weak, empty blood rolled toward her right index finger like scouring sand.
He shined a blacklight over the documents. They were perfect, of course. "Ah, you're from out east then?" He raised an eyebrow, looking her up and down. "Didn't think they had girls as pretty as you out in that godforsaken place."
Godforsaken. Sam's heart beat in rage. Her eyes followed his patchy stubble to his wrinkled lapel. Unworthy. "There's all sorts of us out east." Sam retrieved the bundle of documents. "Though I don't think you'd like it much."
"Oh yea? Why's that?" The security guard pulled a hollow glass needle from a dispenser on his desk. "Finger."
Sam stuck out her right index finger, carefully prepared with empty blood. "Too beautiful. You'd feel out of place." The security guard smirked, then stabbed the needle past Sam's index finger into her thumb.
Insolent. Weak blood rasped into her thumb. A single drop of plain red blood filled the thin needle. The delay was short, half a second or less. Definitely not something that this crude specimen would notice.
YOU ARE READING
Bloodless: Origins
Science FictionBack before Ash, back before the world you saw in the original book of the Bloodless, Adrian and Yolanda had a long journey to go through to create the organization that would go on to save the world.
