Bloodlines

01. Captured

There Rosamin was, running for her life once again.

She tightly held the dozen or so apples to her chest, and let her legs take her where they would as long as it was away, far, far away from the guards that at this point probably were so frustrated with her antics, that they would love to see her head on a spike.

At the thought of such a future, her legs propelled her around the corner at a lightning speed, mostly due to the fact that she quite enjoyed her head attached to her body.

Finally, she caught sight of her getaway, her home, her bush in which her hidden hole, that she had dug under the city walls.
She was so close.

Yes, the guards had been unusually slow today they wouldn't even catch a glimpse of her in the bush.

She was perfectly safe or at least, almost.

With one final effort, she crawled into the bush at an imaginable speed and was down her rabbit hole, she could see the light on the other side but that could wait, her favourite part was just about to start.

Rosemin carefully peaked through the leaves and yes, the guards had just arrived. Once again, they had lost her and come to a dead end at the city walls.

However something was different, the usual groans of frustration of having let Rosemin slip through their fingers were missing.

She waited and waited but the guards simply shrugged and marched back to their duties.

'That's odd' Rosemin speculated why the guards had suddenly just given up on her, maybe they had grown tired of her finally realising they just couldn't catch her, had they really given up that easily?

She would have continued to contemplate but the dying whale like noises emerging from her stomach brought her attention back to the apples.

Food.

At last, it had been a while and she was growing tired due to the lack of energy.

She munched down on one of her apples, enjoying the savoury nectar flow down her throat. As she marvelled at the apple, she slowly made her way out of the hole and out beyond the great wall.

She almost chocked at what waited for her on the other side. Five armed soldiers trapped her in a semi-circle to the wall.

One of the soldiers, a man, commanded her to start walking.
She stood there, paralysed in fear of what she knew certainly awaited her. The same soldier, pushed her with greater force and she stumbled along.
The soldiers marched her to the city gates, where Rosemin suddenly was brought back to reality.

She could still escape, this wasn't the end for her, she could get away.
As the gates opened, she prepared herself to run, yes, she knew every inch of this great city she had a chance, she could make it out of this.

The moment the gap in between the gates was wide enough for her to slither through she sprang forward.

A sudden bone-shattering shock waved through her body and she collapsed, the world grew darker by the second and soon she was entirely unconscious.

She awoke to a door sliding shut and footsteps approaching her.

Her eyes fluttered open and she was surrounded in darkness, complete and utter darkness. In fact it was so dark she wasn't even sure her eyes had actually opened.

The footsteps now stopped, she whirled around and got to her feet, at this she let out a light moan, a pain gnawed at her back.

All of a sudden the person behind the footsteps spoke, "You know when my guards first mentioned you I thought of having them flogged for bothering me with such trivial matters as a common thief but then they mentioned you weren't a Red, in other words how you would find yourself in Rouge, immediately spiked my interest. I in turn naturally demanded to know what colour you were but as it turns out were aren't Yellow, Green or Blue."
The voice, the male voice laughed slightly.

"Imagine my supprise. Truly, few things spike my interest as you did. So I ask you, why when my men check your blood for colour, they found nothing, your blood was like pure water, clear, transparent. Not a trace of any clan trying to bound you with their colour, why is it you are well nothing, why do you not belong to any clan?"

Rosemin swallowed, it was clear now, she was in Red's custody. She was in one of those sensory deprivation cells.

That, however, was not the problem at hand.

Someone knew, someone knew her secret, it was out, she was going to be stained with the Red's colour and she would no longer have the freedom to control her life.
The life her ancestors had worked so hard for was going to be gone.

She has ruined everything.

The voice, the man, took another step forward. He could see her but she couldn't him.

She felt his fingers hold her chin as he leaned towards her ear and sent shivers down her back "Do I have to repeat myself? Why haven't you been stained?!"

"I don't know" Rosemin said with more confidence that she thought she was currently capable of.

The man shook his head and clicked his tongue in a disapproving manner.

"You have pretty little face, I wouldn't want to leave a scar here and there but if you do not answer me truthfully I can promise you, I won't hesitate."

He leaned in closer to her ear at his final words. Rosemin's pulse accelerated at an alarming speed, she was terrified. Yet she did not dare waver.

"I said, I-Don't-Know, I was born this way and thusly abandoned, I have no idea why and how I remain unstained of a colour."

"Abandoned at birth? Oh what a sad story, too bad it isn't true."

His hand moved from her chin to her waist and pulled her to him with such force that she almost gasped.

Her face dug into his chest and he trailed his fingers through her hair.

"Now that I consider it, you don't care of a couple of scars, no, you care to keep your blood clear and not be executed for it. Ah, well I must tell you that wish of yours is still completely possible. I don't see the point in lying, after all we Red's are known to be passionate."

Rosemin's eyes widened, what on earth...

The man whispered now, "I have had those men that know you're lack of colour killed and I am the only one that to my knowledge knows of the atrocity that you are to our system. Why you may ask am I being so reckless? Well, that question is easy enough to answer. I'm bored every whore I meet throws herself at me and they are all the same. You seem to be a challenge, you are new, fresh, exciting."

Rosemin snapped at that, clearly the man was a threat but he was planning on exploiting her against her will. She pushed herself away from his strong grip and gave him a resounding slap to the face. The sound bounced of the walls and slowly lost its self in the seconds of silence that followed.

The silence was broken by a booming laugh, the man was laughing, finally he ceased and she could feel him smirk before he started towards the door, "Oh yes, definitely new".

The noise of the sliding door followed and Rosemin was once again alone. In the pitch black, left to contemplate her escape plan.