| Crimson Prisons | a dystopian future story

Chapter 1

I look down at my feet.
I'm running. No, I'm seeing through someone's eyes but it's not me. She's younger than I am, by ten years maybe. Four, five years old. The only thing I hear is ceaseless pained screaming in the distance. I feel a dizzying wave of panic from the girl.

What is she running from?

She looks up quickly, allowing me to see where she is. A crowd of people. People gathered on a highway, all walking in the same direction. Cars are stopped bumper to bumper on each side of the girl. But she doesn't even seem to notice the cars, the people, only the screaming. As the girl runs, the crowd becomes thicker and thicker. To the point where if you took a step forward you'd bump into someone. The kind of crowd you'd find yourself in the middle of if you got lost at a fair.

The girl now forces her way between each person, pushing them to the ground in her haste. She doesn't care, she just runs on. Then she falls. Trips maybe, but the next thing I know she's on the ground. She turns her head to the right. The first thing I notice in the reflection is her eyes. Not just the stream of the tears falling uncontrollably from them, but the color, a piercing blue.

My eyes.

This girl is me, well, six year old me. She has the same strawberry-blonde, almost orange, waist-length hair. Wavy but combed neatly with few tangles despite her running and fall. That same thick scar from her eyebrow to her cheekbone. The same girl that was born on the 23rd of February. And lost her sister six years into her life on the same day.

She -no- I don't stay to look at myself. My head snaps forward, the only sound I hear is the screaming. The constant screaming. From my new view on the ground I see past all the people.

That's when I see her.

She's in the middle of the highway, her face twisted in pain and her mouth gaped in a scream. Her stare is focused on her hand, fear flooding them. Her fingernails are glowing a bright orange.

So she wasn't running from something, She was running to someone.

I was running to her.

And that someone was my sister. My older sister, two years, two months, and 13 days older to be exact. The same sister I watched get turned into a monster by some other-worldly disease on my birthday eight years ago. The sister that you could never catch without her jet black hair in a ponytail. The sister that I miss. So much.

I try to get to her, but I can't move. I try to call her name but I no longer have a voice.
Her screaming. It seems to be the only sound in the world. I can't handle it anymore. I close my eyes, attempting to think about anything other than her pain.

The moment my eyes flick shut her screams are louder than ever. When I open them again her face is inches from mine.

So close I can see every detail on her face. Her eyes, the array of pretty blues that make them. Her perfect length eyelashes, the pinch of freckles on each of her cheeks. I'm also close enough to see her eyes begin to transform. All the veins in her eyes stand out, now an orange color. They seem to be filling with a new liquid, chasing out her blood. Vibrant orange seems to leak from behind her pupils. The same look as when ink is shot into water. It expands until her irises are entirely dyed the new color. The veins in her eyes look as if they are about to burst, bulging unnaturally.

The pain in her face has vanished completely, a grin slowly pulling at the corner of her lips. Her grin forms into an unnerving, toothy smile. Eyes still unsettling and orange liquid leaking from between her teeth, dripping off her chin.

I notice then that I'm shaking. I can't see where my hands are but I feel the clamminess of them. I can tell that they're sweating profusely. But it seems... oddly different. Maybe it's not sweat.