Morality

Act 1 Part 1: Red

December 1877

London, England

"...If all has come to this, is it too much for us to expect an explanation?" 

The sky outside the hospital window is the colour of fresh blood, throwing the stained snow of London and the frozen Thames into  gory relief. The air outside reeks of coal and horse droppings, but in the confines of St. Thomas' Hospital, there is only the stench of morphine, alcohol, and blood. Not much of a contrast, really. 

In a poorly-lit hospital room, Damien Winter stands before a disproportionately vast window, dark eyes travelling absently over the crimson snowscape. He stands with his long, pale fingers resting gently atop the windowsill, his right leg bent casually at the knee, his head tilted inquisitively, as if listening to birds sing. But no birds had sung in London for a very long time, and he very much doubted they would now. Shadows dance and leap on the hospital walls, twisting in the shape of ghosts—hundreds of names, hundreds of faces, painted in his blood ...

He blinks, and the shadows are only shadows again. From the streets below, all one would see was a tall, lean man with overgrown raven hair and haunted eyes, his flightless charcoal wings arching over his head like a monstrous shadow. In the reflection staring back from within the glass, Damien saw a quiet truth. Black tears falling from bleeding eyes, his hands wet with blood he could never wash away. A gold pocket watch wound around his throat, choking him, its gilded chains leaving bleeding tracks in his flesh. 

He presses his forehead to the window and sighs pensively, watching his breath fog the glass—a stain of white spreading and then fading into nothing. "How am I to know if he's still alive, Jules? This year I have sent forty-eight letters, and out of those he has answered none." 

The young man in the armchair behind him turns to face his old friend, and immediately Damien feels familiar eyes on his skin; he sighs yet again into the window panes and watches as that white stain of breath expands into oblivion. "I know there is something cowardly about this life, Jules. But what can I do? You of all people should understand." 

"You were so brave, Dami." His bottle-green eyes are so dull now. So desperately empty. Please don't look at me that way. 

Damien prays for sharp rebuke, for biting reproach, but all Jules does is shake his head disconsolately, close his eyes, and smile ruefully to himself. Damien supposes he should be thankful, but what is there left to be thankful for? Even Jules—the faithful one, the mediator, the innocent—even he can no longer be a constant. Even he has been ripped apart and trampled into the dust. 

Damien tears his eyes away from the window, suddenly finding the colour red unbearable, and collects his long-suffering black umbrella from the room's umbrella stand. 

"I'll see you soon, Jules." He pauses by his friend's chair and looks only briefly at him—any longer and it all might become too much. Jules' eyes are closed, long eyelashes stirring, his arms folded over his chest in a wretched show of serenity. Lamplight washes the beauty mark  below his right eye and the faint shower of freckles across the bridge of his nose in a warm, butter-yellow glow. 

He opens one bottle-green eye in mixed amusement and puzzlement, the movement pulling at the long pink scar across his face. 

"Aren't you leaving?" He murmurs, both eyes open again, gazing vacantly at the dim ceiling. 

How far do you think the sky goes? 

Forever and ever. 

For a moment, the cobblestoned streets and the steam rising over the hulking silhouettes of factories and the glossy sheen of the River Thames all seem to overflow with bloody sunlight. Against all odds, against all the times Damien has smelt that sickening metal stench and felt it pulse from his flesh and seen it ooze insidiously from carcasses so horrifically mauled that he was unsure of whether they were human or animal, he finds himself enraptured by the scene; he finds that it is violently and horribly beautiful. 

"Yes," said Damien Winter. "Yes, I am. Don't wear yourself out, Jules." 

Jules' bottle-green eyes flutter shut. "Don't worry about me, Dami. Take the alleyways home."

"I will."