under the vintage moon

bloodless

The silence is all around me, silent are the moors, the forests and the swamps. They know - they know what happened, what the world has done to me. Perhaps they were mourning me, and the colour of my blood. 

I can barely remember days when it was red. The fog covers it all. Was I happy? Was I alive? I had to be right? Well I wasn't in pain and isn't that enough?

The pain came later, of course, it always comes sooner or later. Blinding, crushing, the most unbearable of them all - the pain deep down in the soul, tearing it apart. It felt like the death, after all this time,finally came for me. And who knows maybe she did that day. After all which living thing bleeds all black? 

People think that this is the end. There's no coming back from it, and nothing waits for you after. Well they're right, at least for the first part, there's no coming back. But little did they know that it's not the end, in fact it was far, far away from ending. 

Second time surprised me, but to be fair, who expects their blood to turn into saltwater? The pain, stinging, burning, took my whole body. And then the dreadful realization came. It wasn't the end either, it was the cleansing - preparation.

It left me with marble veins, filled them with saltwater- beautiful but dead. Deceiving, poisonous if you drink too much. 

Last time I was waiting for pain that didn't come. This thin velvet ribbon tying me to humanity, to life was gone at last. The ghosts of things gone, people, feelings, memories filled my veins for the one last time. 

My blood has turned, from red, to black, to saltwater, to ghosts. And now I can feel it leaving - dripping away as the world continues to drain. And I know, I feel it in my bones -  this time there will be nothing left. They will all leave and once again I'll be empty.

Suddenly in the fog the howl peals out. Screaming are the moors, the forests and the swamps, and that's how I'm sure that they know. They've seen it all, their rage matches mine. They're my shadow, my echo,the only part of me that's still alive. 

But I'm not hurting, not this time. The change took all the pain away. And not only it… you see, with pain comes compassion, kindness, empathy - all emotions are tied to it. If the pain is gone, so are they. 

Maybe after all this is not the end, but beginning. They made me into this, they took it all. And now they're going to pay. This world has forged me. And now I'll roam it, I'll own it and I'll take it all, starting with the moors, the forests and the swamps.