The Red String

The Flower Handkerchief

Blood painted the walls in a grotesque mural while the flickering lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling highlighted the crimson handprints streaking across the beige wallpaper. 

A man ran down the corridor, his eyes wide as he threw glances over his shoulder and his breaths came out in frantic puffs of air. He rounded the corner in a panicked rush, his hand outstretched towards the door handle that led to his freedom. Just before he touched the latch, a hand reached out from the depths of the darkness by the door and grabbed his collar, easily pulling him back. The chime of feminine laughter swirled around him and he yelled as he slipped in the pools of blood surrounding the exit. A cool sticky fluid covered the wood floor and it clung to his cheek when he fell with a thump. He groaned blearily and opened his eyes to the image of empty eyes staring back into his own sightlessly. He screamed and backpedaled but couldn't gain traction and flailed helplessly in the scarlet liquid. 

A hand with fingernails that looked as though they had been dipped in blood pushed him down and a young woman came into view, her laughter sweet and deadly. She swung a leg over his torso and pinned him to the slick floor, encircling a hand around his throat in an almost loving manner. Her tongue flicked out to taste the air and she inhaled while closing her copper eyes. "Mm...you smell delicious." 

A male approached from behind her leisurely, his own voice filled with treacherous mirth. "Now, now, Ah Xiang. You are what you eat, and he seems the savory type. I know you like them sweet." The male stepped under the light and the halo of illumination revealed eyes the color of the brightest copper coin. The man on the ground shivered at the controlled bloodlust in that gaze. 

The woman on top of him threw the male a pout. "But, Master, he smells quite nice. Can I have just a taste?" she pleaded innocently and the subject of her desire nearly threw up for the fear coursing through his veins. But the male came closer and laid a hand on her braided hair gently, to which she immediately quieted and inclined her head. 

"We need him to answer our questions." While the woman's exposed arms were covered in blood, the male's gentlemanly attire was near spotless and that somehow scared the man even more. Leather gloves covered his hands and melded with a suit of the brightest red. When the male lowered himself, he saw that there were miniscule droplets splattered on the otherwise pristine white shirt he wore. 

The woman's nails dug into his skin, craning his neck painfully to look at her master. He smiled ferally and pulled a glove off, reaching out to smooth the man's hair back from his sweaty forehead. "Now, will you tell me where the rest are?"

The man shook his head frantically. "I don't know, I really don't! I'm just a bookkeeper, they didn't tell me anything!"

The male's smile widened into a grin and two sharp canines glinted in the lowlights. "Wrong answer." The fingers that had been resting on the man's forehead grew talons and dug into the fragile flesh, raking a vicious path down half of his face. His screams filled the dead air and he struggled, but to no avail. The woman held him tight, a delighted smile on her face at the ravaged and mutilated features. Strips of skin hung from the exposed sinew in the male's face and his heart pounded, his lifeblood crying down in his cheeks in place of his absent tears.  

The man's eyes rolled and his heart sped dangerously in his chest, pounding loudly in the corridor for both figures to hear. The male brought a hand up to his pale lips and licked the blood coating his fingers, a brow raising in surprise. "You were right, Ah Xiang, he is quite good. You must try once we finish."

The woman bounced excitedly and nodded. He felt bad for drawing out her meal so he poised his razor-sharp fingernails over the shaking man's eyeball. "Let's try again. Where are they?" 

The man started screaming while tremors shook his body uncontrollably. "I don't know, I don't know!" Hysteria finally overtook him completely as he stared at the talons a hairsbreadth from his eye and he lost his senses. "Why are you doing this?! He helped you!"  

"He helped me?" The male's lips curled and his patience tipped over the already precarious edge he walked. He effortlessly plucked the man's eyeball out of his socket with a light snap, the orb dropping with a slight squelch on the slick ground and rolling into the darkness. The male screamed horrifically but it was to dead ears who thought the sound a lovely melody. "All of the wrong answers today, I see. No matter, at least my Ah Xiang got a meal out of it." He waved his hand to the girl and stood to walk away, the screams and sounds of flesh shredding filling the hallway as he left. He took a handkerchief embroidered with flowers from his pocket and carefully wiped his hand then dropped the cloth on the ground.  

The handkerchief quickly became soaked with the blood on the floor and was the only remnant of his presence in the lifeless air.