PINK

18

'Red

Red.'

Before her, Iara witnesses two limp bodies, bundled together with brown rope. Iara loses control over her body and vomits on the ground in front of her. The acid burns her mouth and makes her want to puke more.

Sanny and Addy are battered and dead. Flesh ripping off the bone and blood pooling around their feet as well as on the grey walls. They were broken plates.

"Oh my God, Oh my God." Is all Iara can speak through her bouts of sickness.

Stephen had slaughtered them. He ripped them, shredding their skin and soul from the skeleton they inhabited. Iara stands still. Mind light and heavy, she imagines the deafening cries that escaped the now bloodied lips of these two women. Iara, herself, leaps into an uncontrollable sob that makes her heart pound faster.

She hears footsteps approaching her. Stephen kneels down with an angry expression.

"How dare you go exploring? This is my house not yours! Now go to your fucking room before I kill you too!" He demands, slapping her wet cheek. She feels the burn rise to the surface of her skin and she walks off to her room. Dante and her cross paths whilst in the corridor. He has bloodshot eyes and cracked lips, blood seeping from the pink ripped flesh.

"Don't fight him, please." He begs, before he steps into his own red demise. Iara does the same, the door shuts behind her and her eyes burn with the red saturation. She closes her eyes tightly, so tight that the skin bunches up and she can feel it scrunch. No matter how hard she tries the colour seems to appear through the darkness her eyelids create.

She wishes for a vision. Anything, the fire and the figure, she needs them now; but they have seemed to abandon her. It's like this is her vision. All the terrible atmospheres she has experienced are now, the bleed-through was no more, all the blood has leaked through.

The sudden loud noise from the other side of the house breaks her thought and jolts her, eyes open. The bang continues rhythmically. She looks around her, the colour dominant. Her red scars have gone though, they are not there, they are now in control with the colour. She is the scar in this room, she is the colour that does it belong.

The banging stops abruptly, but begins again after a few seconds.

She feels a growing pressure behind her lethargic eyes. The warm tears burn at her eyelids then drop when there becomes too much. She lets herself whimper quietly as the drops patter on top of her arms. She watches as the salty liquid falls to either the left or right side of her arm. It reminds her of Dante's cuts.

She stares up to the ruby ceiling and a scene builds itself in her mind. A dark red room, one with a wine screen behind white curtains. A lonely boy sits atop his solid slate bed, his arms dangling on top of his thighs. His lips parted, only slightly, allowing himself to intake a substantial amount of the thick air around him. They are plump and pink, just like there are now. She smiles. He is the the centre of the scene, like she is sitting just in front of him on a chair.

When she inspects a little closer his eyes meet hers, they are grey and red. Almost awash with blood. A tear escapes from the eye, as he smiles only slightly. The liquid has a streak of crimson, as it pools at the rim of his eyelid. He is broken once more, just like earlier.

With his right hand he slips it under the worn and thin mattress his body is resting upon, all the while he stares straight as tears chase tears. He pulls out a piece of metal, it's brown with rust and dried blood. And like its no matter at all, he presses it up against his left forearm, he grips it so tightly his fingertips turn white. Pushing slightly the skin breaks and a thick dark red liquid gushes out into his pale skin. It drips onto the floor. The streaks of blood that run down his arm stir up a melancholic feeling in Iara.

He takes the metal out and moves it down a centimetre, he penetrates and draws blood again.

He stares at her through all this, like a silent scream for help. Iara is frozen, she is just the observer. No matter how hard she shakes her body loose of this immobilising grip, she is not able to help.

A shock sends itself through her body, she opens her eyes and looks down, expecting to see Dante but only the intense atmosphere of the room. It's a stuffy and oppressive ambience, it ignites this desire to escape in her. With her palms, she pushes her self up from the hard bed and tackles the white curtain. Tossing it to the side, she grapples at the red screen. She picks at the corners, like trying to pull a sticker off.

"Agh." She groans clawing the red plastic screen that stands invincible. She gathers all her rage and slams it. It caves a bit but bounces back, with a hollow sound. Iara collapses onto the floor, her hand dragging down the plastic sheet.

She screams in annoyance and agony, and she can feel the air escape her lungs as they compact. Hyperventilating, she breathes rapidly in and out, air enters and escapes but has no time to greet her stressed lungs.