Veran: The Claim

chapter 6

Chapter 6

The color red was something I never really thought about. There was nothing really interesting about it. I never really thought of what made it different from blue or yellow or brown.

I did know that Lynn always said how good I looked in it. How the one time I tried to put on red lipstick it "brought out" my eyes.

I did know that red is the color of blood. The color of some flowers. The color most often used when describing anger. The color of a roaring flame at its prime.

But there were also other colors that meant other things. Blue skies. Green grass. Brown dirt. Orange sunsets.

Never had red meant any significance. It never stood out. It just was.

At least until it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.

The red coming from the two men's eyes was what I could only describe as mesmerizing. They were flying embers. So bright. So alive. The kind where when you touch it, they don't go out, but burn you with them until you're nothing but ash.

At that moment the color red really did mean something. It didn't just mean blood. It didn't just mean anger. It meant death.

∞

I was really getting really fucking tired of fainting.

I mean, there are only so many times you can do it before it got really goddamned old. Once was alright. Twice was enough. But I think I had my share at five hundred times to know that blacking out was a hobby I did not want to continue.

As I opened my eyes one more time, hopefully for more than one minute, I prepared myself for the brightness of their unnatural eyes. But, I didn't hear anything. There was no movement besides deep breaths and weary bones cracking with movement. Noises I was making. I was alone.

Taking a deep breath, I ignored my throat's loud-and-proud begging for water. The room I in was pretty distorted. All I saw were colors. Mostly browns. Some blacks. Even some grays. As I tried to get a grip on my vision, I moved my fingers around on the thing I was laying on. It felt familiar, like I've definitely touched it before. But I couldn't read it. Not when my head felt like it was the spaghetti Aunt Nerida made every time she mixed it with a spoon. It was as if my fingers couldn't connect with my brain to figure out even the slightest form.

Shaking my head to get rid of the airiness, I squinted my eyes and looked at my hand. Slowly, the distorted images came together to form an identifiable scene.

Wood. The thing I was laying on was wood. It was light brown and had little grooves in it like the person who set this up couldn't bother to sand it down enough.

The wrinkles on my fingers were a welcome relief. It was identifiable. Unlike anything in that cold, darkness of the dungeon I was in. It was more similar to the cold darkness of the part of my mind I managed to slip into when I fainted. However there was a difference between the two. The latter was a perfect escape. Why worry when all you had to do was breathe? The last two places I would rather stay in.

Clearing my head of those depressive thoughts, I tried to focus on the familiarity of light and color and not just the sounds of my own breathing or beating heart.

Dulled metal. The next thing I saw was dulled metal keeping my wrist in place when my gaze trailed up. My heart's beating was a crescendo ringing in my ears as I tried to move my head, hissing as I came into contact with the source of direct candle light. I was trapped. Holy shit, I was trapped! I couldn't breathe. Why can't I breathe? Why can't I get up? Where's Milito? Where's Milan? Oh, Goddess, where's Master Kace?

Breathe was a fleeting whisper echoing in my head. Breathe. I grasped onto that command tightly. It was the rock keeping me in place as tsunamis swept away the world. I grasped it tight and damned myself if I let go.

Breathe. I started to take short breaths but it matched the rate of my heart and I my hands started to shake as I tried to get up but was held back down. What is that? Why can't I get up? I started clawing at my throat, needing air.

Oh, Goddess. Someone get me out of here!

All sense of calm got lost in the glowing, red current.

Inhale.

Oh, Goddess.

Inhale!

The word broke through the haze of panic and this time intertwined to my spine. Destroying old tissue and building itself with the new. It became a part of my lungs. My veins. My very core. I then inhaled.

Exhale. I exhaled.

Repeat. I repeated.

I listen to that voice. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling. My heart beat lowered to its normal rate and I was able to breathe again. I stared at the gabled, wooden sealing as I slowly got total control over my senses. I stared at the chipping. The moss. Anything to keep the panic from taking over in the form of merciless tumults of water poisoned by the streaks of glowing, mesmerizing red. Severed heads coming closer. Familiar heads. Milan's mouth frozen in horror as her remains bobbed with the waves; water getting in, lapping against her throat like its own cave. What's left of her brother's eyes go-

The chipped ceiling really needed some work. Maybe a good polishing. Some paint. If that didn't work, then I heard fire was a good solution. Of course, it did more damage than necessary. Debatably correct. And the walls, those mismatching walls a perfect distraction from my inner struggles.

They were bare wood and adorned with lovely pieces of tools similar to the ones I couldn't touch in science class. There were knives, spatulas, extra sharp scissors, pins, a magnifying glass that reflected the candlelight beautifully, and other things. There were shackles on the walls, I realized as I tried to turn my head without choking on the thing surrounding my neck. Next to me was nothing but an old severed tree trunk that has definitely seen better days. I was compelled to touch it, to see if it would crumble into dust. But I was not as compelled as I was when I saw what was embedded inside it.

An axe. A rusted, caked with blood, honest to Goddess, axe. I wanted to see if it could cut my finger if I trailed it down. Would I bleed? Or was it too blunt to even slice paper?

As I contemplated all this, the door to my curiosity closed and the ones to instinct, common sense, and panic-the ones I forced myself to close-opened.

And then I realized where I was.

And then I screamed.

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