Scarlet

01 | Blood Ink

"Underestimate me. That'll be fun."

♢♦♢

The middle-aged man clad in a three piece suit, stepped out of his limo the very minute it skid to a halt outside his residence. Said residence was no less than a palace, since he himself was no less than a successful businessman; he owned a chain of five-star hotels.

A gleeful smirk graced his mouth as he walked through the threshold of his home, and he couldn't wait to break the joyful news of a partnership to his wife. To George Wilson, today was a day like every other.

How very wrong he was.

"Mara!"

His rushed steps carried him towards the grand staircase that led up to the second floor of his mansion. The idea that his wife might be fast asleep crossed his mind, after all, it was a little after midnight. He returned home unusually late today, but that was for good reason.

"Ma-"

He bit down his words when he walked into his faintly lit master bedroom. The Mara in question was indeed in a deep slumber. She lay on her side, with the quilt pulled up till her bosom. A palm was tucked underneath her cheek, and overall, she looked to be snoozing away peacefully.

With a smile of adoration playing at his lips, George approached his sleeping spouse. He reached out with a hand to caress her cheek. He could feel the oddly cold temperature of her skin after a few moments of stroking, which concerned him beyond belief. The climate of the room itself was warm, and a blanket was draped over her body, so the iciness that radiated from her face made no sense.

"Mara, are you alright?"

George repeated his question once more. There was no response, so his hand dropped to her shoulder. He shook her softly to wake her up, and she still didn't respond. After another shake or two, his patience wore short. He tugged the quilt away from her figure.

Mara's body was separated at her abdomen, and the bloody cross-section could easily be seen. A few vascular tubes, what looked to be her guts, spilled out and lay on the snow-white bed sheet, staining it in a tremendous red. The strong waft of a metallic stench filled his nostrils, like a train hitting him in the face, and he barely resisted the urge to vomit.

Now that he was having a closer look at her, he could easily notice the ghostly-pale skin tone of his wife. His hand flew up to cup his mouth, and a relentless stream of tears began to leave each of his eyes.

George's brain locked itself into a state of shock. His mouth opened into an 'O' shape, but not a word came out. He didn't know what was more traumatizing; the sight of her insides pooling out, the fact that Mara was dead, or the condition she was in.

"I hope you like my handiwork, Mr. Wilson."

George whipped around in an instant. His eyes searched for the source of that haunting voice, and they stopped at a silhouette seated on an armchair at the end of the room. The dark form looked to be standing up, and it started to advance towards George.

He wanted to weep for Mara. He wanted to scream. He wanted to ask about the person's identity, and how they broke into his home. But above all, he wanted to know what his wife did to deserve this gruesome anguish.

"Who the hell are you?" George snarled amidst his sorrow, and he heard what sounded to be the clicking of a tongue. The silhouette was now entering his vision, where he could make out the specifics of the individual's form. The person stopped right in front of him, and his eyes widened in bewilderment at the seemingly harmless appearance.

The murderer of his spouse was in fact a she. It was a woman, whose entire attire looked to be black. It appeared that she was holding two objects in both hands, but George couldn't make out what they actually were. What he could make out was the littering of dark freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and little did he know, that was but the spray of his wife's blood.

And nothing could prepare him for what came next.

He felt a searing pain in his chest. The feeling bloomed like wildfire, and it spread to every part of his body in a split second. It took him a while to realize that two knife-like objects were lodged into his sternum. The woman's hands were gripping onto the daggers, and she returned his fearful gaze with a look of boredom. When she sensed that he was about to lose his footing and fall to the floor, she let go of the daggers.

A rattling scream of agony ripped from him when his backside met the floor with a hard thud, and it surely travelled all the way throughout his empty mansion in an echo of melancholy. His bellows of pain didn't stop either, they carried on without falter, each louder than the previous one. He made a weak attempt to touch the blades with the thought that he should pull them out, but the slight movement only added to his suffering.

The woman took casual steps towards him, and she crouched when she neared him. Her eyes were trained on the dying businessman as she watched the entire scene unfold. In a flash she outstretched both arms to grab the daggers. She dragged them down along his chest, effectively widening the existing gashes, before pulling them out in one swift tug.

His wails had grown to be deafening now, they bounced against the walls of the bedroom violently. A dark and thick liquid started to exit his newfound wounds, and it pooled up on the floor beside him in a puddle of gore.

George couldn't withstand the pain, or keep his energy for any longer. His head lowered itself to rest on the ground, and his eyelids became weighted. His screams died down to pained groans, before they eventually stopped coming altogether. His hands fell to his sides too, and after a second or two, his entire body fell limp. Every drop of life had now left his form, similar to the way his blood left through the deep incisions on his chest.

The woman set a blade on the floor and placed two fingers on the side of his neck, to make sure he was indeed lifeless. A cold and dead pulse greeted her fingertips, so she retracted her wrist with faint satisfaction.

She grabbed onto her dagger again and wiped the bloodied ends of the two weapons on George's blazer. Once the remnants of her current kill were gone, she slid them both into the belt hanging on her waist.

Nonetheless, George's unanswered question still lingered in the air. The woman's eyes fell onto the puddle of blood beside him, and she reached out to dip two of her digits into the warm liquid. A thick layer coated her fingertips when she pulled her hand away, and she proceeded to smear it on the ground, far away from the puddle. She'd dip her fingers into the little pool from time to time, like one would dip a quill into a pot of ink.

With one last look at the completed graffiti, the woman lifted herself from the crouched position. She didn't bother to spare even a second glance at the mess she had made. Her feet gracefully carried her away from the room, and towards the exit of the now gloomy residence.

There, right beside George's body, was the answer to his question written with his own blood.

Though the response was rather belated, considering how he wasn't alive to see it. But even still, the woman had the courtesy to answer him. The disturbing calligraphy spelled out a word, with just seven letters. That word alone was enough to send the law enforcement into a frenzy, and carve fear into the hearts of common people.

It was a name, and yet it held power that no one did, or could.

Scarlet.