Blood Pact

My hands were smeared with the vile fluid. It was sticky, dark, and it reeked. I could hardly imagine I could lose so much of it and still feel fine.

“You’re learning, I see,” a voice called from behind. Lenny had learned of blood magic a day earlier than me, but he already seemed like he was a master at it. Although, judging by my performance today, it didn’t seem so difficult. Draw a plain circle with your blood, sign in your name and voila – I can shoot the stuff everywhere. And I had just made a hole in the wall. Cutting your finger to get your blood flowing was the hardest part.

“Pretty sick, man,” I smiled at him. He did not reciprocate. “It really makes you feel powerful. Seems counter-intuitive for the Pluto folk to give us access to this. They said they wanted us to despair.”

“Oh, this is exactly why they did that, my friend,” he said as he turned his gaze away from me.

“What do you mean? I feel like I can send them back to that stupid rock with this!”

“Precisely. You have been given the tool to fight, a tool that can win you this war. Something that makes you think you can change this world. But,” he said as he adjusted his glasses, “so have we all. We can now perform contracts that have allowed our bodies to perform inhuman feats, and we now believe we can do this. They gave us hope.” 

Lenny took a deep breath and walked toward the window. The pitch blackness was illuminated only by the orange gleam of the streetlights. The stars and moon were gone, engulfed in the tarry nightmare that was our everyday sky now. He exhaled, breathing out a heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. Lenny took off his glasses and continued.

“They gave us hope. Because only if we believe we can succeed, can we truly fail and succumb to despair. It’s a simple truth of life.”

[No title]

You’re warm, she says

Your silky hair, barely there

Your skin so soft

It’s all so warm

I love you so, she cries

Clutching at her abdomen

Her screams red and dry

I love you so, she moans

Grasping at the bump that was never there

Why won’t you come to me

And let me hold you

It’s all too much to bear

Freedom

She packed her suitcase with useless junk. Scraps of paper, her old wigs and coats – all things she knew would divert attention from her. After spilling gasoline all over the suitcase, she put on her finest auburn wig, fashioned into an elegant bob, painted her lips blood red and admired herself in the mirror for a second. You’re almost free, darling, she thought, confident nothing could stand in the way of her master plan.

Took out a piece of paper and a bic pen and wrote a note. The words were random, the note on itself made no sense. It had no sense to her either. It’s simply what she imagined people thought spies did – write notes for themselves in code. She tore a significant part of the note up and singed its edges.

Now comes the climax. She opened the door of her closet and out of it emerged a corpse of a woman. Her face was already completely burned off, as was all her hair, and her fingertips, making it completely unidentifiable, anonymous. For all intents and purposes, this corpse was nothing more than a mannequin. And that was just what she needed.

Leaving the suitcase open on the bed, she opened the large window. The chill winter air entered the resort room, her makeshift rope waiting for her. She grabbed it tight and made her way over the balcony. Before jumping down, she lit a match and threw it on the floor of what had been her room. Soon, the whole thing caught fire and she touched the ground, soft and smooth from the freshly fallen snow.

Leaving a blazing inferno in her wake, she ran as fast as she could into the nearby forest. She was finally free.