“Each step forward feels like a betrayal of who I once was, yet I cannot stop walking.”
In the continent of death, where the moon shifts its shape and color every first of the month, I stare into the abyss filled with black blood. My chin is high as my gaze follows the people I once despised. They run under my command, distant as ants on the horizon. Black blooded, demons, but they are on my side.
A slight smirk covers my face but is left with a sorrowful look. My gaze shifts from the obsidian-cloaked warriors to the craters of the golden moon above. I wear a beard, a blond mane of hair, and eyes in the color of the azure sun––but it's all a disguise, not the body my mother brought into the world. My hands clutch a black sword that shimmers in the golden moonlight.
This continent is ruled by blood. I was red, and I still am one. But I have to change. I am with other blood, black-blooded at most. I gaze across the distance, where the moon of the gods’ glides over the battlefield. Beaming lights of angels in the hollow distance. Dozens of thousands fight for their land. We invade them, we don’t play by the rules anymore.
I sigh, my body aching. I stand on a cliff at least two thousand feet above the blood-devouring ground. A millennium-long war. My sword pierces through the hard stone, albeit I only lean forward. In the distance, nearly at eye level, they fly with wings of feathers and bats. Light contrasts the darkness.
“In favor of the gods.” I let the word gods linger a bit until I give a heavier sigh again. I was a fool to have thought I could be one myself. That I, a mere red, could change this cruel world ruled by the grief of monsters. Be it us, reds, those stoic blues, those faceless greens. I glare into the raven-like darkness created by the night but interrupted by the beams of light, which pulse every few seconds.
My eyes set upon the horizon, pupils turning from big to small. I linger now of distance. The aching pain that overcomes me, that consumes me from within. In flesh and blood. The golden moon shifts, the only source of light except that created by the angels, the white-blooded. My people fight them. They are not of my blood. Black not red. My friends, my family.
I chuckle, bitter and alone. I live with the demons, fighting against the ones who worship the gods, the golden. False gods. They claimed the title as I did. We are all separated from within. We are not equal; we never were but for that reason to enslave the inferior... My smile fades again but my grip firms, letting stones fall off the cliff.
On the horizon the golden moon vanishes, turning its shape. Once vast and golden, the moon darkens—an eclipse slicing through the night. Then, it burns red. The color of my kind. It brings back memories, long lost memories.
A Red Eclipse. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, sadness overcoming me, guilt. I think about my brother. He was too young, and I killed him. For a slight moment, my hands tremble. It should’ve been me, not him. But I tighten my grip, facing the redness in front of me, the light building in front of me. I embrace it. Light pulsing in the distance, the silence interrupted by a battle cry.
“But don’t worry, soon––I’ll be with you.” My azure eyes turn into the shade of crimson, as the blood boils deep inside me. As the moon shrinks, I remember counting planets with my brother––Mars, his favorite. But even that was a lie. Still, I cling to it.
“Ren, my dear little brother...” I say, a tear cutting down my bruised cheek. I move forward, I always do, even if it is a betrayal of who I once was. I hold the sword firmly, my feet denting the ground beneath. An explosion erupts, shaking the ground, my feet and legs. My heart pounds but I close my eyes and welcome the red light. “...Soon––I’ll be with you––just, wait a bit longer.” And then––I jump.
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