Page 37 of Blood Red Woes

“These people thought they were safe living so close to their empress,” I say, “but it looks like it’s the same here as it was out there. They weren’t safe.”

Street upon street; the more homes I pass, the worse I feel. Just because I don’t think their problems are my problems doesn’t mean I can’t feel empathy toward them. Sympathy over what happened here.

It’s not right. None of this is right.

“From what we’ve heard and what you’ve read in Frederick’s journal, it sounds as though the empresses were not immune. The people revered them, and yet even with all of their power, they still fell.” Rune sounds… mystified, almost.

“Don’t sound so thrilled about it,” I hiss.

“They are the ones who sentenced me to a lifetime of solitude by stripping me of my name and my identity and shoving me into that soul gem,” Rune reminds me. “It would be impossible for me to feel any sympathy toward them for their fate. I believe in the end, they got exactly what they deserved.”

I pass another street. This one looks like an abandoned marketplace. Old, dirty banners hang over empty stalls, unreadable in whatever signs they used to be.

“And what about these people?” I ask. “What about them? You don’t feel sorry for the empresses, okay, whatever. Everyone with power always abuses it eventually. The same shit happens in my world, too. But these people? They were innocent. They didn’t deserve any of this happening to them.” I sound bitter, and that’s because I am.

These people didn’t deserve this, just like I didn’t deserve the life I was forced to have. I deserved a mom who loved me and a dad who wasn’t taken from me too soon.

Rune whispers, “No one gets what they deserve, Rey. That is a fact of life. If you think you deserve something, you must fight for it.”

I stop walking, and I shake my head. “Not everyone can fight for things, Rune. Sometimes people are just… people. They just want to live. They shouldn’t have to fight every single day of their lives just to survive.” I point to the castle’s silhouette in the distance. “The ones up there?They’rethe ones who are supposed to fight. They have more so they should give more. The people who are above everyone else should be their goddamn champions instead of their gods.”

My world has the billionaires and the politicians who don’t listen to the will of the people. Men and women who accept bribes and are so out of touch with the reality of the everyday person that they can’t see how miserable life is for most everyone.

It’s the same here, with these fucking empresses. Tucked away in their castles, revered as gods among men, worshiped because they’re a step above everyone else. It’s disgusting. It’s annoying. I hate it. I hate the empresses and I don’t even know them, but sometimes you don’t need to know a person to hate them and what they stand for.

Rune quietly says, “You feel very strongly about that.”

Now I’m all riled up. I do my best to shake it off as I resume the walk through the village. “I guess I do. It’s the same in my world. We’re expected to fight and bicker over scraps while the rich watch us from their mansions or stare down at us from space. They could do so much good, but they don’t. I guess you have to be selfish to get that much money in the first place. Selfish and psychotic.”

“I had no idea how idealistic you are,” he says.

I know what he’s not saying: being idealistic doesn’t automatically make me correct. I’m assuming a lot here. He might hate the empresses, and they might’ve wronged him, but maybe they were good people before the woes. Maybe they did help their subjects before they lost their minds.

Maybe all of this is pointless because they’re sitting in their castles, dead.

The street I’m walking on dead-ends, so I’m forced to make a turn, and when I do, I stop in my tracks. I’m not alone in this city. I was too busy fuming to hear them, too busy arguing with Rune to hear the shuffling of feet and the cracking of abnormally-placed bones.

People.

Only they aren’t people anymore.

Skinny and hollow, concave and boney, their skin ashen and gray. Their clothes are worn rags, hanging off the sharp, ugly angles of their bodies. What hair they had in the past is long gone, nothing but short wisps on their scalp. No eyebrows on any of them. No lips, the facial feature dried up and peeled back to reveal their yellow, rotting teeth. Some of them have holes in their cheeks, showcasing more of their non-smiles.

I can see maybe a few dozen people, all crammed into the street, standing perfectly still—that was, until I rounded the corner and drew their attention. One by one, like a set of dominos, they all snap to attention and whirl on me, their eyes putrid, some popped and dried up.

Uh-oh.

I turn around, ready to run the other way, but when I turn I see I’m suddenly surrounded by a sea of decaying people who died a long time ago.

“Uh…” I stumble over my words.

“Perhaps climbing could get us out of this situation?” Rune’s ever-helpful suggestion highlights the only way out of this, unless I want to fight them all. They’re not a crazed flock of birds, though.

They’re people, and I don’t know if I can fight them, even if they are dead.

I dash to the nearest house and try jumping for the second-story balcony. Rune must give me a little help, because I make it easily, hooking my hand through the carved stone railing and pulling myself up right as the two groups converge on where I was standing. They moan, their arms outstretched. Their thought processes must be slow or near non-existent, because it takes the group a while to realize I’m above them.

“I guess dead people aren’t the smartest,” I whisper. I don’t stick around after that. I launch myself up again. This time I see the yellow magic swirling around me as I propel myself to the roof. Parkouring with magic is actually kind of fun, zombies aside.

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