Bleeding Color

We're all mad here

The mines were worse the next day. All of the leaders seemed on edge, and we still hadn't eaten. My stomach growled painfully and twisting with the raising of the axe. It must be so much worse for Pitri, not to mention I had fallen asleep in his lap. He had to sleep sitting straight up, if he did at all. A guilty feeling wormed and wriggled among the other pains in stomach. I wanted to throw up, and I might have if there was any food in there.

The chips and flaking of the substance seemed harder to force off today. All the clumps removed were smaller and more quickly picked up by collectors. Barking orders for faster, made me curious. Perhaps something really was different today, and not just the feeling of slower after a whole day of hard labor yesterday. I worried at the wood, wringing my hands. A sharp sting made me drop it, surprised. I had gotten a splinter by accident.

The small drop of brown blood teared on my finger tip, trailing the splinter and falling to the ground. I stared at the spot, surprised at. Even in the dim lights of the mine, it shone the unnatural swirl hinting at what more hid within it.

"Hey you!" A sharp voice, drew my attention. "Get back to work." A burly man held a hammer out threateningly at me from over by the forge.

Kicking dirt over the blood, I hid my truth. I could save them all...or kill them. Picking the splinter out from my skin, I flicked it out to the ground and stuck my finger in my mouth, licking away my blood as it heeled without the obstruction. Still lost in my thoughts at the new reality...no the true reality I had discovered.

"Hey, I said. Get back to work," The attached hand of the voice gripped the back of my hair, slamming my face into the rock. "You worthless little piece of shit." He drove it in with each word.

My skin smeared across the rock leaving a tiny trail of flakes.

"Let her go, she's had enough." Pitri's sharp voice argued.

"I don't think so, this bitch has been trouble since she got here. Always looking around with her head in the clouds instead of working, I've had enough. Think you are too good for us? Too good to work those dainty little hands of yours? Then I'll beat the lesson into you that you aren't."

My brain spun from the shaking, the man was pretty strong. He had yet to break my skin to the blood beneath; however, given his anger fueled force it probably wouldn't take long.  I tensed my muscles and snapped my head back. Catching him by surprise, I manage to drive it into his leering face. The sicken crack of his cartilage rewarding me. I brushed my face, checking for any traces of blood, looking down at him. I had hurt a human, those I swore to protect. Those I had been created to save, their Alice. Yet...I felt nothing.

My voice dropped any emotion at the sight before me. "I'd like to see you try to teach me anything. You pathetic excuse for a human."

"Alice." Pitri stepped in front of me, blocking the man from my line of vision.

I raised my eyes to met his silver. The man scrambled away, swearing and calling me names. None though that could hurt as much as though I had already been called, those red words by people who knew who I was. My thoughts felt dead and leaden, they were sinking in me to be consumed by a pit of black. I didn't see the hope here, maybe there wasn't any anywhere.

"I want to leave."

"You aren't going anywhere." Malia drifted forward, leaning in with her zooming goggles stare. "You owe us for a tent."

"Fine, we'll pay for it then and be on our way. I have money." Pitri stated firmly, reaching back to grab my wrist.

The mine seemed to freeze, they had not even been this quiet for their fallen friend the other day.