Young Writers Society

The scent of the Gris was strong outside.

Sharp particles from the gray hills of endless sand swept through the air along with the winds. As it always was, the night was silent and cold near the gigantic desert that nearly covered the continent of Midnight whole.

Pulling his white eyes to the ceiling, Del let out a long, pale breath. He was alone in the small house, which contained only a blanket, something that resembled a bathroom, a lamp, a small hearth, a window and a door. The cracked floor drew soft patterns with sand.

Outside the small window, the sky was nearly crashing onto the ground. It was low and bright, with no stars and no moon. In the morning, a white sun would rise, and yet the land would still be gray. The city that Del lived in was too close to the Gris Desert to be bright.

Del breathed very slowly, and pulled up the blanket to his chin. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, slowly coming to an uncomfortable realization that the night would be one in which he would never fall asleep. For a Parasite, there were many similar nights, especially in a city. Briefly, Del had to wonder if it would be different if he lived in the Gris like most others.

As his thoughts began to swallow him whole, the door slammed open.

At the unexpected burst of movement, dust billowed up from the floor in gigantic clouds and went into Del’s eyes. Grimacing, he slowly sat up. His senses tingled, screaming, then settled down slowly.

“Ren.”

The only one who Del could call a friend in his entire life of twenty-nine years was standing at the door, face frozen cold. A pair of amber eyes burned through the veil of night. Ren was holding something small, square and thin by his side before he slipped it into his pocket.

Perhaps it was the night, or the sand, or the winds, or the way that Ren’s eyes were smoldering into two icy jewels. Del’s own eyes felt cold, tingling. In the moment, something else was colder than the night, or the Gris, and it was finding him in a time in which it was most unnecessary.

Del stood up, and brushed his tangled, white hair away from his face. He felt his legs find balance, waking up from the haze of sleep. His eyesight sharpened in the dark and met with Ren’s.

“Ren?”

“The Angel is dead,” Ren simply said. His eyes narrowed into gold slits, and he stepped forward like a cat. Del faintly realized that Ren was the thing that felt cold.

“Dead?” Del muttered, and ran a heavy, sandy hand over his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“A Parasite killed him,” Ren cut him off. A thousand icy fingers crawled up Del’s body in an instant, squeezing his throat, eyes, brain—and he blinked, suddenly longing that the night wasn’t so cold.

“So?”

Ren’s figure was covered by the veil of night, standing in the doorway. He felt imposingly tall, and Del could only see his eyes, glowering. The cold air was pressing down on Del from all sides, threatening to crush him and yank the air out of his lungs. His face crumpling, he clawed at his neck.

Wordlessly, Ren pulled a pistol from his waist, his hand swift and fast. Del stared at the pistol’s round, fine point for a moment. There was the beauty of a polished, black weapon that seemed to be a part of Ren’s body, then there was his inability to comprehend why the thing was in Ren’s hands. The winds whistled past the pistol, and the black beast sang softly, sharply, unreleased bullets driving themselves into Del’s chest.

And Ren pulled the trigger.

Before he realized what happened, Del was dropping onto the ground. His fingers met with the cool, lumpy surface, and he pulled himself off and ran to a wall. The cold bullets collided right beside where he was standing, and he panted lightly, each breath like bleeding sobs. He thought that perhaps he howled “Ren you’re not supposed to do this you’re not supposed to do this—” before he rolled away roughly from another round of bullets.

“All Parasites are to be hunted, captured, or when the Parasite protests, killed.”

Click.

There was the sound of the pistol being reloaded, then aimed carefully, preciously, with an otherworldly care that swam a cruel twirl inside Ren’s gold eyes.

The world twisted and spun all around Del. He couldn’t feel what he was supposed to be feeling, and his eyes were spinning with the world endlessly. He could only hear the bullets that cracked the walls, the ear shattering sounds of the trigger being pulled, and Ren’s footsteps as he advanced like something much bigger and deadlier than himself.

“Ren!”

“The treaty is broken. All Parasites will be taken away human rights.“

“Ren!”

Like a response to his desperate plea, a bullet nearly drove itself into Del’s head.

He shot out from where he stood, something squeezing his heart into a slower pace. All his limbs were freezing. He tried to force himself to breathe, and when the first exhale escaped him, his body fell into an engraved memory of sprinting. He felt his feet kick off the ground and land again. The impact was soft, and his arms and legs were beginning to turn firm.

He crashed through the limp door and out into the night. His shoulders stung for only a second.

Too quickly, the darkness of the sky stabbed into his senses, and the winds impaled his eyes sharply. He breathed in the sand, regained all his ability to think, and kept running as if the world was crumbling beneath his feet.

Something green was washing over him and the city. He raised his eyes that were beginning to settle cold. He felt a breath escape from him, spiky and cool like a whip of ice. The green light came from far away, yet it was enough to hint Del that the army of the Angel would swarm the city soon enough. He lowered his eyes, and thought of running, only running. He knew that he had to go to the Gris. There, in the Gray Desert with no roads, he would be safe.

He thought that he ran for an hour, or perhaps it was only a few minutes. When he began to slowly consider how much time had passed, his eyes were finally drowning in the dunes of gray, an endless, bright midnight washing over him like a giant snake. He then stopped and felt the existence of his home empty out of his head. It was a horrifying feeling, and left Del’s chest white and throbbing. He blinked heavily and took a step forward. The Gris was now whispering to him, beckoning him.

Another step forward.

In front of Del, the desert was endless. He imagined that an attempt to see the boundaries of it would result in him digging out his own eyes. It was such a limitless sight of a deadly whisper, reaching out to him with a promise of endless peace.

The city was being drowned in green, and he knew that he had to think something while he still had the time to. He knew so well that he couldn’t leave the city and the house and Ren behind—not so quickly, or so simply. It found him like a stab through his chest, and breathing slowly like a dying animal, he turned around.

And he slowly swept his eyes across the men standing behind him.

“You,” he stated quietly, feeling himself getting too numb and tired to think in a way that he normally would. The men’s white eyes seemingly glinted in response. Del’s mind was swirling itself into a murky pond of the insane.

And when he opened his mouth once more and found himself hollering like a giant beast, “Away!” he knew that he wasn’t shocked of himself.

They all pounced on him at once. Del raised his arms, found a foot driving itself into his side, and crumpled on the ground. Gritting his teeth, he sprung up onto his feet and came face-to-face with a Parasite’s hard, white eyes. Del rammed his whole body weight into him, and they both met the ground hard.

“You betrayed all of us!” Del screamed, not only at the man he was tangled with, but the other Parasites that were attacking him. Perhaps it was also to Ren, or the green light, or the city that held its breath while the feet of the Angel’s soldiers stomped all over it. “Do you think I haven’t heard of you? The traitors that leeched onto the army!”

A foreign fire was boiling up inside him. He imagined that it was from physically fighting in such a long time, then doubted it, thinking of Ren, and the bullets, and the cold, cold gray night. The doubt made him shake, fearing that his body wouldn’t hold the flames in, and he would burn and turn black, shrinking into himself.

Panting slightly, he turned his eyes to the Gris. It was now behind him—he had to take only a couple dozen more steps. His head was hot with steam. His muscles laughed under his skin with cruel joy.

He focused his attention back on the man.

“You can’t call yourself a Parasite, you never could—“ he huffed out. The man stared up at him, then drove a fist into Del’s neck. Coughing, Del rolled away, and put his hands against the ground to get up. A sharp piece of sand scratched his palm, and he stared down at the blood. His gasping breaths paused in his throat, and when a man rushed at him, he shot out his hand.

The blood poured out of his skin, breaking his veins and parting his wound even more. Del willed for the crimson whips to wrap around the men’s necks and eyes, and squeezed. The blood was a part of him that he could control. The Gris was still whispering to him, tugging at his shoulders, come quick, come quick.

When the first Parasite fell, blood running down his neck, Del turned quickly with no remorse and sprinted into the gray sand. Behind him, his blood splattered itself onto the ground.

The night was gray and sharp. Del’s head began to clear, and he found nothing inside his now-ashen feelings. There had been nothing after all. He let out a huff of boiling breath, perhaps laughter, and delved deeper into the inviting depths of gray. His white hair swayed in the winds like a ghost’s limp dress, then it was gone, swallowed whole by the desert. Only the sand was in his place, silent as a slumbering lizard, the cold, bright night adding its weight onto the ground.