Book 3: Chapter 14 - Twists, Turns, and a Good Friend

There is a myth that the red district is filled with children and sad sacks.
Like laziness is the only reason someone might age without reaching orange.

This belief is popular because comfortable people are often extremely stupid.

There are thousands of callings with different growth rates and methods.
And those in the lowest categories have the fewest opportunities to experiment.

The truth is, the average Category Red works far harder than any violet.
—Unknown Protestor

Jacob felt like he was being watched. He always felt like that, these days. Ever since Dani, his daughter, had turned five. Ever since he’d learned he was raising a Nightshade. That was the last day he’d truly felt safe. That was the last day he had no enemies. But Dani had turned out to be a monster, and Jacob’s wife had wanted to protect her.

He felt like he was being watched because he was. Of course there had been eyes on him while he was fostering a nightmare. But that should have stopped. He did what he had to do. What anyone would have done in his shoes. He could either have a life, or he could protect a hedron in human skin. 

The problem was... it hadn’t stopped. His wife wasn’t allowed to loathe him. His daughter was no longer the monster under his roof. Dani was actually contributing to society, thanks to him. He was supposed to have his life back. But it still always felt like he was being followed. Observed. Judged.

Hated.

It was so persistent that he hardly noticed it anymore. He was just a man with goosebumps and too many shadows over his shoulder. He supposed it was the price he had to pay. Monster or otherwise, he had turned on his own flesh and blood. Paranoia was fair retribution for such an act, even if it was the right thing to do. 

Tonight was worse than usual, however. He was climbing the stairwell to reach his apartment. That was probably the cause. The elevator had broken, and the lights were flickering around him. It was the sort of environment that would spook anyone. Still, his stomach was twisting in the wrong direction.

Usually, he felt eyes on him like an embarrassed child. He worried everyone who saw him would know what he’d done. He was terrified they were judging him. Even if he knew they weren’t. The police had investigated him when his wife died. Her sister had even accused him. But he was popular before Dani got her calling. No one believed the filth that was slung at him. Everyone knew Jacob was a man of honor, and a romantic at that. His wife’s death had been a tragedy. And his grief for her was real, which helped sell his innocence. His community supported him, and that was what mattered. And it was all he was usually afraid of losing. So he felt the eyes of judgment and shame on him every day. “It was for the best,” he murmured to himself.

As he made his way up the stairs, however, the feeling shifted. It wasn’t shame he felt, but fear. He was being paranoid as usual. Of course he was. But rather than the truth, he couldn’t help but feel the panic unique to prey.

He tried to shake it off. But each step he took was heavier. The stairwell was too dark. Rather than flickering, the light felt as though it was starting to fade entirely. Like a sunset indoors. He was certain his mind was playing tricks on him. There were too many shadows in the corners of his eyes, and too few noises. 

He took a few more steps. 

The darkness felt suffocating.

He hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and he was getting into his own head. That was all it was.

He continued to climb.

And something wrapped itself around the banister. 

He only saw it in his periphery, but it had been too real. Too stark to be an illusion. It had happened. He froze, then clenched his fists and sidled hesitantly to the railing. There was nothing there. Nothing to match the wriggling he’d imagined, and nothing else, either. It had seemed real, but it obviously wasn’t. Only shadows decorated the steel banister.

He almost started his ascent again, but paused. He needed to know for sure. He put his hand on the rail and leaned slightly to look over the side. 

He saw nothing at all. Just the darkness of a pit too deep to measure. He gripped the railing, his other hand joining the first as his knuckles turning white. He’d only made it to the third floor, and the stairwell was lit. That wasn’t right at all. He blinked and tried to focus on the ground. He knew he should’ve been able to see it. But there was nothing. Just darkness and the sensation of movement.

Then there was blue. Just a flicker of it. Again, Jacob thought he’d imagined it. Until it appeared again, slightly closer. Only for a breath, like a sunbeam escaping thick clouds. It wasn’t glowing, exactly. Except that it was the only thing not drowning in darkness. This created the illusion that it was giving off light, mundane a color as it was. It made his heart nearly beat out of his chest.

But he still didn’t know what it was. He continued to stare as it disappeared and revealed itself over and over. With each passing second, it closed the gap between them—until it was obvious what he was looking at.

Two blue eyes, surrounded by the dark. And attached to them? A woman. Maybe no more than a girl. 

Jacob took a step back, then realized the shadows weren’t exclusive to the floors below him. They were... crawling up the stairwell around him. Like dozens of spider legs, tendrils of shadow climbed the rails and walls, making their way toward the top. And as they climbed, so did the woman pursuing him. 

He looked back down, and she was almost on him. She was the origin of the dark. And she was horrifying to behold. Shadow filled brightly colored hair in a way that made it look darker than it was. A smile of hungry anticipation tried to swallow him whole, and her body approached in sudden, almost flailing movements. She was an insect with too many limbs, and she wanted his blood on her teeth.

Jacob tried to run. He tripped immediately, falling into the cold stairs and cracking his nose. His mouth filled with blood, and he scrambled to his feet. He tried pulling himself up with the banister, but one of the shadows touched his hand and stuck to it. It held him in place, and he tried to yank himself away. His body jolted, but his arm remained. He couldn’t even unfurl his hand, his fingers held in place by an impossibly strong shadow. He tried again, and he felt something tear. But he refused to give up. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t understand what was happening or why, but he wanted to survive so badly. 

He’d always survived. It didn’t matter what he had to do or who he had to hurt—even himself.

Again, he pulled away, and this time, the darkness released him easily. But he’d used too much force for how quickly he was released. He found himself colliding with the far wall before twisting his ankle and stumbling down the stairs.

He wasn’t sure exactly how he fell. It was too dark around him, and the pain seemed to come from everywhere. Cracking against his skull. Bleeding from his limbs. Streaming from his mouth. Everything hurt before his body stopped moving, and he found himself on his back. He was by the door to the second floor, he thought. He saw blue, and yellow, and the red of blood in his eyes. 

The girl was above him, still suspended by her shadows like a carnival dancer on aerial silk. All the while, she was gripping a yellow scythe. Death herself had come for him. It had to have been a dream. Nothing like this could’ve been real. Why would it? Who would do this to him? He’d never felt pain before in a nightmare, but he’d never had a nightmare like this. And it was too horrifying to be reality.

Then light flooded the corridor as the door opened, slamming into a bruised ribcage in the same motion. “P–Please,” Jacob begged. 

A head poked inside. One of his neighbors, although he didn’t remember the woman’s name. He recognized the bow she wore in her hair. She was a receptionist, he thought. Her head was lit by the hall behind her, which cast her face into shadow.

“Jacob? What the fu—” 

A flash of yellow and the taste of salt and iron. The door pushed him again as a body slumped against it. Something landed on his chest. He felt blood and hair as he gripped the woman’s head. The killer above him tilted her head and pouted. She then looked toward the crack in the door and colored her face with an eerie smile. He could see the white of her teeth and the blue of her eyes. A small sliver of light from the crack in the door revealed a vertical inch of her face.

She should have been pretty. Elegant, even. But her canines were wet with drool, and her eyes were smiling over the corpse in front of her. Then the door slammed shut, and he could only see the yellow scythe.

“Not my fault,” she whispered. “It was rude to interrupt.”

“Why?” Jacob forced out. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I don’t know,” the woman replied. “But I’m sure you understand. It’s for the best.”

He tried to beg for his life, but he felt a shadow wrap around his neck. It strangled him and choked any words he tried to form. He could feel it now. The faint shape of leaves. It wasn’t just a shadow. It was a vine.

It slithered around his neck as it choked him. Like it was continuing to grow. Then it lifted his head from the ground. Then his back. His neighbor’s head slipped out of terrified hands. He hadn’t realized he’d still been holding it. His back was pulled from the ground. Then his legs, and finally, his feet. He couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating. His attacker slowly lifted him above the railing, then held him in place over the center. She hovered in front of him and looked him in the eyes.

She was hanging him. Not with the force that would snap his neck, as a proper execution would use. She was letting him slowly suffocate as his body was suspended by the shadows. 

They weren't vines. That wasn’t quite right, he realized. It was the last living thought he’d ever have.

Not vines. Ivy.

Demitri was tired. He was pretty much always tired, but that didn't mean this wasn't bullshit. 

This job was supposed to be easy. For a red who didn't want to leave his home district for work, this was about as well-paying as a job could get. He had friends working as high up as the cyan district and getting paid similar wages.

His job was boring, but boring was good. Boring meant stress-free. Observe and report when nothing ever happened to report. He didn't love his job, but he loved that he had it. He never dreaded work, at the very least. Not like he had when working in food service.

He planned to enjoy the easy work until he finally reached orange and was asked to move.

Then a fucking cat of all things ran into the alley he was in and literally bit his ankle. 

He didn't know what he'd done to piss off God, but his ankle hurt and he was extremely annoyed. Enough so that, however briefly, he actually wandered from his post to chase the cat away. That was fine. He’d only taken a few steps—and said a few choice words—and the creature had scampered off.

The problem didn't present itself until he tried to return to his post. The wall he'd been leaning on—and the alley it went with—was missing. His entire environment had somehow changed, and he found himself standing in an open and grassy field. 

He didn't even notice the shift. One moment, he was behind a cheap apartment complex, and the next... there were nothing but ceaseless horizons in every direction. 

Demitri wasn't a stupid man. He knew there was a talent at play. There was nothing else that could explain this. But that didn't mean he had any idea how to respond to it. 

He'd been hired specifically because of his unusually high perception. No one in the red district should’ve been able to fool his senses like this. That left only god-awful options. The first was that someone had a teleportation talent. That wasn't impossible, but he'd never heard of it. And the others were illusion talents or mind talents. Illusion was more common, but less likely to work on him. Mind was... probably what was happening. And that was terrifying.

Before he could decide which it was, however, the cat appeared again—and bit him a second time. His impulse was to follow it, but impulse had gotten him into this situation. So he turned and tried to walk the other direction.

He met a brick wall face-first and found himself swearing again. Rather than move, he needed to contact his employer. Except... when he reached for the tablet he'd been issued, it was missing. He took a sharp breath through his nose and tried to focus. He activated his talent for enhanced hearing, but all he heard was wind and wildlife. The same sounds he'd expect in a scene like this, if any still existed.

The cat appeared before him again, tilting its head in an almost canine manner. It wanted him to follow it. But it was also obviously related to whatever was happening. He was pretty sure his nose was bleeding from slamming into the invisible wall before, but he wasn't going to follow the cat, either.

So he extended one hand out in front of him until he felt the brick again. Once he had, he began to walk alongside the wall, choosing it as a guide rather than the feline that was harassing him.

It would be fine. He would get out of this. If his opponent was truly dangerous, they wouldn't be playing this game. He didn't understand why such a simple job had turned into... this. But he could only curse himself for failing to question it. It wasn't exactly above board, and he'd known that. He just needed to keep his mind busy until he found a door. If he could make it inside—or to anyone else—he could call for help. As long as his attacker didn't do anything more aggressive, this would all just be a bad day at work.

Except... the wall didn't stop. It didn't seem to turn or end at any point. He kept fingers pressed to the cold brick until he realized his mistake. He'd understood immediately that this wasn't just a trick of the eyes. It fooled his ears as well. In which case... why not his sense of touch? He'd meant to go a different direction than the cat wanted, but had he really? Was the wall even there?

He didn't know. But the realization settled on him like teeth in his throat, and he tried to turn around and run the other direction. 

It was too late. The illusion disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Demetri found himself trapped in a dark, tiny space. He swallowed hard and tried to take deep breaths. But it didn't help. Whatever he'd gotten himself into, he didn't think he was getting back out of it.