Another Blood Runs Red

	I suppose it was a day that started like any other, save for the fact that I had a distinctive, striking dream. I was out exploring in a wood with impossibly tall trees, until I came upon a mountain, with a massive cave opening into it. The side of the mountain was littered with alcoves carved into its face, making small platforms all lit with torches. If I could jump like a flea, they might be fun to jump along like I was Mario, but as I got closer, their size began to awe me.

	The sheer height of the mountain was incredible, and the cave within must have had an entrance that was as tall as a skyscraper. It was lit with hundreds of thousands of torches on the alcoves lining the walls, but now the very back of each was hidden by a sinister shadow. The interior was nothing but those little carved out spaces and thin walkways, some crossing from one side to the other far above, bridges made of stone that were barely wide enough for a man to cross, with no semblance of a guard rail. Despite these sights, not once did this place seem offensive, or frightening, and as I pressed onwards, it grew darker, narrower, and the cave ceiling lowered until I was in a claustrophobic passage.

	Suddenly, it widened into a small room, which was just barely lit, but as I turned around behind me, found there was no light source present. The room simply had its own, gentle, blood red glow, and turning back to the middle of the room, found that just a few feet in front of me was plain box made of solid gold. Despite being unornamented, I somehow knew it to be a sarcophagus, and was compelled to touch it. When I did, I felt a prick, and looked down to see my finger bleeding, and I cursed under my breath as I shook my hand to help pass the small pain.

	However, as I stood there, I became aware of a sound, like distant rumbling, as though deep within the mountain, rocks were tumbling, and looking back at the golden grave, grooves in the gold were filling with red liquid, which I knew was blood, despite my finger only having been barely pricked. The blood filled the etchings on the coffin I had previously not noticed in the dark, and then seeped upwards into the wall, defying physics and reality, revealing a message on the wall, written in my own blood, and illuminated by the awful, blood red glow that room with no light had. The message was in a foreign alphabet, one I had never seen, but I knew, I knew what the words said. As I looked upon the ancient runes, they organized themselves in my mind, and I knew the closest approximation for their meaning in the language I spoke. “Another Blood Runs Red.”
Immediately after that, I found myself completely awake.

	You might think such a dream would stand out, but when I woke, I only was able to recall fragments of it, and even the last part, with the message in blood, didn’t register as frightening at all. I laid in bed for a few minutes to reflect on my dream, as I often do when I have them, before getting up groggily and taking a shower. I was in a mental fog as I got ready, moving through the house as if I were swimming, brushing my teeth and hair then heading downstairs, where I was greeted by the welcoming scent of scrambled eggs, and frying sausage patties. My younger sister was already sitting at the table, waiting for her food. I sat down in my usual seat, the one with the back facing the glass door to the backyard, looking out towards the living room, the gloomy, early morning overcast sky bathing the house in pale light. My thoughts were interrupted when my sister leaned over and whispered to me, “Did you have a dream last night?”

	“There was a cave, and a sarcophagus, blood red light with nothing to create it, and a message on the wall, that even though it was written in a language I had never seen, it filled my mind with its meaning.” Her eyes widened a little, and she bit her lip before continuing.

“And what did it say…?”

	“Another Blood Runs Red, with capitals like that, like it was the title of a book, or a film.” As I sat there, bits and pieces of the dream came back more clearly, the entire sequence coming together as I thought about it, with the strange cave with tiny platforms, hidden in shadows, carved into a massive mountain. I must have looked shaken, because my sister got out of her chair and gave me a hug, but then again, she’d always been good at knowing how people felt, sometimes to an uncanny degree. She knew I’d had a bad dream last night, and she had known mom and dad were fighting long before I had heard anything about the divorce. For a brief moment, I wondered if life would be difficult being so in tune with people’s emotions. For starters, you’d always know if someone was lying, among other problems.

	I was broken from my thoughts as our mom brought her pan over to the table, serving up three plates before going back to quickly rinse dishes, but as soon as she’d turned her back to the table, I was already drifting back off into thought. As I did, I made a terrible, startling revelation. What if the world wasn’t how we saw it? What if the way we saw the world was just our mind projecting what we thought was ‘right’ onto our surroundings? I imagined being kidnapped, and the walls of the warehouse and tables with saws and scalpels being overlaid with the familiar sights of home, the walls covered in familiar tacky wallpaper, with familiar spoons and forks on the tables, and the scent of blood replaced with the faint scent of your home when you return from vacation.

As I pondered this, another sight came to me. The familiar, tacky wallpaper of our home faded for a moment, to reveal just beneath a tapestry of stitched flesh and screaming faces, the cabinets in the kitchen hundreds of twitching eyes, set into purplish flesh, all scanning and turning to look all around. The lamps and furniture were veins and tumors, and as I looked up, I could see the sky through the second floor and roof, as if they were as clear as reddish glass, to see a massive… Thing, looking down at me. I could not see its face, and it’s form barely registered as a creature of any kind, but I knew, I knew it was alive, and I knew, it was looking straight at me. This terrible realization about reality came to me as casually as any other thought, and despite how fearsome it should be, when my mother’s voice roused me from my thoughts, any fear I had left my mind along with the thought itself, as if it had never happened.

	“Do you want to bring anything?” She had asked, as I sat there confused, as though I had just sat up too quickly. My sister looked at me with concern, but kept eating, as I stared down at my untouched breakfast. “Weren’t you listening? We’re going to grandma and grandpa’s house tomorrow. If you want to bring anything, have it packed before bed. I gotta leave for work now though. Love you guys!” My sister replied in kind as our mother gave her a kiss on the head, then headed out the door.

	“Love you too.” I muttered, even though I felt a little old to be saying it all the time. Finally, I started on my breakfast, but I found it hard to eat. Maybe I wasn’t hungry, but the food felt dry and tasteless. If I had to compare it to something, it would be fireplace ashes. Mom was a good cook, but I suppose everyone messes up sometimes. I shoveled down as much as I could before grabbing my backpack and heading to the bus stop with my sister, hardly saying a word. Perhaps I was just still tired, but I found it difficult not to be lost in thought. As we walked down the sidewalk, I barely noticed the trees and houses, and even my sister beside me scarcely registered. The only thing I could think of now were the words I saw in my dream. ‘Another Blood Runs Red’. For some reason, it felt menacing, but that feeling too was gone suddenly as my sister turned to say goodbye when she got on her school bus, waving to me and me waving back as I waited for my mine.

	School as well was a day like any other, but my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t focus on my work; my mind was filled uncertainty. All day, I couldn’t help but question, wonder, and worry. I was constantly spacing out, having visions of the world twisting and warping, revealing the terror beneath the veneer of reality. Walls were made of stacked bones, the trees outside were dripping, scaly tendrils rising from the fleshy earth, and for a brief moment, a teacher’s desk was a golden sarcophagus, etched with lines of dried blood.

	My only relief being that the food at school was better than the breakfast my mom had prepared, and with the energy from a decent meal, I was able to at least focus enough to not begin swimming in my thoughts, and though it took some effort, I was able to avoid drowning in those awful visions. The day passed agonizingly slowly, and when I got home, I sat on the couch and let the TV occupy my mind to help fight the horror that was constantly encroaching on me, a dark mist creeping over me like a film of moss. Trying to keep my mind clear all day had been exhausting, and though my family was concerned, I simply told them I was tired, and would feel better with some sleep. As soon as I finished my dinner, I went upstairs, and sleep claimed me about as soon as I pulled the covers over myself.

	The next morning, I woke up feeling… Quite good. The sun was shining brightly outside, and my body felt unusually light. The fear from the previous day felt so far away, and I got ready for the day quickly, a spring in my step as I did my best to push the previous day behind me. Everyone has a bad day sometimes, and my bad dream- I did have a bad dream, right? - must have been why. At the time, the previous day was dripping from my mind like rainwater, and I enjoyed the warm sunshine as we drove out to my grandparents’ house.
It was a slow, warm, lazy day, and after a nice meal, I busied myself with relaxing on their sofa, reading a book when a shriek startled me. I got up and ran out into the kitchen as quickly as I could, and when I looked towards their front door, found an absolute mess of shredded cardboard, broken china, and a shabby looking plastic package on their doorstep.

	“Someone came and crushed the teapot I ordered!” My grandma exclaimed, fuming, as she and my mother pored through the pieces of cardboard and smashed glassware from inside. And from the debris, they picked up the shoddy package laying atop, and as they turned it over, my heart sank. The package was plain white on one side, and the other was stark black, with text that organized itself to say “Another Blood Runs Red”. My mother gasped in shock as I yanked the package from her hands with a brief yelp of “That’s mine!”, the package opening as I carried it, with an unmarked DVD case falling out of it and into my hands as I ran into the house. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as cold sweat beaded all over me, and with a chill, opened up the DVD case to find an unmarked disk. For a moment, I thought I could just hide the disk, or destroy it, and maybe this would just be over, but then I remembered that this had been left on not even my own doorstep, but the doorstep of the house I was staying at for the night, and I knew, I knew that if who or whatever could find me so easily, I had no choice but to see this through to its end.

	Tears were already almost streaming down my cheeks with fear and trepidation as I locked the door to the bedroom that served as my grandparent’s computer room, and as I reached for the button to the disk drive, cold curiosity got the best of me.  I typed the phrase that had been burned into my mind into Google, and stared at the results. A single one, an extremely sketchy looking site from the preview, and as I went to click on it, felt as though I just couldn’t even hover my mouse over the link. I told myself I was being stupid, and I shook my head as I opened the disk drive on the computer, replacing the disk inside with the unmarked disk I was sent. I was just about to play the file when a pang of doubt came over me, and I went back to the internet tab with that single search result, and steeling myself, I took a deep breath and clicked on it.

	It hung for what seemed like an eternity before slowly filling the blank black page with red text. It was in that same, foreign alphabet, and just as before it organized it’s meaning into my mind, but as the screen filled with text, it sent a constant barrage of words into my mind, so quickly I could barely keep up with the message. I could only pick out a few words at a time, and I began to get a splitting headache as the words assaulted me, as if a silent scream were being bored into my mind with a power drill. A crash of glass helped me break free from the pain, and I closed the tab I had opened, flinging open the door and running back into the kitchen. As I did, the words that had forced themselves into my mind slowed down, and while still it was not a coherent message, it all alluded to a single idea; that the world is not necessarily how it appears, and that truth and sacrifice are one.

	I arrived in the kitchen to see a window had been broken, and outside, a figure was rushing off. I ran to the door, stepping on the broken glass, cursing and crying out as it cut my feet, shaking it out as I ran out into the street, but there was no sign of whoever had shattered the window. I went back inside, carefully this time, and as I did, found a brick with a carving of an eye on it.  My hands began to tremble again as I turned it over, and saw more of those damned runes, that foreign alphabet that forced itself into my mind as if it was speaking to me. “The truth has been seen. Truth and sacrifice are one. Another Blood Runs Red.” At that moment, I ran back to the computer room, ready to snap that disk in half, a vain attempt to stop whatever was happening from progressing. To my horror, however, when I got there, my sister was at the computer, and had opened the file on the disk.

“What did you do!? Why are you in here?” I screamed at her, as the computer began to hum and buzz.

“I-I was curious what that phrase could mean!” She stammered back.

“What phrase? What are you talking about!”

“Another Blood Runs Red! It was on the package you took off with! It, I-“

	Just then, she was cut off by a horrible screech from the computer’s speakers as media player began to play the file on the disk we’d been left. The screech quickly faded to a dull booming, like the droning in my dream the night before last, and the screen flickered as it showed what seemed like ghostly figures gathering in a circle. The droning grew louder, and I had to cover my ears to try and block it out, as the video began to turn to static and distort, the way a monitor does if you hold a magnet to it. The monitor itself began to warp, melting as though it were under intense heat, and the room grew unbearably hot. I turned to my sister, to try and get us out of there, but as I did, in the corner of the room, there was someone standing there. Perfectly still.

	I was paralyzed with fear, my tiny screech of terror drowned out by the awful noise coming from the computer. I tried to raise my hand to point as I backed against the wall, trying to say something, but my voice was dried away. In the corner, a few feet from my sister, was a young man, with frizzy, curly black hair, and his face painted like a skull, and a tattered army green denim jacket with steel grey khakis. He wasn’t aggressive, or even awake, it seemed. He just stood there, watching. I tried my hardest to cry out, “There’s someone in the corner, someone is here!” But all that came out was pathetic moaning that was swallowed by the noise in the room.
The figure looked at my sister, then me, his neck making the bare minimum of motions to turn his head, his face cold, expressionless, frozen, and when he turned to me, for a brief moment, I saw that all the ghostly figures I had seen on the screen were appearing around the room, closing in on my sister without moving, and as I pressed myself against the wall in fear, I watched helplessly as the lights began to flicker, and with a deafening crash, everything went black.

	I woke up a few hours later in the hospital. Apparently, I had cut up my feet pretty badly and started to pass out from pain and blood loss. I slowly began to recall what really must have happened, and looked down at the blankets, my feet throbbing painfully. Taking my hand in hers, my mom looked at me gravely, then at my grandparents, who nodded. She told me that, after the commotion of the broken window, my sister had… Disappeared. I tried to look up at my mom, but I just couldn’t. I wanted to try and say something, tell her what I saw, what I had seen, but I knew no one would believe me. And so I just began to cry, and let my mother console me, for the first time in a very long time.

	It was an agonizing couple of hours in the silent hospital room, until my mom got a call. Her face perked up and she shot out of her chair, wiping the tears from her face as she hung up the phone. It was my sister’s friend’s parents; they said that my sister had ran to their house for some reason, even though it was miles away. They said she had ran there looking terrified, and asked if their daughter could spend the night tonight. Relief hit all of us like a tidal wave as my mom left to pick up her and her friend, and again, I smiled, wondering why I was letting bad dreams haunt me. Of course, I only had a bad dream when I passed out; I’d been having them a lot, the past few days. My sister was fine, so whatever I thought happened couldn’t have, and I was overjoyed when I heard my mom talking as she came back in to the hospital room, with my sister tagging along behind her.But when I saw my sister’s face, that creeping terror shook my whole body, as I saw that for a brief moment, she was pale as a corpse, her eyes closed and veins dark against her bloated skin, her face wearing a coy smirk. And just like that, she wore my sister’s skin again, and gave the familiar smile I knew as she leaned in to hug me. But when she pulled back, she stared at me for just a brief moment, as though she knew I had seen something off, before going around to hug our grandparents as well.

	I didn’t say anything about how she looked when I first saw her, and just as everyone was getting into the car for us to go home, with me in a wheelchair so I wouldn’t break the stitches in my feet, she glared at me as she helped me into the car, with her on one side of me and her friend on the other. I was about to say something to her as my parents started the car, but before I could, she grabbed her little purse from the floor of the car, and opened it to reveal an unmarked DVD case. She smiled her coy smile, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “The truth has been seen. Truth and sacrifice are one. Another Blood Runs Red.” And just as quickly as she’d said that to me, she leaned past me to talk to her friend, and after that, suggested to my parents that we get pizza that night. Acting as normal as could be, but…

	I of course was unnerved, so I asked if I could go to a friend’s house. He and his family were all good friends with me, so even though I needed crutches to get around, they were more than happy to have me over after what happened. Once we were alone, I did my best to tell him what happened, and while I don’t think he fully believes it, he does admit that weird shit happens sometimes. After all, he has a ghost story of his own. We talked for a while, and played some games to try and keep my mind off of things, and now, here we are. It’s very late, my friend went to bed already, even let me sleep in his bed while he took the floor.

	I’m pretty shaken about what happened, and I’m not sure how much of it is real anymore, as I go over the past few days in my head. I even tried to write it down, but it just seems surreal. I know I’ve been having bad dreams for months now- months, right? - but I can’t help but feel uneasy. Like somewhere out there in the world, there actually must be something crazy, and terrifying, and bizarre happening. Somewhere out there in the world, there really is a house with walls made of stitched, screaming faces. Somewhere out there, I know, I know that Another Blood Runs Red. And for somebody, somewhere, the truth will be seen.