All That Is Red (6 page)

I had wanted to feel for so long that I didn’t care what kind of emotion it was. For me, agony held the same sweetness that zest and contentment once held. I was enraptured by the feeling
of torment. Each emotion washed over me, reminding me how it felt to be human again. I prized every emotion, but I knew that the boy and Lilith ached for their freedom to dictate how they felt. I
ran for their sake, not mine.

We stopped running when we came to a clearing in the Ever Forest. It was a lonely looking patch of Red grass. The Red trees surrounded us. Looking on, they watched us pant, short of breath.
Nonetheless, I knew this place was empty of those suspended drops of distilled emotion. It was a place where I knew they were safe.

The boy heaved, his arms resting on his knees. He struggled to catch his breath, and, when he did, he surprised me. “We’re not safe,” he said, his voice hushed.

“What?”

“We’re not safe,” he repeated.

Naturally, his words made me anxious, but I couldn’t see where danger could possibly lay. Aware that I was probably being overcautious, I looked around us carefully. I heard nothing save
silence and I saw nothing save the trees.

“Why?” This time Lilith asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.

Before the boy could answer, a swish of movement came from the trees. Lilith, the boy, and I automatically swiveled toward the sound, but we saw nothing. The places between the trees where the
sound seemed to have originated were all blank and unmoving. I was about to turn back when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

“There!” The boy pointed to a group of trees.

The trees he indicated looked almost identical to all the others surrounding the clearing. The only thing that set them apart was a lone branch from one tree, which was swaying in a nonexistent
wind. All the other branches were still, except for that one.

Protectively placing us behind him, the boy cautiously made his way toward the group of trees. But when we again heard the sound of motion, it was coming from a different group of trees; this
time, behind us.

“They’ve surrounded us,” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Them,” he said, pointing again to a random group of trees, and this time, we did see something.

Shadows descended from the trees. I had no idea where they could have hidden, but the trees seemed to spill out more and more of the shadows every second. From where we stood, I could only be
sure of a few things: they were all Trigon men, there were many of them, and they were all armed.

They approached us as cautiously as the boy had approached them, but they raised self-bows, crossbows, and bows I couldn’t even name. They raised them all at us.

“Are you armed?” they called to us.

“No,” the boy said.

Then the Trigons conferred amongst themselves. Finally, seeming to settle on something, they called out to us again. “Release the girl and step back.”

I looked down at Lilith, who clutched at me, shaking.

“They think we’ve captured her,” the boy whispered. “We have to let her go.” He bent down to talk to Lilith. “You’ve got to go to them
yourself.”

“I...I’m scared,” she admitted. Her voice was so small; it made me very aware of how alone she was in the world.

“Be brave,” the boy said, but he nodded at me, no doubt thinking the same thing I was.

I took the girl’s hand in my own, as we had done so many times before, and walked with her. Her steps were hesitant, but she kept walking forward. I admired her courage.

I could tell that the Trigons were uneasy at my walking with the girl. They stood their ground, still holding their weapons, but refrained from aiming them at us. I realized that they were
afraid they might shoot the girl.

I stopped halfway. Lilith turned toward me, but she knew that she had to continue walking forward. I watched her walk the rest of the way to the Trigons. Focusing on her every step away from or
toward us, we were all entranced by her movement.

When she reached them, they visibly relaxed. I felt a hand on my shoulder. The boy had joined me in the middle.

Together we watched Lilith talk to one of the Trigons. We couldn’t tell what she said; all we could see was the Trigon nodding at the end of their short conversation. The Trigon and three
others proceeded to make their way toward us with Lilith.

All that was heard in the clearing was the thud of their wooden weapons on their backs as they advanced. The Trigons wore no armor and their uniforms made no sound, not even the slightest
rustle.

As they came closer, I got my first real look at them. The swarm of Red they looked like before, dissolved until I could make out each soldier.

Their uniforms, if you could call them that, were coarse articles of clothing seemingly collected randomly. Each was a different shade of Red, a different texture. There was no sense of
consistency except from afar.

Lilith bounded back to us, while the rest took their time. Attaching herself to my hand again, Lilith was all smiles. Unable to tell what had occurred, I found myself looking to the apparent
Trigon leader for an explanation.

I felt the eyes of the three other Trigons on the boy and me. They were checking us over for weapons and other threats that we might pose, and the boy seemed to be doing the same to them. I
looked at the leader and was surprised to see that she was a Trigon woman and not a male, as I had expected.

Her faces were all hard and decorated with scars, but my attention was consumed by one on her middle face. It was deeper than the rest. Cutting through the corner of her top lip and the center
of her bottom lip, it configured her face into a permanent snarl. Where the scars had not marked her face, her skin was tanned Red from the sun. Surveying every inch of me, her eyes bore outward in
a stone-like stillness.

Abruptly, her hand whipped out at me, taking me by surprise. She clenched the blade at my side and, with one swift tug, yanked it off. I had forgotten that I was carrying it, but her guards
seemed to think that I knew perfectly well all along.

The Trigon woman unsheathed the dagger, turning it this way and that, so that it glinted in the midday sun. She nodded to her guards who patted us over searching for other concealed weapons.
When they found none, they stepped back in formation behind their leader.

“Are you with us or against us?” the woman asked, enunciating each word in a thick accent that I could not place.

“We are with the Red,” the boy quickly responded.

“Then you are with us,” she said. “Welcome.”

I looked around at her men, who had hidden their weapons as easily as they had aimed them at us earlier.

“We are the warriors of the Red cause. You may travel safely as our guests and guests of the Red cause. We will offer you shelter in exchange for returning the girl.”

Her words were stiff, but nonetheless welcoming. The promise of safety was alluring, and the boy and I decided to take them up on their offer.

“Come,” one of the leader’s guards ordered.

Never more than a few feet away from their leader, we followed behind the marching guards. Lilith was clamped onto my hand and continued that way the entire journey. Knowing that she was
dependent on me brought a strange sense of comfort.

Surrounded by Trigons, we dragged on for some time. Finally, we came to an unexpected stop in a part of the forest that looked almost the same as any other part.

“Here is our camp,” one of the soldiers near the front called out.

“Disband!” another soldier barked.

At that order, all the soldiers and guards broke out of their formation and began climbing the trees.

Stopping just short of asking what we were waiting for, the Trigon leader flashed us an inquiring look. The boy put Lilith on his back and began climbing one of the Red trees. Each tree was as
wide as a house, and I was astounded at the boy’s ability to climb it.

A waiting soldier shoved me forward to a nearby tree. He motioned for me to climb. I was perplexed until, upon closer observation, I realized that metal rods stuck out of the trees as a simple
staircase that winded up into the treetops. At the prompting prod of the soldier behind me, I began to climb.

The way the metal rods were placed made one climb at an odd angle of around 40 degrees. An opposite hand and an opposite foot would move together in sync in a climb that resembled a bear’s
walk. I was neither vertical nor horizontal, and that made it feel as if I were crawling rather than climbing.

Each circle around the tree brought me closer toward what I didn’t know. The ground grew farther and farther away from me, until the bases of the trees were almost nonexistent.

I was pulled up at the top of the staircase by another soldier. My feet landed on a wooden walkway that wound around the tree and connected it with the others. The Trigons had built a
self-contained community above the ground, where they were safe from the White. There were a countless number of people swarming to and from different places. They were all busy and all appeared to
have something to do. There were sturdy huts and other larger buildings I didn’t recognize; all were hidden from the ground by the trees.

“Lilith!” a voice cried out. “Grandmama! Grandpapa!”

I turned to see Lilith rush into the arms of two older Trigons. When Lilith knocked into them in her excitement, I saw that they were frailer than they first appeared, nonetheless they were
elated to see their exuberant granddaughter.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lilith’s grandmother kept murmuring, stroking her granddaughter’s hair. She was weeping Red tears.

The picture before me was the essence of love. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like to be Lilith in this moment. I wished so badly to feel what she surely must have felt. In
that second, I wanted to be her. My entire being throbbed with a need to feel. Was it love that she felt? Was it happiness? Maybe relief? Or maybe it was all three. I would never know, but I wanted
all of it.

Someone next to me cleared their throat and I turned my back to the scene before me.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, but may I lead you to your lodgings for the night?”

It was a young Trigon boy no different in age from the boy or me. His hair was a lighter shade of Red than Lilith or the boy’s coloring, as if it had been bleached by the Red sun. He had
freckles across his noses and small dimples when he smiled.

“I’m Nalin,” he said.

“I’m-”

“You’re our most prized guest,” he interrupted. “I know who you are.” He laughed an easy laugh that made me envious.

I wished I could smile that easily. I put on a fake smile and laughed a fake laugh, which struck all the wrong chords, but he seemed not to notice, or if he did, he too put on a fake smile.

“Isn’t it exciting?” he babbled away, as we walked. “We’re finally taking a stand against the White ... Well, not that we haven’t before, but this time we
have a fighting chance!” Nalin chattered on, leaving me hanging on his first sentences.

“Anyways, here are your quarters,” he said, as he stepped into a hut.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of Red wood, probably from a tree in the Ever Forest. The furnishings were sparse, yet they conveyed the same sense of warmth that the Red wood had
channeled. There was a simple wooden bed in the center of the quaint room with a richly decorated Red quilt. Next to it was a modest bedside writing table with a wooden chair and a window view.
Hung on the back of the chair was a change of clothes. They were mismatched shades and textures of Red as Nalin and the others of the cause wore, and I made a mental note to put them on as soon as
I could, in order to blend in with our hosts.

When I thanked Nalin, saying that the accommodations were much more than were necessary, his face lit up.

“You should see the other rooms, especially the commander’s. Her rooms are so big!” Nalin said enthusiastically, his Red hair getting into his eyes. “Oh, I almost forgot!
I was supposed to tell you that your traveling companion’s room is right next to yours.”

Knowing he meant the boy, I nodded.

Then his voice took on a more formal note. “Breakfast is at first light and you are expected to dine in the commander’s quarters. It’s the big round building. You can’t
miss it.” With that last remark, Nalin exited and left me to survey the room.

The room was filled with light and pulsed with a sense of Red. As I made my way over to the writing desk, I looked up to see a cutout in the ceiling. It was just big enough for the shape of the
blood Red sun to fit in it. Its crimson rays filled every corner of the room and thrummed with life.

I sat down in front of the old-fashioned desk and ran my fingers through its small openings and over its hollow drawers. My blind fingers paused on every dent and scratch that the table hid. I
found comfort in its irregularities.

I glanced outside and watched the people go past. The window was just a cutout in the wall with no glass in it, but the people paid no heed to me. The window reminded me of a picture frame; its
subjects the Trigons and the humans mingling together.

The people were all dressed in the same Red as the Trigon soldiers. They were unified by that color, yet they were all different, as were their shades of Red. They mingled in pockets, while
walking with quick strides. Group after group passed me until I realized that the Trigons and humans never socialized unless it was absolutely necessary. They only conversed with their own kind and
pretended to be blind to the other.

A small group of Trigon teenagers, laughed and shoved each other playfully. They, unlike their elders, seemed largely oblivious to the horror around them. A male and female human wandered
arm-in-arm, the woman’s face creased in concern. I wondered what had caused that line of worry to mar her otherwise attractive features.

I spent much of the afternoon watching their lives go by my window. It was dark before I knew it and the warm glow in my room was quickly replaced by lurking shades.

I crept into bed, pulling the Red quilt with me. The bright color of the quilt was washed out by the darkness. Now, the face of the White moon appeared through the cutout in the ceiling directly
above me. It seemed to peer into the room, as if it were looking for something. But when it didn’t find what it wanted, it promptly left, leaving a hole of darkness where it once stood.