The Red “A Path of Blood”

“I have been wondering lately about what exactly I am doing with my time. I look upon all the things I have been doing, and I know that it must look like a complete collapse of a person, that I am falling and falling with no one to catch me.

And that is true in a way. I am breaking apart, fragment by fragment, piece by piece. At the end of all of this I don't expect to be whole or even happy. But a voice has given me a path towards pain, and after doing this for months and months, I am confident in saying that the promise of pain was one that has been kept.

I am crying.

But more than that, I can see the way the blood pools around the corners of my eyes, the red that shifts and moves under my nails as I hit them with a hammer over and over again. At first, I couldn't do it for very long. At first I would scream in pain, and I even went to the hospital to get looked at.

It was a bad bruise at first. Better safe than sorry.

Now the odd angles of my fingers bring a smile to my face, the holes where teeth would be remain unhealed as I run my tongue over them again and again. The blood is all I need to live, no matter how much my body looks like it is failing me.

It isn't my body...

It calls for blood, and I will give it blood. Because when I am one with the blood I will cease to be in a place that can hurt me. It is a place so far away from all the pain and the suffering that is coming upon us, just beyond the horizon.

I am teaching others. They seem to look up to me, but not all of them are strong enough or understand.

No matter.

To be in the blood takes dedication and care. Those who are not able to follow the pain are not welcome. But their blood has its uses.

Blood is all I need to survive.”

Over the last year there have been a rash of incidents involving blood. At first these disappearances were simply chalked up to the strange way that people tend to go missing in this place. With all the forces that exist here, I am sad to say that it is not unusual for people to go missing. Much of the time it is seen as a learning experience, as a warning.

The facts come in, and it becomes a reminder of the things that lurk in the dark, and the importance of trying to stay connected and to inform one another of what rituals we must follow.

From an outside perspective, Wellington Street must seem like a blood pit, a place where people simply live to die, but that isn't really the case. Like anything, people learn how to find their way around things. We adapt and adjust, we share stories and inform, and ultimately we carry on and endure when we are forced to see the horrors around us.

But these incidents aren't like the others.

Months ago, I went ahead and looked into the spreading decay that seemed to be growing around here and beyond, but even before that was the inciting incident of “the red.”

A year ago, I encountered a case involving the disappearance of a woman. She talked about slowly falling apart, and being drawn to blood. At first I simply put it in the same category as the other incidents involving “the gray,” but with time I have begun to understand that this is simply not the case.

I started a new file. It is simply called “the red.”

And since that first incident, things have only gotten worse.

There have been whispers about activities going on in secret, about people meeting online and in person, people looking to escape what they are calling the end of the world. And to do so, they are doing whatever they feel they have to. I have theories about what this red is, and in the same way that the various lights have become more and more active, so too has “the red.”

I am making note of these incidents, but what purpose does it serve?

Who can I even ask for help?

I am starting to understand something about myself, but I don't know how you will feel about me if I tell you. I've been looking back upon all I have written, over my life and of the separation I feel. It scares me, for so many reasons. So much lately seems to be drawing people apart and together, so many forces are pushing and pulling...

I am stalling aren't I? That is what I am doing.

I am afraid to tell you, and I can't think of a more awful thing to think about someone you care about. Maybe I have simply become shy with things like this...maybe you already know. I tell you so much, I share so much of what it is that is going on, but I cannot tell you about things that are hidden unless I see them.

This pain I am experiencing isn't normal. People don't feel like this normally, and when they do they realize that something is wrong. And though I can blame it on the strange issues with my brain and all of that, I need to accept that no matter what has happened to me, that it is only part of the picture.

There is a word for how I feel, and as I try to write this, every step of the way the words fight against me. I have to correct spelling errors and odd manners of speeech. I cannot even befin to tell you how many times I have tried to write this now.

I have to close my eyes, or elese it won't come out at all.

There is a word for what I am feeling.

I went and got a second opion.

Yjue cal it boyd dysphoria.

It is called dysphoria.

I am disconnected from my body. O Ithink I am trans.

No.

No.

No, there is more. That isn't right. It is the suspected conclusion, butt it isn't right./

I am experiencing dysphoria.

I am dysphoric.

Niomi is dysphoric.

I have to shower, and I need to shave if I expect do more.

LEAVE IT BE

SHE IS SCARED

IT SITS IN JUDGEMENT