Scarlet Obsession

• Ashah Taylor, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2011

I watched the blood slowly drip off my wrist. My hands were drenched in my enemy’s blood. I bent over and picked the lifeless body of my enemy off the ground. I positioned my mouth around his neck and bit down. My fangs easily pierced his skin and I began drinking the sweet blood of my enemy.
“He was over here!” I heard someone shouting from behind a cluster of trees. I removed my fangs from the corpse’s neck and let it drop to the ground. I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm, staining it red.
Two men emerged from the trees, following their former companion’s footprints up the path. I ducked behind a nearby house, waiting silently for them to pass by. I stood, barely breathing as the first man walked past, out of my reach. The second man followed behind him, close enough for me to reach. I pulled a small hunting knife from my belt. I stepped out of my hiding place but the two men were making too much noise to hear me, they had seen something that interested them. They ran over to the corpse of their former companion and bent over him.
I held the hunting knife ready in my hand as I snuck up behind the smaller of the two men. I held the knife in front of his neck and before either of them knew what was happening, I pulled the blade backwards, slicing his neck. Blood, beautiful blood, flowed from the cut onto my already bloodstained hands. I yanked my knife free as the other man screamed in terror. The corpse of the man I had just killed fell onto my feet and I kicked him down the street, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
The other man stood shakily opposite me, his hands shaking in fear as he tried to hold his sword steady. I smiled, a sadistic smile that showed the pleasure I got from torturing my enemies, making them fear me and then killing them. The man began backing up the street.
“What?” I asked, “Afraid of a fourteen year old girl?”
I smiled mockingly, showing my fangs. The man backed up another step and then stopped abruptly, his back against one of the houses. My smile grew wider as I advanced, my bloodstained knife held in my right hand. I lifted the knife, the scarlet blade directed at the man.
I stood right in front of him, my blade held over his heart.
“No,” he pleaded, “I don’t want to die.”
I slashed at his left arm, giving him a deep cut that dripped blood down to the ground. I slit his arm again below that. I continued cutting his arm open until I was at his wrist.
“Had enough?” I asked him, hate dripping off my voice.
The man began to speak but I ignored him.
“No?” I asked my pure hate easily noticeable.
I lifted my knife again and was about to cut his other arm when he said something that caught my attention.
“Why do you hate me?” he asked, terrified.
“It is not you that I hate,” I said, “It is human kind. I want you to feel the pain that I did when I was
abandoned and left for dead.”
I pushed my blade deep into his arm and then removed it. I could tell that he wanted to close his other hand over the cut but he couldn’t. His other arm was useless.
Again I slit all the way down his arm. When I was finished he had about a dozen bleeding cuts on each arm.
I laughed, feeling his warm blood run down my hands. They were bathed in the rich scarlet liquid. I turned away from the man. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him weakly extend an arm towards me.
“You can’t leave me here,” he muttered, “I’ll die.”
“Yes,” I said, without turning back, “This is what your kind did to me.”
Without turning back I threw a knife that I had stolen off a corpse years ago. It sailed through the air behind me. I heard it hit the man and sink into his flesh. I laughed once more and walked away.