Charcoal and Blood

Time didn't exist in the oubliette. It was a pit of absolute darkness.

Leo sat in the damp corner, hugging his knees. He hallucinated colors sometimes. He saw the red of his mother’s tomato sauce. The yellow of the centerline on the highway.

But mostly, he saw the gray.

"I belong here," he whispered to the dark. "I'm nothing."

* Clank.*

A heavy iron door groaned open above him. A shaft of pale light cut the darkness.

A rope ladder dropped down.

"Climb," a voice commanded.

Leo looked up. He knew that voice. "Vesper?"

"Climb, or I leave you to rot," she snapped.

Leo climbed. His limbs were weak, trembling. When he hauled himself onto the stone floor of the corridor, he collapsed.

Vesper stood over him. She wasn't wearing her helmet. The gold paint Leo had sprayed on her face was gone, scrubbed away, but her eyes... her eyes were different. They weren't dead anymore. They were storm-gray. Turbulent.

"Why?" Leo croaked.

"Because they lied," Vesper said. She threw a bundle at him. It was his sketchbook. "The Void Beasts aren't coming, Leo. They are already here."

Leo blinked. "What?"

"The Council," Vesper spat. "I entered the Inner Sanctum to report your capture. I saw them... without their masks."

She shuddered, a deeply human movement.

"They are the beasts. They didn't save us from the Void; they are the Void's wardens. They feed on our suppression. They keep us gray because it makes us docile cattle. Flavorless, but sustainable."

She knelt, grabbing Leo by the collar of his hoodie.

"You showed me gold," she whispered fiercely. "You showed me warmth. I cannot go back to being cold."

She reached into her belt and pulled out a single, thick stick of artist’s charcoal.

"They burned your paints," she said. "This is all I could find."

Leo took the charcoal. It was black. Simple. Primitive.

"What do you want me to do?" Leo asked. "I can't fight them. I'm a loser, Vesper. I ruin everything."

"Then ruin them," Vesper pulled him to his feet. "Tomorrow, at dawn, they execute you in the plaza to 'restore order.' They expect you to be broken."

She looked at the charcoal in his hand.

"Draw," she commanded. "If we die, let us die loud."

Leo looked at the black stick. He looked at Vesper’s intense, terrified face.

He felt a spark. It wasn't the manic energy of the spray paint. It was something deeper. Grittier. It was the stubborn refusal of a weed growing through concrete.

"Okay," Leo said. He bit his tongue. Hard.

Blood filled his mouth. Copper and salt.

He spat a glob of red onto his palm and mixed it with the charcoal dust.

"Let's make a mess."