Red.

Death’s shades and shadows were all I had left. I had used the last of my coloured paint on him. Red. For a flash of red beneath a coat, and the cheeky auburn hair that had poked out from beneath his hat. Red in a field of greys, blacks, and whites. A boy. My boy. Red. My Red. A rose sprouting through concrete. Or at least that’s what I had imagined every day since I had seen him in the street.

I wrapped a dark, drab, floor length cloak over my yellow tights and purple top, cinching it tight at the waist before I stepped outside. Closing the front door as I pulled on my hood, I weaved through the thicket that came to my bottom step. The path was long since overgrown. I had let it; I liked it that way. Even if it had meant my home was harder to find on occasion, sometimes going so far as to get lost. Really, it was in my best interest.

I could smell the dank, mossy bricks before I saw them. Could hear the thrum of footsteps trampling the pavements, and wondered whether Red’s wandered the street too. Red. My Red. The buildings loomed above me, blocking out the daylight. I pulled my hood tighter over my ribboned hair as I set foot between the two buildings. I walked briskly down the alleyway, reminding myself of the plan.

It was simple. Get new paints. Get home. Remain undetected.

Or I had thought it would be. They lined the streets in numbers far greater than usual. “Taxers” they called themselves. But I prefer Soul Taxers, Catchers, Claimers and Stealers. Demons or Greedy Psychopomps that arrive early to steal away life. To take it for themselves with those grey claws that scraped through your mind. Searching and searching until they find it. That light. And they’ll take it, and we’ll give it. Piece by piece. Until there’s nothing left. Contribution, responsibility, and purpose they called it.

I called them shells. Nothing but a shell with responsibilities, tasks, orders to fulfill.

They held my eighteenth candles, and now they held the steel doors open to those cages they called offices, as I joined the lifeless bustle in The Main. They crowded the streets, and stood at stations, taking payments from men, women, parents, and children alike. The price contributes to our government, to our society, they said. But I watched the small tendrils of light leave them—parts of their soul—and I knew it was the price to live and nothing more.

There aren’t many of us left. Those of us who refuse to give ourselves to them. I scanned the street, the number of them growing the further I walked into the hum of The Main. I watched the people walk past them, their unseeing eyes looking ahead, shoulders slumped, each carrying a bag, some dragging their feet as if simply being was too much effort. They didn’t pay any heed to the increase in the Taxers presence. Perhaps they didn’t care. Or maybe they couldn’t see. ‘The Tightening’ was what we called it when the Taxer's presence increased, usually a result of finding one of us. I crossed my fingers that it was no one I knew. Not Red. My Red.

I looked for him in every corner that I passed. Hoped and wished to see that glimpse of red from beneath his coat. I imagined taking him back to mine, laughing as we’d get lost in the bush, tripping and falling over each other's feet. When we’d finally make it back, I’d show him the painting. And he’d smile, turning to me with those red, red lips…

I would keep to the task at hand.

I willed my heart beat to steady and slowed my pace until I fell into step beside a man. He was not unlike any other in the street. His back hunched beneath his bleak blazer, the fabric crinkling at the seams as he shouldered a heavy-looking bag. He walked without labour, without… well, anything really. Perhaps apart from a permanent crease between his brows, a tension between his eyes that made me wonder what building on The Main that had him so… pallid. Lifeless.

I wasn’t surprised as he turned abruptly to his right a few moments later—his shoes clacking against the cobblestones as he crossed the street—and made to enter the tallest building on The Main. A cage of office after office. No windows. No light.

I watched him line up before the doors, more and more men getting in line behind him. The Taxers standing before them hands out, already taking, taking, taking. I met one of the Taxer’s stares. They held me there. Their stare cold, piercing.

Searching.

I turned my head, grasping the edges of my cloak even tighter around my body, and pulled my hood further over my head as if they could see through my thick cloak. See the colours hiding beneath.

The taxes I hadn’t paid.

Turning down another wet, retching alleyway, I weaved and dodged broken glasses, and hollowed men propped against the walls, legs splayed out before them. And just when I thought I was lost, I reached the door. Her place was located on a narrow street, small enough that you’d have to turn to your side to let one pass. Looking both ways to ensure no one had followed me, I knocked twice in rapid succession. I paused. Then once. Pause. Then twice again. I wrung my hands together, and tried to dampen the bounce in my shoes, as I remembered the array of coloured paints Miriam kept in her closet. There was this specific paint I had overlooked last time that I knew now would be perfect for Red’s hair.

No answer.

I knocked again. Same pattern. No response.

Odd. Miriam usually took her time walking down her stairs, but not this long. My palms were slick with sweat the third time I knocked. No answer. Something was wrong. Miriam never left her house, not unless she had to.

My cheeks flushed, heart pounding louder than my fist on the door as I dared call her name aloud. She had to be in there. Had to be. But when no one answered the door, I tried the handle. It turned swiftly. The door cracked open.

I covered my mouth with a quivering hand as I took in the room. To stop my hand from shaking, or from a scream leaving my throat, I did not know. But I knew. I knew that they had done this. They had been here. The tightening. It all made sense. Her flowered wallpapers splatted in paint, stacked paintings—paintings of light and colour, and life—gone. I didn’t know where the floor ended and the walls began, but an endless fog of grey plastered the room from floor to ceiling. Only essentials remained. Perhaps even less than that. It looked so… simple. So… monotone. No sign of the organised chaos Miriam swore to live by.

But what haunted me the most was Miriam.

A shaky breath escaped my lungs as I tried to steady my hands. She stood, in front of a mirror, compact cosmetics laid out before her on a new—very empty—vanity. A new, thicker brush stood poised between her fingertips the same way she used to carry her paint brush. But this brush was not made for detail or precision, for painting light and shadows, life and death. This brush—I noticed, as she brushed the thick, liquid-covered bristles over her face, smearing it over her freckles, her birthmark, concealing them—was made for efficiency, coverage. Presentation. Something she’d sworn she’d never do. And here she was. A grey dress hung limply on her shoulders, covering the figure she used to flaunt in the comfort of her home when I used to visit more frequently. When we used to paint together.

Miriam checked her watch. She turned, hardly noticing my presence, as if I hadn't banged on the door loud enough for people on The Main to hear me. She snapped the compact shut, and picked up a brief case—since when had she owned—and checked her watch—Miriam had never owned a—and walked towards me. And right out the door. As if… as if she couldn’t see me. I let her pass as I whispered her name. Not even a smile. Someone of so much light, so much colour and life and spirit. Gone.

Just another cog in the machine.

I don’t know how long I stood in that room staring at where Miriam had sat, hearing her walk further and further away, closer to The Main. I wiped the tears from my cheeks, many had already dampened my coat. If they had found her—Miriam—they’d likely be keeping tabs on the house… Then… Then I needed to leave.

Now.

Footsteps echoed in the alleyway. The sound of hard souls thudding against the stones bounced off the tight walls till it was all I could hear. Until the sound thundered through me, in harmony with my heartbeat. It came from the left. From The Main. I couldn’t stay here.

With one last glance in both directions, I turned right, leaving Miriam’s grave behind me. I half scuttled, half jogged down the alleyway. The footsteps were fast approaching. I was running. Running into what I wasn’t sure. I need to make it back to the tree line. Back to the forest. Back home. Alone. Where I’ll have to add paintings of Miriam alongside Red. Death and life. With what paint I was unsure.

As I rounded the corner I almost collided with a figure. Blinking rapidly, breathing too heavy, mouth open as I realised no hands gripped my arms. No eyes pierced my soul. No talons drawing it out of me. I’m still intact. My legs took action before I could comprehend the figure walking briskly away from me down an alley, perpendicular from which I had just come. Orange hair escaped his beanie pulled low over his head. The black winter’s coat draped around his body, hung a bit looser on his broad shoulders than I had remembered. And there. That flash of red beneath his cloak as he swung around the corner. It was him. Red. My Red.

If it was fear flooding through my system before, it was pure terror drowning me now. What was he doing? He could not be here. It wasn’t safe. I needed to warn him.

Following him, we wove through the alleyways, deeper into the maze of the city, brick walls climbing higher and higher, until no sun reached even the top apartments. Cold air scraped down my lungs as I followed him through bends and turns. When it got windy, I had only my hearing as an indicator as to which turn he took. He was always just a couple meters away, just beyond reach. But I did not lose him. I would not let that red hair escape me again. He must’ve known I was trailing him, slowing his speed so I could keep pace. He was going to take me to a safe place, I thought, somewhere where we can talk, be, wait out this storm—if we were lucky enough to escape.

We must’ve been running for a good couple of minutes before Red stopped in front of a door. I stood behind him, as he rapped a sequence of knocks on the splintering wood, not risking the time to speak out here, let alone the noise. The door clicked open. He stood aside wordlessly as he let me enter before him, motioning with his hand: a small welcome, but also a ‘quickly, quickly’ sort of gesture. The gentleman I’d imagined him to be.

I had never seen his face before. But it was everything I had imagined. Sharp cheekbones and a strong set jaw, and warm brown eyes, full of light and mirth that didn’t seem natural. I caught myself ogling as I stepped across the threshold.

A dry, scratchy hand covered my mouth, another snaking around my abdomen. Two identical hands also grabbed Red—My Red—across his middle and mouth. I went stock-still. No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. How… Red’s eyes were wide staring into mine in a way quite contrary to how I had imagined we’d lock eyes for the first time. And then he looked up. Above my head. I did the same.

A smile of rotten teeth glared down at me from beneath a dark hood.

Soul Taxers, Catchers, Claimers and Stealers. Demons and Greedy Psychopomps.

Them.

They held us both in a grip so tight I was convinced my arms would snap into pieces. Their voices cold, and gravelly, scratched and scraped my ears as they forced three words into my head. “Tax is due...”

No. I would not give myself to them. They’d take everything. I thought of Miriam. I’d be a shell of what—who—I am now. And maybe they had the unknown ability to read minds, read the defiance in my unwillingness to give them what they wanted, because they scraped a claw down Red’s arm. Blood, deep and red flowed out of his arm, dribbling onto the carpet as he thrashed against their hold.

“No! Stop! Please. Please.” My voice hoarse from running, from Miriam’s. I mumbled the words until they became a chant in my head, a steady rhythm, a second heartbeat.

But when I didn’t let their prying claws into my mind to take that golden thread—my life force—he scraped another claw down Red’s other arm, and then held it to his throat. Red whimpered, his lip quivering, and knees shaking as he tried not to cry out or buckle beneath the pain. I sagged against the Taxer’s arms, thrashing. Trying anything, anything to escape this, to crawl to Red. To touch his hand, to hold it. To let this all fade away, to leave here. But when he pressed the claw further into his precious neck, new beads of fresh blood dripped down, his body now a stain of red, I snapped. Both of us weren’t getting out of here.

“Take it! Take it. Just stop. Stop. Please.” I choked on my tears, going still. The one holding Red didn’t stop until I let my captor’s claws probe into my mind, until I felt the tug of it leaving me. Taxes they called it. But as I saw the thick golden thread flowing from my forehead, my fingers, legs, torso—from my whole body—I knew it was the very essence of life they were stealing. Knew it was the end. I felt my skin turn grey, my hair limp in the reflection of the window, before I felt the world slow, a dull throb growing in the front of my skull. Memories turned shades of grey and black first, before fading all together. I watched as each of them slipped away, slowly, slowly. Leaving empty space in my mind, a fogginess I couldn’t understand.

I looked back at Red, ready to plaster a smile on my face. I was doing this. For him. Red. My Red. What I hadn’t expected was for him to start turning grey too. This wasn’t part of the deal. I began to shout, to writhe and kick as cracks formed in his exterior, and he crumbled like ash.

In his place stood a smiling Taxer.

Fog clouded my vision, my mind. Someone passed me a briefcase, a change of clothes, and I set off to work.