Rug Stains

THIS STORY CONTAINS DEPICTION OF KILLING/MURDER AND SUICIDE TOWARDS THE END!!

There is a leak in the roof.

Water drips down from a crack smack dab in the middle of the ceiling and lands in a bucket placed meticulously under it. It's almost full, but no one notices. If it is not replaced with an empty one soon, it will stain the old rug.

Teenagers dressed in dark winter clothing lounge on couches and lean against shelves and tables. Each sporting a red ribbon of some sort. Girls have it tied around their necks and wrists as necklaces or bracelets or around their waists as sashes. Boys keep it woven into their jackets or blazers, or have it replace the laces of their polished but stolen shoes.

Red ribbon.

A symbol of dedication among these young men and women.

Dedication to one man. Or boy, rather.

He leans his hip against one of the side tables and takes out a cigarette, dark hair dangling just in front of his eyes, and fangs showing ever so slightly.

Thomas Cade, the founder of all of this.

His skin has an intense pallor to it—moreso than the others—because he always made sure his people fed first, and with their being in hiding, food is scarce. They cannot have people taking notice of blood rations disappearing unexpectedly. They'll think there are escapees around, or worse, they'll blame the kids in the shelters.

"Tom, you'll set fire to the place. Or worse, smoke us all out," a boy with red hair and his shirt untucked speaks up. His ribbon is tied around the bowler hat resting on his knee. He's the only human in the room.

"How would that be worse?" a blonde asks, lighting her own cigarette in the process. Her ribbon is pinned to her dress as a brooch. Before the human boy could speak, Thomas interjected by taking the blonde's lighter and lighting his own cigarette.

He takes a drag before speaking, "The McKinnons have taken notice of our operations."

Thomas had stated it calmly, but everyone else in the room went tense. A girl who had been lying back against the couch shoots up.

"What do you mean by 'taken notice'? Do they know about Jenna and Kurt?"

"No," Thomas shakes his head. "All they know is that there have been people meddling about with their affairs and that those people have been receiving help on the inside somehow."

"Did you pull them out?" another boy pipes up, standing from his seat, and once again Thomas shakes his head as if this is any other Tuesday.

"No. Not yet. Then they would know exactly who it is, and they could trace them back to us."

"They'll hurt them," the blonde from before states with a look of disgust on her face at Thomas' decision.

"Not if we disband immediately. Or at least let them think we disbanded." Thomas continues to smoke as he stands and begins to walk the length of the room. "Allow them to think that the society against them has given up on the idea of overthrowing them. That we've shut down our operations and that we're no longer having any information sent out."

"Will they believe that?"

"I'm counting on Ranguard McKinnon to do just that. Everyone fears The McKinnons, and Ranguard knows it. It wouldn't be uncommon for rebels to cease their efforts after being threatened, and all Ranguard has ever dealt with are just that—rebels. He's never been up against an opposing organisation before. He has no idea what he's getting himself into. That is why we will do it this way."

"Why are we even going against The McKinnons in the first place? I thought we were just trying to get them to loosen up on the laws a little," the human boy, whose name is Buford Collins, says, shifting uncomfortably.

Thomas pauses at this comment only momentarily before turning and towering over poor Buford.

"If you were paying any attention at all, you would have realized just as all of the rest of us have that even if they caved and loosened their grips on our leashes, they would still be the ones holding them—they are still the ones who put the collars on us. And I don't know about you, Collins, but I for one don't want to live that way any longer."

Buford swallows and shakes his head.

"But it's dangerous. We could lose people. We could lose Jenna and Kurt. We might have lost them already, and you just don't know about it—"

"That's not true," Thomas snaps immediately, and Buford flinches. "I know everything that goes on around here, and how dare you question my judgment. Have you forgotten who got you out of the slums? Who got all of you out of the slums? Who has brought us this far?"

Buford swallows again, and his voice drops to a whisper, one that only Thomas could hear, "But Tom… you came from the slums too."

Now that makes Thomas freeze altogether. Memories of his childhood in the slums of Ludgrass, where only monsters and children of offenders against the McKinnons lived. For a moment, Buford looked younger to him, and suddenly he wasn't in the abandoned school library on the corner of Benchpark and Renwood. No longer in Tuland at all, but back in those very slums again. He hears his own voice, but higher in pitch and lighter in tone.

"Come on, B, you don't have to worry, I've got you."

He stares blankly at Buford long enough for him to try to start stammering an apology.

"Tom, I-I didn't mean to—well, you know I didn't—I mean—well, Tom, come on, you know I—"

Thomas is suddenly brought back to the present, and when he sees Buford looking at him like—like that, as if he were something to be afraid of, his blood boils like nothing he'd ever felt before. He grabs him by his collar and slams him against the wall.

"Don't you ever say such a wretched thing like that about me ever again."

"Tom—Tommy, please, I didn't—"

How dare he? How dare he remind me of those days? How dare he make me rethink everything I've done these years?

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Damn friendship. Damn, whatever they were. This hurts, and he wants it gone.

"You never were a good friend, Collins; you always questioned me. Every little thing we—I did, you always questioned. You were always afraid, always being so very human, always the liability you are. Well, that stops here."

"Tommy, no!"

Thomas' fangs extended further, and he forced Buford's head to the side. His hunger and anger have grown, overpowering any restraint he had expressed so many times before. And so he dug into a boy he had known since childhood. A boy whom he had come to love, unlike the tales of brotherhood and friendship, but of something much more than that. By the time he drained enough of Buford's blood to regain the ability to think straight, Buford was already gone.

Thomas recoiled, horrified with what he had done, and Buford's body fell to the ground, knocking over the bucket that had been overflown with rainwater from the leaking roof, staining the rug.

For a moment, there was silence except for Thomas' heavy breathing. No one dared to move, not with Thomas' true nature exposed. After a while of staring at the body, Thomas brought his hand up and wiped his mouth, the red dripping down his skin and hitching in the dips of his fingernails and webbing between his fingers.

"…Get rid of the body," was all he said before walking out of the room.

The others slowly recovered from the shock and began to move the body. The roof continued to leak, the water mixing with the remnants of Buford Collins’ blood on the rug. The stain would stay there until the building burns down.

Years from now, Thomas Cade will return to the old library and stare at that stain. He’ll think of Buford and all of their memories together. Of how Buford was the only one to call him Tom or Tommy, and how no one else has called him either of those nicknames since. How he himself was the one to kill the best friend he had loved as something far more than that.

Thomas will be the one to set fire to the building, lying on the same rug with the only remnants left of Buford Collins. And as the fire burns bright and the building collapses around him, he will beg Buford to forgive him and beg someone—anyone—to let him see him again.