Free All That Is Red by Anna Caltabiano

and put them under her spell.
    “You kept your promise!” Her smile transcended her faces and seeped through into her voice.
    “Yes, I did.” For her, I plastered a smile on my face, but my voice still sounded harsh and apathetic.
    There was a shout outside and my head snapped up. I heard the sound of yelling and a commotion coming from the other side of the commander’s quarters. I hastily excused myself and rushed
toward it, with everyone else who was running toward the uproar, instead of away from it.
    Shoulders hit mine, as some of the crowd ran away from whatever sight they had seen. They pushed their way past me in a great hurry, which made me even more curious as to what I’d
find.
    A mob had gathered to see what had occurred, but because of the hoards of people, no one could see anything. Shouts and screams of all different voices mingled and buzzed past my head. Between
legs in the crowd, I caught a glimpse of a bloodied man crawling on the ground.
    “What happened?” I asked a random woman next to me. I had to raise my voice to be heard. She looked worried and I hoped that man wasn’t her husband, brother, or child.
    “I don’t know,” she yelled over the clamor of voices. “All I know was that a group went out hunting a few hours ago.”
    I pushed my way to the front of the mob. I saw around half a dozen men, both Trigon and human, being lifted up into the encampment. They were all badly injured, blood dripping from them and
staining the wooden floor. Some of their limbs were dragging at odd angles, but each looked back, helping the one behind him in whatever way he could.
    Then, a scream pierced the air, it was coming from a woman who General Gerrard had to fend off. “Leander!” she cried out. “My boy, Leander! Where is he?” Her arms reached
past the general, clawing the air frantically for her son.
    She was only one of many, but the crowd knew well how she felt. Everyone there was hoping that his or her loved one was safe, that he wasn’t one of the throngs left dead below.
    The commander was there, barking out orders, and I somehow found myself volunteering to help one of the injured men. She pointed out one of the men, and directed me to carry him back to my room.
The Trigon she motioned me to get stared at me for a while, as if he wanted to say something, but only a groan escaped him. He looked familiar, but with all the blood covering his face, I
couldn’t recognize him.
    As I put one of his arms around my shoulders and prepared to haul him over to my room, I felt his weight become lighter. Looking over to the other side of his body, I saw that the boy had taken
the man’s other arm onto his shoulder and was helping me lift him.
    When we got to my room, we laid the bloody man on the bed and proceeded to examine his wounds. I was no expert in these matters, but his injuries looked ghastly. The man’s body lay at a
strange angle, his leg bending underneath him.
    “I’ll go get something to clean him off with,” the boy said.
    More than ever, I was grateful for his help. The blood on the man’s body stained the sheets a deeper Red. It looked as if he slept on a crimson petal. Though I could only begin to imagine
the pain he suffered, his face remained blank and collected. If I didn’t know any better, I would have called his face peaceful.
    When the boy returned, he had a basin of water, a sponge, a towel, and bandages. Then, we began cleaning the man’s wounds. They were countless and of different sizes and depths. For a
time, the man gritted his teeth and tensed up each time the sponge or towel touched his skin, but after a while of this, he lost consciousness.
    The crusted blood washed off, coloring the water a rusty Red. As we cleaned his wounds, the Red washed over him, seeming to rejuvenate him before our very eyes. Layer after layer of dried blood
and dirt were sponged away, until, finally, we uncovered the man’s youth. He was no man at all. He was a boy around