'Hemophobia...how ironic...to have such a fear in a world where blood is a tool for producing amazing feats no ordinary man could ever dream of. Mana, mystical energy that grants humans amazing abilities. Shooting lightning out of your finger tips, Launching flaming balls of magic energy, healing the injured and the ill alike. All of it is tied to your blood, a special cell that passively produces and allows the wielder to convert blood into energy. I despise it...that cursed color. I hate it...that disgusting red hue of it. I hate violence...I despise conflict...I loath it...I HATE IT! I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE IT ALL!! I HATE IT!! I HATE THIS DAMNE-!!' A loud echoey voice rumbles out.
A young man laying on the top bunk of a bunk bed wakes up in the middle of the night sweating and staring at a shoddy ceiling like he's seen a ghost. The bed creaks loudly as he sits up to look around the room. 'Why do I keep having these dreams...they feel like they're becoming more frequent.' He hears groaning and not a moment later hears banging coming from the bottom bunk causing him to jump out of surprise a bit, "Shut up up there! What did I tell you about moving so much?!" A slightly muffled but rough sounding voice rung out from the bottom towards the young man. The boy lays back down and closes his eyes once again. He could have sworn he heard almost inaudible mumbling coming from the bottom bunk but payed it no mind and fell asleep.
Hugo Barbary, a young man who lives with his father in a slum of a town. The Lucien Empire is a great wealthy nation surrounded by water, a highlight in human invention and adaptation to this unforgiving world. That could be far from the truth. The farther away from the capital the worse the living conditions are, the noble men treat the common folk like rats and barely fund any of the towns outside of the capital. The young man now named Hugo slowly awaken as his eyes flutter as he does so. The young lad gets up and sees his father sitting at a desk silently drinking an unnamed brand of beer.
"I want you to go to the Tulunin's and fix something for them..." He suddenly speaks up while not facing his son. He simply nods in reply. He wordlessly climbs down from the bunk and exits his shack of a home. He silently walks the empty streets as he hears a church bell ringing in the distance, which signaled the mornings arrival for the citizens. He frowned, he didn't like the people from the church as something about them bothered him. Hugo Barbary is not what you would a call simple child, his mother passed away to an illness two years after he was born. This traumatic event really messed up his father turning him into nothing but an abusive drunkard. He would hit Hugo for the slightest infraction that irked him, be it moving to loud and causing the bunk bed to loudly creak or not getting the money from his client's.
Despite all of this, Hugo downright idolized the man for two reasons. He was the man that gave Hugo a purpose in life in this unforgiving and downright cruel world, to help everyone he can brought him joy, seeing the people he's helped thank him or smile was the driving force of his motivation, and finally, in his his own twisted small world that man was essentially god to him. He stubbornly clinged onto the belief that his father needed him in some capacity to continue living. He knocks on a door and a few moments later a rough looking elderly man opens it. "Eh? Ah, you're that drunkards kid..." He quietly mumbles out. He clears his throat and speaks once again, "I wantcha to fix up some things around my house you got that?"
"Yes sir." Hugo replies. The elderly man steps out of the way to let him in. Hugo silently enters the house and get's handed a hastily made a long list of things the man presumably wants fixed up. I'll be back in so don't touch anythin while I'm gone that ain't in the list. And when ya done take the money by the kitchen table." He barks at Hugo in a heavy Lucien accent before closing the door to his run down looking house to do who knows what. The house was much bigger than the practically a shack he lived in, this by no means meant the house looked nice at all mind you. Hugo takes a look at all the of the things listed on the paper which were mostly cleaning up and tidying up things around the house. 'Shouldn't take too long hopefully.'
When Hugo was done it was already Late in the afternoon, he was rather surprised on how long the little odd job was and sighed. He takes a look at the kitchen table if you could call it that and see's a pouch of what he hoped was the money. He picks it up and exits the building. He frowns as he realize'd how long he took and his father was most likely impatiently waiting for him to return with the money. He decides to take a little shortcut on his way back home through an alleyway. A couple of minutes passed and he was almost there, he was familiar with most of the town's layout around where he lived as it would prove to be a great boon to have for getting to whatever thing his father wanted him to do. As he was turning a corner a fist comes almost seemingly out of nowhere and decks him across the face, he stumbles back a bit and falls on his rear grunting in pain as he does so. He rubs the spot on his cheek where he got punched and winced as it stung to the touch, he looks ahead of him and see's three older boys grinning devilishly at him. "Hahah, well if it isn't little Hugie?" The one in the middle suddenly speaks up chucking a bit as he does so. "We want ya to cough up all the cash you got!" The one on the left side beside him blurts out.
Globs of spittle land on his face which causes Hugo to grimace in disgust, "I don't have money..." It was blatant lie which easily was disproven by the thugs robbing him. "Oh? Your father never lets you leave your little shack unless he wants you to do a errand for him so he can get money." He spat out "I have no idea why you follow that low life like such a fucking dog." "I don't want to fight any of you.." Hugo meekly whimpers out. "Is that so? If you aren't gunna hand over your money I guess we'll have to beat some sense into ya!" The older boy which Hugo guesses is their little leader rushes towards him and knees him in the gut before he had any chance of running away. Globs of spittle fly out of his mouth as his eyes widen from the sudden blow, he quickly gets pushed to the ground while the other boys start beating him senseless.
He curls up into a ball trying to lessen the damage he was receiving but this barely did anything. 'Revolting... They'll kill you...what are you doing? Fight back...fight back...you can't be this pathetic?' A familiar voice akin to a low rumble reverberates throughout his head. 'I see...' A few moments later and Hugo starts feeling the worst pain in his life, easily overriding what he was feeling from being jumped by 3 thugs.
The thugs stop their senseless beating of the poor boy as he just lies there all bruised and bloody screaming like a banshee. "What the?-" *Squelch* A horrid sound coming from the boys side as something seemingly starts tearing out of his skin. A few moments later a large spike of what appears to be bone juts out impaling one of the thugs through the face, and out of the back of his head. The thug standing next to him slowly turns his head towards his friend who got skewered. His cheek being dotted by blood from his former friend. His eyes dilate as he screams in horror. "W-what the fuck?!" More grotesque squelching could be heard from the lying boy as the bone that impaled the poor older boy starts retracting inadvertently dropping his body on the ground with a thud. The remaining 2 boys watch in shock as the boys skin seemingly bubbles and tears away.
'Slithering...' Small worm like appendages tear out of his skin and flail around, 'Crawling...' The voice constantly echoes out in his head, as Hugo lays there the thugs turn tail and start bolting away from the boy mid transformation. 'It hurts so bad...please somebody!' just as quickly as it started it abruptly ended, seemingly as whatever caused this horrific transformation abruptly made it stop. Hugo grits his teeth feeling as they were about to shatter as his body starts reverting back to normal. Still bruised and bloodied he just lays there curled up in a ball in shock trying to make sense of what just happened.
"What?"
END!
A/N: First time ever writing something serious, if this gets traction I would love criticism and what you think! I enjoy writing as a hobby and this kinda sparked from a conversation I had a with a bud. "How cool would it be if I made blood a powersystem?" Went sorta like this.