******
Author's Note
It's late.
The city's quiet, and I'm still here.
writing, rewriting, trying to make sense of this world that somehow became mine.
If you're reading this, thank you!
You found BLEΞD, or maybe it found you.
These chapters aren't fragments or filler,
they're the heartbeat of something I can't seem to let go of.
If you feel anything while reading..
good, bad, or something in between..
tell me.
Reach out.
Stories live longer when they echo.
With love,
A.S.
***************
-BRUISED LIGHT-
The rain hadn't stopped
just learned to whisper.
Steam rose from the cracked pavement outside the hangar,
mixing with the smell of oil and rust.
The night looked like it was holding its breath.
Aria stood beneath the awning, jacket half-zipped, knuckles raw.
Her pulse still carried the echo of the fight,
like her body hadn't realized it was over.
Tarō jogged up behind her, phone still in hand,
his grin too wide for the silence.
>"You did it,"
he said, breathless.
> "You actually, holy shit, you did it."
She didn't answer.
The crowd inside was already dissolving
bets settled, debts forming.
Noise turning back into rain.
>"You good?"
he asked, softer this time.
>"Tired,"
she said.
> "And kind of… not."
Then a voice came from the street.
Low, cold, measured.
>"You call that tired?"
Aria turned.
A woman leaned against the fence, umbrella tilted, smoke curling from her lips.
Older than Aria, sharper around the edges
her skirt long and heavy, patterned in faded gold and indigo,
bracelets chiming softly as she shifted her weight.
Her hair was long, black, and tightly curled, rain catching on the spirals like wire and glass.
Same black flicker under her right eye.
Dareen-
Orrin's sister.
Aria's cousin.
>"Mama's been asking for you.
Says she'd rather see your eyes than hear the stories."
Aria froze.
She didn't ask why.
She already knew.
Dareen took one last drag, let it burn down to her fingers,
and flicked the cigarette into the puddle.
>"She's still breathing,"
she said.
>"Which is more than I can say for your conscience."
She turned and started walking away.
The umbrella clicked shut.
Rain fell harder.
Aria watched her go, the words hanging like smoke.
Tarō shifted beside her.
>"Wait, was that Dareen?
Didn't she once threaten to set my bike on fire?"
>"Family,"
she said quietly.
>"The kind that doesn't forgive easy."
He tried a grin.
"So… night ride?
Or do I shut up now?"
She almost smiled, almost.
"Both."
She pulled the hood over her head, started walking into the rain.
Tarō followed a step behind, muttering to himself:
"Man, she wins a fight and still looks like she lost one.
-WIRED HEARTS-
Morning crept in slow
a pale wash of light seeping through the thin curtains, cutting the night in half.
Somewhere outside, engines murmured and gulls circled low over the rooftops.
The city was already awake.
Aria wasn't.
The ringtone pierced the quiet like a pin through silk.
She stirred beneath the half-light,
one arm flung over her face.
Her bedsheet had twisted around her legs sometime in the night;
the air still smelled faintly of metal and detergent.
The phone buzzed again.
She groaned, reached for it blindly
screen glare
slicing through the dim.
COLE.
She blinked once, sat up.
The oversized T-shirt slid off one shoulder, the fabric soft and faded.
Her hair, black with that single green streak,
was a halo of chaos, half-mussed curls and morning static.
Light crawled along the curve of her thigh, the dip of her collarbone.
For a moment, she looked like someone caught between two worlds
one that fought, and one that forgot to.
She answered.
> "You look half-alive,"
Cole said, walking somewhere outside.
The camera jostled slightly;
morning sun hit cracked pavement behind him.
>"Tell me you slept."
> "Define sleep,"
she muttered.
She blinked, realizing.
> "Wait, are you walking?"
He grinned mid-step, the city spinning lazily behind him.
> "Yeah, The thing normal people do when they're not throwing girls into steel beams."
She squinted at him,
the corners of her mouth twitching.
> "You saw that."
> "Whole block saw that, Aria. I'm still trying to process whether it was terrifying or kind of beautiful."
A pause.
His voice softened.
>"I meant what I said. You-uh-you kind of inspired me."
She frowned.
brow furrowed,
her eyes flicking away from the screen.
The morning light painted her face in quiet contrast, warmth and guilt, side by side.
She drew in a breath.
> "Don't put meaning on it," she whispered. "I barely held it together."
Cole didn't answer right away. The silence stretched, fragile but full.
Then his smile returned
smaller this time, almost reverent.
> "Still,"
he said softly,
> "you did."
She huffed a small breath, half a laugh, half surrender.
Then Ash jumped onto the bed
gray fur puffed, tail flicking right into the camera's view.
Cole laughed.
> "There's my boy! Hey, Ash,still biting ankles?"
The cat blinked, unimpressed.
Aria scratched under his chin.
> "He misses you,"
she said.
> "He only misses my food,"
Cole shot back.
> "Guess we have that in common."
He grinned. "Ouch."
The sound of traffic hummed through his mic distant, calm.
She studied his face through the screen.
Buzzcut. Strong jaw. The kind of clean masculinity that didn't need help.
Sunlight carved lines across his shoulders, glinting over the tattoos that stretched from his collarbones
two wings in black ink,
one slightly faded, like it had tried to fly off years ago.
His eyes caught the light just right
mischievous, unreadable.
> "So what's the plan today?"
he asked.
> "Survive breakfast."
> "Ambitious."
He tilted the camera, sunlight washing over his jawline.
>"And after that?"
She leaned back, the phone balanced on her knee,
a half-smile ghosting across her lips.
> "After that?"
she echoed.
>"Maybe I'll try not to piss off the universe."
>"How's that going so far?"
>"You called before coffee.
Not great."
He grinned.
>"Could be worse."
>"Yeah?"
>"You could've ignored me."
She smiled small, but real.
>"Don't tempt me."
He laughed low, genuine.
"You're trouble, you know that?"
> "Only when someone's watching."
> "Lucky me, then."
She smirked, thumb hovering over the screen.
> "Guess so."
And with that, she hung up before he could reply.
For a moment the room was still
just her reflection in the black screen,
and Ash curling into her lap, purring like a small machine learning the sound of her guilt.
---
Morning lingered.
Not the kind that blazed,
but the kind that settled slow and forgiving.
The light was pale gold now, sliding through the thin lace curtains, dust catching in its path like drifting embers.
The apartment smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and something floral, old and sweet
the kind of scent that clings to a place that's been loved for too long.
Aria stood barefoot on the cool tile,
the hem of her oversized T-shirt brushing her thighs.
She'd pulled her hair back loosely, the green streak catching the light like a thin blade.
Her bruises, one at the corner of her jaw, another faint under her eye,
were softened beneath a thin veil of makeup.
Even half-hidden, they felt like confessions.
From the kitchen came the soft rhythm of a kettle, the faint buzz of an old refrigerator.
Her grandmother moved slowly,
methodically, in her white robe,
hair pinned in that same stubborn bun she'd worn since before Aria was found.
Ash the cat trailed behind her like a shadow with opinions.
>"Good morning,"
her grandmother said, voice soft but sharp at the edges.
>"You look like you wrestled a thunderstorm."
Aria smiled faintly, crossed the small space, and wrapped her in a long hug.
The older woman's frame was slight,
bones like bird wings under warm fabric.
For a moment, it was the only sound
the heartbeat of two generations keeping time.
Then Aria let go.
She turned, scanned the room, and without a word, began pulling plugs.
The toaster.
The old microwave.
The flickering lamp with the crooked shade.
>"Aria?"
Her grandmother blinked.
> "What are you doing?"
Aria didn't answer at first. She unplugged the fridge last.
The buzz cut out;
silence fell heavy, almost sacred.
Then she placed an envelope on the counter.
>"We need prettier things,"
she said softly.
>"Things that work."
Her grandmother stared at the envelope, then at her.
>"Where did this come from?"
Aria shrugged.
>"Won a bet."
The older woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
>"you and yoour bets, you came into this world with your fists already clenched."
She turned away, poured hot water into two chipped mugs.
The steam curled up like ghosts.
Her grandmother's eyes lingered on Aria
the smeared makeup trying to soften the bruise along her jaw,
the almost-faded shadow of the mark beneath her eye.
Her expression shifted,
recognition, memory, something older than words.
>"You know,"
her grandmother said suddenly, voice dipping lower,
>"we used to think our marks made us invincible."
She glanced toward the window, eyes unfocused.
>"Then came the Black Tuesday."
Aria leaned against the counter.
>"The riots?"
Her grandmother nodded.
>"The air itself turned against us.
They called it a weapon, but it felt like punishment.
>"It wasn't gas. It was rifles spray rounds, like salt-shot.
Fine enough to cling to skin, strong enough to strip ink right out of it.
I watched people claw at their own faces, not from pain
from the fear of not knowing who they were without the mark."
The government said it was peacekeeping.
We called it erasure."
She traced the faint skin beneath her eye where a black star had once burned.
>"Mine faded that day.
The mark went before the pain did.
Took half of who I was with it."
Aria didn't speak. The clock ticked between them.
Outside, a bus hissed to a stop; the sound felt far away.
Her grandmother finally looked back at her.
>"And you, yours is still bright.
Means you're still choosing to carry it."
Aria smiled, but it was small and sad.
>"Feels more like it's carrying me."
Her grandmother chuckled softly.
>"That's how it starts."
A pause.
Then Aria said it, almost too casually.
>"Funny you mention the old days.
I ran into Dareen yesterday."
The warmth in the room shifted.
Her grandmother's hand froze midair, spoon suspended over tea.
>"Ah."
Her tone thinned, thoughtful.
>"And what did she want?"
Aria shrugged, avoiding her gaze.
>"Said her mother's been asking for me.
Wants me to come by."
Her grandmother set the spoon down, slowly.
The clink echoed like punctuation.
"She means well,"
she said finally.
> "Even when she doesn't."
Then, softer:
"Family doesn't fix itself by hiding aria.
Go see them. Let them see you.
Once a year won't kill anyone."
Aria hesitated, then nodded.
She finished her tea, left the envelope where it was.
As she walked toward the door,
Her grandmother called after her, gentle but firm
> "Be kind. Even when they won't be."
Aria paused at the door, one hand on the frame.
> "I'll try."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Ash meowed once, tail twitching like punctuation to a sentence only he understood
-THE DOORWAY-
Morning had burned off the fog by the time Aria reached the edge of the zone.
She paused, feeling the pull of a place she'd spent years trying not to remember.
The neighborhood was patched together from leftover things
rusted trailers, stacked cinderblocks, bits of tarp swaying like tired flags.
Smoke from a cooking fire thinned into the late morning air.
Wind chimes made from bottle caps clinked lazily in the breeze.
Aria stood outside with a small paper bag in her hands.
Still warm.
Still smelling like cumin and sweet pepper—
food she hadn't tasted in years,
but remembered like a bruise remembers the hit.
She breathed once, twice,
then knocked.
The door opened before her knuckles finished the second tap.
Dareen filled the doorway.
Long black curls, heavy and wild, falling to her waist.
Indigo skirt sweeping her ankles.
Bracelets stacked down both forearms, chiming whenever she moved,
a sound that had once meant home to Aria.
Now it sounded like something closing.
Her cousin smiled small, polite, unreadable.
>"You came."
It wasn't accusation.
It wasn't welcome.
It hung in the air like smoke that didn't know where to go.
Aria held up the paper bag.
>"I brought food."
A soft lift of Dareen's chin,
approval, maybe. Or grace.
>"Mama's in the living room."
She stepped aside.
Inside
The trailer smelled like sage and boiled sugar and fabric that had been air-dried in the sun.
Strings of dried peppers hung over the kitchen doorway.
Photos covered the walls
faces in groups, arms slung around shoulders, laughter frozen in time.
Aria wasn't in any of them.
Her aunt sat on the couch,
shoulders wrapped in a shawl the color of wilted sunflowers.
Her hair was long like Dareen's, but streaked now with silver.
Lines carved her face in familiar patterns
grief, exhaustion, faith that had gone brittle.
She looked up.
The black star beneath her eye caught the light
same place as Aria's, same shape, older ink.
Not the mark itself
the memory of it.
>"Aria."
Her voice was warm.
And cold.
Like hands heated near fire,
then dipped in water.
Aria stepped forward and placed the food on the table.
>"Hi, Aunt Leera."
Leera reached, took Aria's hand in both of hers.
Held it a second too long.
Like she was memorizing bones.
>"Even your silence has teeth now."
It was a compliment and a wound.
Aria sat.
Dareen took the seat beside her.
A younger cousin, maybe twelve, peeked from the hallway, then vanished like a spooked cat.
The home was quiet except for the clink of ceramic plates being set out.
No one mentioned the fight.
Not yet.
Finally
Leera spoke.
>""Orrin will heal,"
she said,
and smoothed the fabric of her shawl,
fingertips pressing against a small burn near the edge.
Aria's breath snagged.
"I-"
>"Healing takes time,"
Leera continued, gentle, smooth, uninterrupted.
>"Time we all have. Time she has. Time you have… to decide what kind of woman you're becoming."
Aria:
> "I don't need anyone to tell me what kind of woman I am."
Silence.
Leera (smiling without warmth):
Dareen poured tea.
Steam curled between them, linking them, veiling them.
No one touched it.
>"We don't blame you,"
Dareen said softly.
Which meant:
We do.
Leera's hands folded.
>"But you must understand the weight you carry….
Star-Marked don't wound each other lightly.
When one of us falls, the ground remembers."
Leera's gaze drifted past Aria, past the walls.
"You know why the ground remembers?"
Her voice softened,
half story, half spell.
>"Because once, it was asked to."
She turned her eyes toward the far wall
a framed photo hung crooked, glass smudged with years.
A man in it smiled, wind in his hair, a shadow of youth still clinging to him.
>"Kael,"
she said quietly.
> "My husband. Before all this noise."
Dareen looked down.
Even the kettle's hiss seemed to hush itself.
>"We were just… people,"
Leera went on.
>"Trying to stay small.
Keep out of harm's way.
But the world doesn't leave marked people alone, not after the purges."
Aria felt her chest tighten. She remembered her grandmother's stories
the day the sky turned to mist,
the soldiers with the ink guns.
>"When the E.R.A.S.E. weapons came,
Leera said,
>"most of our kind lost their marks. Lost what made them seen.
Kael and I still had ours. Small,
but enough to make us prey."
Her hand trembled slightly, tracing the teacup's rim.
>"The Iron Fangs had a habit back then
hunting the ones who still glowed.
Like wolves sniffing for what was left of the light.
They said it was cleansing. I called it cowardice."
She looked up, eyes glinting like steel under candlelight.
>"They came for us one night.
There were four of them.
Drunk, laughing.
I remember one had a fangs tattoo on his wrist black ink that looked like it was ready to bite."
Her voice thinned.
>"They burned our home.
They hit me once, maybe twice.
Kael tried to fight back.
I saw him fall before I blacked out."
A candle on the table guttered, wax spilling down the side like it was listening.
Dareen reached to steady it, eyes never leaving her mother.
Silence.
>"When I woke, there was nothing left of him but smoke and ash.
They'd tied him to the post and lit him like a warning."
She drew a slow breath,
and the air seemed to fold around her.
For a long time, I just stood there in my mind
watching the fire eat through what was left.
The world felt quiet in a way that begged to stay that way.
Even the wind seemed afraid to touch him
>"So I lit something back."
>""See… we have old rites, Aria. Forgotten ones.
You burn the ink, mix it with sage and bone dust,
whisper their name until the mark begins to answer.
It's not prayer—it's calling."
"I kept calling for nights.
At first it was only my own voice in the dark,
circling back to me, empty.
But then the mark under my eye began to burn
a faint pulse, like it remembered what it was made for."
She leaned back, eyes half-closed, the story thickening into spell.
>"On the seventh night, he started dreaming of me."
Her tone changed
low, rhythmic, almost tender.
>"I didn't come to him through fire, no.
I came through the stars.
A sky so black it looked wet.
I stood where Kael fell
and I called his name until the air cracked."
"The man one of the Fangs
woke up choking on my voice.
Every time he closed his eyes, I was closer.
Dancing slow between constellations,
whispering, Come back to where you burned him.
He stopped eating.
Stopped talking.
Just stared at the ceiling like it might split open and drop me through."
>"By the ninth night, he couldn't stand it anymore."
>"He walked to the ruins.
Barefoot.
The sand still smelled of smoke."
>"They said there was light out there that night
colors no fire should make.
Blue. Green. Red.
Flames rising in quiet rhythm,
like breath."
>"He thought it was beautiful."
>"He stepped closer."
>"And when he did…."
She raised her hand, palm slicing the air.
>"I came though the fire like a blade."
>"Not from heaven. Not from hell.
From what's in between.
From the promise."
>"He tried to scream.
The mark on his wrist lit up first
and then I cut it."
>"A slash across the throat.
One more through the ribs.
One through the belly.
Every strike a star drawn back into the sky."
>"The blood hit the fire and flared white.
For a second, the night looked clean."
>"And then it was just quiet."
She let the silence breathe,
her eyes far away.
>"I waited beside him until dawn.
Watched the smoke climb.
Looked up at the stars and wondered which one was Kael."
A pause.
>"That's why the ground remembers,"
she said at last.
>"Because I asked it to."
Aria's voice was a whisper, more breath than sound.
>"That's not a story, Aunt Leera. That's a curse dressed up like love."
Leera smiled faintly.
"Same thing, darling."
The words hung there, soft, poisonous, almost beautiful.
The air itself seemed heavier for hearing them.
Aria couldn't look away from her.
From the way Leera's fingers still traced invisible shapes on the table,
like the story hadn't ended yet, just shifted somewhere deeper.
The smell of burnt sage clung to the room.
The tea had gone cold.
The younger cousin had vanished entirely.
Aria felt something coil in her stomach
not fear, not anger.
Recognition.
Like the story had been meant for her.
Her throat was dry when she finally spoke.
>"About orrin"
She exhaled
"I didn't plan it. She-"
>"We know,"
Leera said immediately, kindly.
Too kindly.
The kind of kindness that directs guilt like a blade.
>"Orrin acts before she thinks.
You've always been the one who sees before you strike.
You strike true."
A compliment.
That cut.
Aria's throat tightened.
Dareen reached over
touched her wrist.
Soft.
Reassuring.
Possessive.
Dareen said quietly
>"You're still blood."
Aria pulled her hand back, slow. Eyes steady.
>"Being family never made us kind to each other."
Dareen's jaw flexed;
a faint click of bracelets.
>"Kindness is for people who can afford it."
Which didn't feel like comfort.
It felt like ownership.
Aria nodded once.
She drew a breath, steadying herself.
"I came to see how she's doing.
That's all."
Her tone was level, firm, but not cold.
Leera smiled.
The smile did not reach her eyes.
>"Intentions are for priests and poets, Aria.
Family lives with outcomes."
Silence.
The younger cousin peeked again.
This time, she stared.
Like she was looking at a story she had heard about her whole life.
Aria suddenly felt very tired.
>"I should go. Tell Orrin I stopped by."
She stood.
Leera rose too,
slowly, like memory pulling her upright.
She crossed the small room and wrapped her arms around Aria.
Not tight. Not theatrical.
Just warm.
Like she was holding a child who had been gone too long.
Her voice was quiet, almost human:
> "You will always have a place here.
No matter how far you run."
Aria's breath caught.
Something in her chest frayed
but didn't break.
She nodded against her shoulder.
> "I know."
Leera let her go gently, hands lingering at her arms a moment longer than needed.
Aria stepped down from the doorway.
Dareen didn't follow.
As she walked away, she could feel the house watching her.
Through curtains.
Through walls.
Through memory.
She didn't look back.
After the Door Closes
The latch clicked.
Leera stayed standing by the door,
one hand still resting on the frame,
as if she could feel the ghost of Aria
Dareen lingered a step behind her,
bracelets quiet for once.
Her voice was low, unsure.
> "She's really still one of us ?"
Leera didn't blink.
Her palm slid down the wood,
slow, deliberate.
> "She thinks so."
Dareen closed the door.
Her bracelets chimed once.
>"and we just let her.
find her way?"
Leera exhaled
long, slow, heavy.
"Let her climb."
Her voice was almost tender.
"Then we'll take what she brings."