Labelled by Blood

      A ring on each hand: matte black and smooth to the touch. Mom and Dad told us they were waiting for the right time to give them to us and our tenth birthday was that day. I sighed. Whatever the “right time” meant. Nearly five years ago.       My train of thought was broken by an overly heavy sigh coming from someone else. My eyes drifted up to find Ava sitting across the room from me, on her own bed, with a big smile on her face.       “Whatcha sighing for?” her cheerful mood lightened mine.       “Oh, y’know, these.” I tossed my hands up jokingly. She rolled her eyes with a scoff, but her smile never wavered. “You’ve been obsessing over them forever now.” She shook her head, brushing back a piece of hair that hung across her forehead.       “Well, don’t you wanna know too? We should try the library again, tomorrow. After school, I mean.” She paused for a moment before looking back up at me. “Maybe. We’ve got to work on that report too.”       I slumped against the headboard of my bed. I’d rather watch paint dry.       “What was Ms. Rohd thinking picking lichen of all things?”       “It’s not that bad. You’ll live.”       I pretended to die: one hand around my throat while the other extended towards the light. I croaked. A fragile stuffed cow smacked my face and landed without an ounce of noise.       “What was that for?” I asked, blowing a raspberry to get a bit of fluff off my tongue.       “Trust me, it’ll be over before you know it.” Sure. Because research projects were always fun and easy. Mom called from downstairs. “Kids, dinner!” We both looked at the door.       “Here,” Ava started, “let’s work on the report after dinner. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can start researching the—" she snapped thinking of the right word. "The—" but she didn’t find it.       “Vestiges?” I said, finishing her thought as I stood up to hand her the plushie back. That’s what Dad called them, I mean.       “Yeah, those. C’mon, let’s go before she starts yelling.”       Mom could be scary sometimes.       We headed downstairs and Mom was at the table serving food while Dad wasted no time digging in. She laid out a pretty standard spread: chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans. I took a seat and spooned some mashed potatoes into my mouth. They were creamy and extra buttery.       Literal perfection.       “Mom, you’ve done it again.” I did a chef’s kiss and gobbled down spoonful after spoonful. They didn’t last long. Mom put a hand to her chest, smiling to herself as she got Ava a glass of water. “So, how was school today?” She asked.       “Nothing special, just your average day,” I said. When was school ever special?       “Today,” Ava chimed in, failing to hold back a smile, “in P.E., some girl threw up after I spiked a volleyball at her stomach!”       If you were Ava, you made school special.       This got a laugh from me and I nearly choked on a green bean; Dad laughed at me as I coughed up the food. Mom pinched the spot between her eyes and groaned. “Why is it always you who’s making kids go to the nurse?”       Dad jumped in, changing the topic. “Hey, uh, it’s almost your birthdays. Thought about what you both want?”       Great question. Kind of.       “What about some new headphones?” I asked. What I really wanted was to know what’s so special about the jewelry he and Mom gave us, but they shot me down every year. I didn’t feel like going through that, again.       “Done. What about you?” His eyes darted to Ava.       “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think it over some more,” she said, taking a bite of her food.       Dad grunted and the rest of dinner passed. Ava and I headed back to our room afterwards and pulled out our laptops. Our room was a huge rectangle where we each “owned” our respective halves. We took to decorating with posters of favorite bands and shows. Ava just got a new one with the release of a new album from her favorite popstar. I didn’t hate her music.       Despite begging our parents for our own rooms, they always told us we didn’t have the space.       Which wasn’t true, there was the basement. But, whatever.       I didn’t hate sharing a room with Ava. It was just a little awkward that we were both fourteen, almost fifteen. But that was beside the point.       We sat at our desks and I opened up a blank document for us to work on together. It wasn’t long before we were sifting through half a dozen websites and scouring for information on the local varieties of lichen in Duscadon.       That’s our hometown. Not born, but raised.       It sat between a mid-sized and a large city, according to our history teacher. We lived a couple of miles out past the city walls because Dad needed a place to do his research, and the lab is further out than we were.       I’ve never known another place.       And I wasn’t sure I wanted to.       The paper was going well but we had to call it a night. I stretched in my chair and looked over at Ava, who yawned and lazily scanned over our work. Her face made subtle twitches as she read over it. We’d finish the paper tomorrow and then had to hunt some live lichen samples. That was the only real fun part of this project.       “Almost done,” I sighed, cracking my knuckles.       “See? Told you it wouldn’t be that bad.” She had shut off her laptop and headed for the door.       I didn’t hate when she was right, but I didn’t like being wrong.       “Wait,” I said.       ”Hm?”       “Do you think we’ll find anything on the vestiges tomorrow?”       She hesitated to answer. My shoulders fell.       We’ve tried before and left sadder each time. But something in the back of my head kept nagging at me to try one more time. It was like a constant buzzing that wouldn’t leave me alone.       She gave me a gentle smile before turning away and heading out the door, flicking the lights off. “I’m sure we’ll find something. There’s a lot to the library, and we’ve probably missed a whole bunch.”       Right. We always find something new. Even if it didn’t lead anywhere.       I sat in my chair in the dark, the blue light from my laptop illuminated my tired eyes. On the homepage of my browser, I had a ton of bookmarks pinned at the top. My mouse dragged across the screen to one of them like it had a mind of its own. But it was all habitual.       It always was.       My hand pressed down on the trackpad with a slow and dull click. Elemental Strims: Wonders of the World. The title was bold with a silvery look to it. I scrolled through the webpage, my eyes tracing the swirls and wisps of varying colors that accentuated the outer edges.       Talk about entrancing.       Then, the article began:

      Elemental Streamlines, or Strims, are a rarely studied phenomenon where high levels of various energies flow through an object or location. Various items have been identified as having a Strim attached to them, and wondrous effects can take place. Most notably, common, on-person, accessories can take the shape of lethal weaponry. However, more interesting effects have been documented.

      The article went on about these, “Elemental       Streamlines,” mentioning how they could revolutionize self-defense and help with preventing crime.       How did people even find them in the first place?       According to the article, Strims were found with the use of some high-tech metal detector-looking device they called a Remote Source Detector, or an RSD.       Where would you get something like that?       It all seemed fake, but it cited some real looking articles that also mentioned Strims under different names. I was torn.       But what if. What if.       I pushed my chair back and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. I pulled away and looked at my rings. An indent ran through the middle of them, which caught the light and made it look like they glowed a pale blue.       I could swear I felt an ice-cold zap run through my arm.       Yeah, right.       Did these have streamlines? Would Mom and Dad even know what those were? We’ve got them appraised before, and they weren’t worth much. I didn’t see why they’d want us wearing them.       The door creaked open and I jolted in my seat. Ava walked in, now in her cow pajamas and brushing her hair. “The restroom’s open now, might wanna get in there before Mom and Dad do.”       “Thanks,” I muttered, my gaze lingering in her direction.       My eyes unfocused as I continued to think.       “Everything alright? You’re kinda staring at me,” she gave a nervous giggle as she said this. Whoops. I refocused. She ran a hand through her hair, the brush following, and she gave me a concerned look.       “Yeah, sorry.”       I got out of my chair and headed to the restroom. I brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. I looked into the mirror to study my face. My eyes were big and looked tired; my hair was a mess. Probably from all the stress.       Mom and Dad always said I was too young for stress. Boy were they wrong.       As I continued to look at myself, my thoughts wandered some more. We were turning fifteen soon. Maybe they’d finally tell us about the rings. Or maybe they’d continue to ignore me. Either way, tomorrow held some hope and maybe we’d actually find something ourselves. But the possibility that I was looking too deeply into this haunted me.       I just wanted to know. Was that too much to ask for?       Shoot, I was taking too long.       I decided to check the weather to distract myself. A quick tap on the small sun in the corner of our mirror pulled up an ornate display. There was all kinds of information overlaid on a background of the weather. In this case, a large periwinkle moon dispersed a hazy light caused by the crumbly clouds that drifted past it. Tomorrow was looking to be partly cloudy and chilly; an autumn staple here.       After a little bit of scrolling through the week’s forecast, I swiped it all away and headed back to my room. When I came in, Ava was at my laptop and didn’t even notice me. The angle of the laptop caused her shadow to look tall and featureless; it was almost like it was some kind of monster: motionless, ever watching, judging.       Eugh.       “Uh, hi?” I said, waving a hand at her.       “Dude, what’s all this?” she motioned at the screen with her hands.       The tone of her voice hit me, and my eyes went wide.       I never showed her the article on Strims. And for good reason. She seemed to find the article amusing, quoting some of the more outlandish lines and following it up with cackling laughter.       “Oh man, check this one out!” She struggled to read through her laughter. “’Strims act as the link between our world and the realm of endless possibilities.’” She splayed her arms out like a rainbow before throwing her head back. She almost fell, but caught herself. “That’s too deep for me,” she said as she pretended to wipe a tear away.       Man. How should I even feel here? I mean, she didn’t even give it a chance.       I stared at her; cold threaded its way into my heart and my thoughts were numbed. I knew the article sounded stupid and silly, but what if it wasn’t?       Her laugh echoed in my head and I couldn’t help but wince. My breathing trembled as though I shivered. She eventually stopped long enough to notice my face and her smile faded. Her eyes examined me carefully, and they tried to tell me she was apologetic.       A little late for that.       “I need some fresh air. Maybe find some lichen. I don’t know.” I turned on my heels and shut the door. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say.       “Wait, Evan.”             I rushed outside, leaving my jacket on its hook.