Ring Around the Bloodstream

Sweetest rose of darkened hue
Alone in a sea of lilies you stand
Your petals look twisted
Your flesh unguarded

And so you weaken and wilt

But heaven's beauty and earth's frailty
Make your strange flavour a grievous desire
To touch your stem and taste your milk
Is a want uncontrollable
Such secrets unignorable
Unwisest of thoughts
Ill fated a dare

But you are so rare
Your blood is calling
And at your prick we fall

To knees where bones remember
And muscles downed, taut and tender

Expel a hush of air from poisoned lungs
And so we whisper

"Ring around the bloodstream
See the ether bleeding
Husha, Husha
We all fall down"

Humans are extinct, their nameless cousins ruling the earth. So to discover a human lying in the bushes is unthinkable. But when brothers Al and Ren do, her existence becomes the first tug on a web of lies set to unravel. Ren wants to destroy it. Al wants to keep it. For Al this is all a big adventure, a game. But Ren knows that for something like this to happen there must be higher powers at play. And although he originally wanted nothing to do with the human, the web is already being pulled apart, dragging him and his darkest secrets with it.

For this contest