The Crimson Gathering

The invitation wasn’t on paper—it was passed in whispers behind the record store, written in sharpie on the back of a cigarette pack. “Warehouse. Saturday. Midnight. Theme: Blood.”

Ash almost laughed when he first heard it. It sounded like the kind of edgy, try-hard gimmick some bored kids would throw together. But when his circle decided to go—Marcus with his spiked belt, Lena with her smeared eyeliner and fishnets—Ash tagged along. He always did.

The warehouse was on the edge of town, abandoned and stinking faintly of rust and oil. From the outside, it was nothing. But inside, it had been transformed. Red light bulbs swung from the ceiling. Sheets soaked in stage blood draped the walls. Bowls of punch glowed under blacklight, swirling with a dark crimson hue that made everyone grin nervously before sipping. The air reeked of cigarettes, cheap vodka, and iron.

Ash stood back, watching. His friends laughed, posed for pictures, smeared fake blood across their faces, reveling in the shock factor. But Ash’s eyes lingered on the details—the way the red liquid ran down the sheet, the way it dried into dark crusts on the concrete floor. His mind whispered comparisons to wounds, veins, rivers. He could almost smell the metallic tang under the layers of alcohol.

“Dude, lighten up,” Marcus shoved him playfully, smearing a bloody handprint across his black shirt. Ash only smirked, his lip ring catching the red light.

When the music kicked in—screaming guitars and a vocalist howling about heartbreak and death—the warehouse came alive. People danced like it was an exorcism, crashing into each other, blood (real or fake, Ash wasn’t sure anymore) streaking across arms and faces. Lena pulled Ash into the chaos, laughing, smearing crimson across his cheek with her thumb.

For a moment, Ash let go. He let the noise and the mess consume him, body moving, voice screaming along to lyrics he didn’t know.

But then he slipped away, as he always did. He found himself by a corner where the shadows pooled thicker, away from the pulsing red lights. He knelt, running his fingers over a dark streak on the floor, uncertain if it was paint, stage blood—or something else. He felt a thrill crawl up his spine. His friends played with blood for aesthetic, but for Ash, it was something heavier, something beautiful and frightening all at once.

Someone stumbled near him, drunk, bleeding slightly from a cut on their forehead where they’d slammed into another dancer. Ash caught them before they fell, his hands surprisingly gentle. “You’re alright,” he said quietly, voice calm, steady, almost tender. He pulled a napkin from his pocket—always carried them, a strange habit—and pressed it to their wound.

They looked up at him, dazed, and whispered, “Thanks.”

Ash just nodded, eyes locked on the blood soaking into the napkin, blooming like a rose. For a fleeting second, he thought it was the most beautiful thing in the room.

Then he tucked the thought away, as he always did, and led the stranger back into the crowd.