Bloodline by Olivia Jimenez

Red enters the forest to visit her grandmother, each step echoing the shadows of her last visit. The trees loom silently.

Something warm spatters her cheek. She wipes it away—thick, pulsing, too warm.

Blood.

She looks up.

Her grandmother dangles from branches like a broken marionette, moonlight filling the hollows in her face. Her eyes wide. Not surprised, waiting.

Dark fur bursts from her stitched skin, spilling from her ribs, her throat.

Blood runs in threads down her cheeks, steady as breath.

The forest watches.

Red does not scream.

She simply whispers, “I remember now.”