Blood Choice

Blood Choice The city was a ring of brilliant light surrounding a core of darkness, the black made all the darker by the light around it. The watcher above knew the reasons for this. The UV illumination was a pure practicality, the black within a sign of the limited energy, every scrap of which must go to the defending lights during the night. Still, the barrier of light, aimed outward in a feathering corona of warm brightness on the barren fields that surrounded the city seemed like the act of some mad artist of bygone times. Nobody now spent much effort on art. Survival was more important than art these days. Humans being humans, of course, there were still those who drew and wrote and sang and created. But there were far fewer of them now than during the decades-vanished heyday of humanity. And much as the illuminating circle seemed a thing of beauty, it was in fact a creation of deadly purpose. Fragile and intangible as the light was, it was also an impenetrable wall between the wild darkness without and the safe, dark womb of the city within. Or nearly impenetrable, thought the watcher to himself. And then, with a sharp smile and a soft whisper of feathers in the wind, he descended on the unsuspecting darkness.