Origins of Blood (RE)-Chapter 182: Red Sea (1)

Eriksson’s POV

“I will hunt you through land and sea, and once your warmth tarnishes my hands, the Gods shall follow.”

—Eriksson Lennard

“HARMON!” The scream rips from my throat, tearing through the storm that isn’t there. Each step crushes the dead beneath me, blood splattering my calves. The sea glows Red beneath the moon, thick as oil, swallowing the horizon whole.

Grim shouts somewhere behind me, his voice lost in the chaos. I hear nothing but my own pulse—violent, relentless. My legs should have given out long ago, but they move without me, driven by fury, by grief, by that hollow need that’s all I have left.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” My words break before they reach him. Harmon doesn’t turn. Does not slow.

The bastard runs straight into the open sea, his silhouette shrinking against the bleeding sky. I can’t do anything to stop him; my body is too weak for anything.

Then he jumps.

And I follow.

The water closes over me like a coffin; salt and blood burn my eyes. My chest implodes. Diving deeper, my fingers scrape the seafloor. My vision fractures—half Black, half Crimson—and the world spins. My lungs collapse. Still, I push forward.

First Red. Then Green and Orange—then nothing.

The colors blur into a single hue—death. My thoughts twist, tangled between memory and madness.

She’s alive.

No, she’s gone; she’s been gone for far too long.

But she must be alive.

Casandra—Elena...

Harmon’s shadow swims ahead, thrashing like a man possessed. Chasing him through the thick Red current, my arms and legs tear water. And I continue to do, even if the next breath kills me, I move.

“HAM!” I choke, seawater rushing into my mouth. “HAM!”

He doesn’t hear me, or he refuses to.

The distance between us stretches and shrinks, cruelly—always close enough to see, never close enough to touch. The moon above us bleeds into the sea, painting every wave Crimson.

Grim’s voice echoes behind me, faint and fading. He calls my name again, but I cannot answer. I won’t. I need Harmon. I need to end this.

My breath turns to knives. I see her face again—Casandra. No. Not my daughter. The girl. Elena. The one who called me Pa, even though I didn’t deserve it.

Gone. All of them.

You promised them something better.

“I’ll kill you!” I scream again, but my voice is nothing under the weight of the sea.

But suddenly, something shifts inside me—like a pulse that isn’t mine. It starts in my gut and crawls upward, a current of cold fire searing through my veins. Then everything stops.

No movement. No air. No control.

The world freezes around me.

And everything starts to shake, as if I am electrified.

Water floods my lungs, and my body convulses. I try to scream, but all that leaves is a muffled groan. Harmon’s shape flickers ahead, then disappears entirely. One second, he’s there. The next, he’s gone. Vanished into the Red void far beyond my eyes can reach.