_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">he lights in Blood Farm #17 turned off at exactly 10:00 PM, like they did every night. This meant work day was over for the human blood bags. Maria waited in the dark of her small sleeping space, counting to three hundred—the time it took for the night guards to walk through the sleeping area once.

  Two hundred ninety-eight... two hundred ninety-nine... three hundred.

  She slipped off her thin mattress, her bare feet making no sound on the cold floor. Even though she was very tired from fourteen hours of work in the blood-taking pce, she moved careful and quiet. She tapped lightly on the wall between her space and the next one. This signal moved from person to person through the sleeping area.

  Within five minutes, they started to gather in the narrow space between rows of beds—fifteen skinny people with number marks on their wrists, huddling close in the almost-dark. The only light came from small red bulbs near the floor, making everyone's faces look blood-colored, which fit with where they lived.

  "We gather in darkness to remember the light," Maria whispered, her voice very quiet but somehow filling the space. At eighteen, she was younger than most of the others, but they all looked to her as she raised her hands, showing the rough wooden cross she had made from a broken floor piece. "The demons feed on our bodies, and we must take our punishment, but they can't have our souls."

  "The light preserves us," the others whispered back, words they'd said thousands of times that still gave comfort.

  Thomas, his body looking old at forty-three, nodded with approval. Taken at age four when the farms were first made, he was one of the st first-batch people in this sleeping area. His skin looked pale and his hands shook, showing he was getting close to being thrown away. His fuzzy memories of people kneeling with hands together and symbols on walls were all he remembered from before the farms—little pieces mixed with stories told by now-gone adults from his early days here. These tiny bits, passed to Maria when she was little, had been the start of what became the Church of Eternal Light—a faith made from scraps and hope.

  "Brothers and sisters," Maria continued, her light brown eyes catching the dim red glow in a strange way, "we suffer because we deserve it. Our blood pays for bad things done. But one day, when we've paid enough, the demons will be gone."

  She moved to the middle of their circle, her thin body somehow looking strong despite her gray clothes hanging loose on her shoulders. The clothes looked the same as everyone's, but on Maria, they seemed almost special.

  "The demons were sent to test us," she said, her voice taking on a rhythm that showed she was changing from normal blood bag to spiritual leader. "Their fangs take our blood as payment for sins, but when the debt is paid, the light will come back. The demons will burn. And we—" she smiled in a way that seemed impossible in this terrible pce, "—we will be free."

  A woman with hollow cheeks and dull eyes suddenly grabbed Maria's hand. "My blood-taking number went up again," she whispered, her voice tight with fear. "My blood quality is dropping. They'll throw me away if it doesn't get better by next week."

  Throwing away. The nice word for what happened to blood bags whose blood wasn't good enough anymore. No one came back from being thrown away, but the smoke that sometimes drifted over the farm buildings told the real story.

  Maria squeezed the woman's hand. "Sister Sarah, the demons might take your body, but they can't take your spirit." She brushed a bit of hair from Sarah's face with unexpected gentleness. "If the worst happens, you'll be first to see the light when it comes back."

  It wasn't exactly comforting in a normal way, but in this pce, being told your death might mean something was the closest thing to hope anyone could get. Sarah nodded, tears running quietly down her face.

  "Now," Maria continued, reaching into her pocket to take out a small cloth bundle, "I have brought the bread."

  A sound of excitement passed through the group. The "bread" was actually part of Maria's own food saved carefully over three days. She broke the hard, gray stuff into fifteen tiny pieces, pcing each in waiting hands with the seriousness of someone doing something holy.

  "The body helps the body," she said as each person got their piece. "Sharing shows the light still lives in us, even while we take our punishment."

  As they ate the precious bits, Maria began to say what she called The Promise—a simple prayer she had made that mixed pieces of what Thomas had taught her with her own strong vision of future justice.

  "When we've suffered enough, When our blood has paid the price, The light will break the dark, And demons will turn to ice.

  Their fangs will break like gss, Their power will fade away, The chains will fall to pieces, As the light brings judgment day.

  We are more than just blood bags, Though they drain us every day. We are children of the light, And freedom is on the way."

  The others joined for the st part, their voices a whispered chorus that held the strange power of real belief:

  "We are more than just blood bags, Though they drain us every day. We are children of the light, And freedom is on the way."

  As they finished, Maria felt the familiar painful prickling under her skin that warned of trouble. Not now, she thought with fear. It was still nearly two weeks until the full moon, but sometimes stress or strong feelings could bring early warning signs of what she called her "divine curse."

  She took a deep breath, trying to control whatever strange thing caused her monthly times of pain and lost memory. The doctors—demon scientists who saw humans only as test subjects—she had never told them about it.

  "Our time is almost up," she whispered, willing the prickling sensation to go away. "Get back to your beds before the next patrol. Remember, they can take our blood, but not our spirits."

  The group broke up silently, each person touching the small wooden cross Maria held before going back to their sleeping spaces. Within three minutes, the narrow aisle was empty again except for Maria and Thomas, who stayed a moment longer.

  "Your arm hurting again?" the man observed softly. "That thing coming back?"

  Maria nodded tightly. "Just the warning feeling. It's going away already."

  Thomas studied her face in the dim red light. "You've given them something to hold onto besides giving up. That's a real gift in this pce."

  "The light guides me," she responded automatically.

  Thomas's mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. "Maybe. Or maybe you guide them to the light." He patted her shoulder with a shaking hand. "Now sleep. The demons want their blood tomorrow, revetion or not."

  As Thomas shuffled away, Maria went back to her bed, carefully hiding her wooden cross in the small gap between her mattress and the wall. She y down on the thin padding, staring up at the ceiling barely visible in the darkness.

  From three beds away, she could hear Sarah quietly crying. From somewhere else came the rhythmic sound of someone rocking back and forth, a common way people tried to comfort themselves after years in the farms. And throughout the sleeping area, the quiet background noise of dozens of humans breathing, moving, existing in a system designed to take as much value from their bodies as possible until nothing worth taking was left.

  Maria closed her eyes and offered one final, private prayer—not the words of hope she shared with the others, but something smaller and more personal.

  "I don't know why you marked me with this monthly curse," she whispered to whatever might be listening. "But please help me stay strong for the others. And if you've picked me for something important... I'm ready whenever you are."

  The funny thing that she didn't know yet was that she actually was picked for a purpose very different than she imagined. But for tonight, in the darkness of Blood Farm #17, Maria drifted toward sleep, not knowing that her prayers for change were already being answered—just not in any way she could possibly expect.

  Outside the sleeping area, the moon hung in the night sky, just past its first quarter phase. It seemed to shine with special brightness on the young woman who thought herself cursed, like it knew something she didn't.