Bleeding Girls Initiation Ritual

So proud to be back at Monkey Bicycle with a new story!

Thank you, James Tate Hill, for publishing “Bleeding Girls Initiation Ritual.”

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We arrive in the dark at the shortest night and cluster away from the pyre. We are nameless and unsure, bleeding without a wound. We count: forty of us against three of them. Still, we feel outnumbered. We rub our cramping bellies. Wood smoke makes us cry. 

The Leader yells from his soapbox, demanding law and order. His voice pierces our bodies like needles. We stop shuffling and straighten our spines, our muscles tight with tension. All around us, nocturnal insects hum, drawn to our youth, our flowing blood.

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Read the rest of the story in Monkey Bicycle.