The sky is red.
The ground is too, the color seeping deep into the Earth, pooling when the dirt can hold no more. It seeps into the water nearby, unfurling with the ghostly grace of the dead, spreading with the rapid contamination of a plague. It's slow and methodical, peacefully powerful, even the terror it inspires thuds in deep and resonating thrums throughout my body. It smothers my screams, seals my windpipe, until all I can hear is the thrum of fear echoing empty in my ears. The world outside mute to the steady, sourceless creeping.
I am red. My clothes are already too damp in sweat and tears; I notice too late. It's hot, and it's sticky, and it burrows deeper into every pore with every useless swipe I make at it. It's streaking from my ears. It's dripping from my nose.
My mind is reeling, spinning forward so fast it sets itself backwards. Cogs are falling off of axles, but the images keep streaming inwards, unprocessed, overwhelming. People line the desert skyline, cityless, purposeless. They scream mutely. They fall to their feet. They clutch their ears. Their faces are contorted in pain, in confusion. They soften slightly in death.
Above vultures are fighting over the carrion. Their attacks launch hot white, their strikes fade to flames of orange. They clap like thunder, and even if the force of the sound is still muffled in the color, I can feel the tremors of each explosion reverberate against my ribcage. Faces behind me are losing their definition, relaxing into decay in an ironic brand of peace, but my eyes fix themselves upwards. Clouds outline severely against this man-made storm. The size of them terrifies me, but their line holds strong against the barrage of fire. They guard fiercely, outlined in red.
It's a long time before I give in to it. Before I sink into the ground, desolate. I'm the last one upright, even on my knees. I'm the only one to see the sun peak over the horizon, open a lazy eye to the debacle of humanity. It's a long time before the vultures clear away and the angels descend from Heaven to reclaim our dead.
But they don't want the dead.
He walks to me. A beacon of purity and simplicity, draped in white against the diseased scene. He ought to extend a hand, grant me wings and fly me behind the clouds, but he doesn't. A firm hand grabs me by the back of my collar like a pup by the scruff of the neck and yanks me to my feet. He studies me disdainfully for a minute before tossing me forward with a stiff order of , "Go."
There's a foreboding looking piece of metal in the distance, trying to whip wet pieces of sand away, succeeding to some extent. It casts a long shadow, all the way to my feet in the presence of the sun. I look back for reassurance.
I receive none. "Go," he says again.
My foot moves of its own volition. Not because of the fear or the death, not for the mask of confusion, not for the ascent. I climb into the metal vulture because the world is covered in blood, and he is not.
There's a woman waiting to greet me, but a needle takes the place of words, plunged deep within my neck before I'm sure which way is up. "Let's go, Storm Shadow!" she shouts over the heavy beat of propellers.
The world flashes white.
