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Red. I have seen a lot of the color in my seventeen years.
It danced across the hot coals as bread baked softly in my father's oven. It settled on my cheeks and nose as I walked home on freezing winter days, the wind nipping at my skin. It flushed my face as I tried to outrun my brothers, laughing as they tackled me to the ground.
Red indicated the spring roses have come to a full bloom, setting the soil into a scarlet blaze. Red leaves danced in the trees as the fall wind picked up and carried them to heaven. Red flooded the horizon as the sun slipped under the earth and left me in comforting darkness.
Not anymore.
Not after what I have seen. Not after what I have been through.
Red meant a fresh whip mark stinging the back of your neck. Red meant fire and the unbearable burns that came with it. Read meant slash marks, whip marks, burn marks, cut marks, pain. But most of all, red meant blood.
Deep pools of crimson seeping from a dying body. One last warning, one last wave of hope. But there was too much red. Far too much red, for any chance at survival. A lost battle, an ending war, because of that color.
I look at my hands now. Metal chains cut deep into my pale skin. The crimson liquid seeping from them seems brighter. More visible. More haunting. Isn't it always that way? I look away. The color burns my eyes.
Still, it's there. Slowly trickling down the length of my arm. Pooling in the crook of my elbow. It's unsettlingly warm. Which surprises me, seeing as I'm shaking from the cold. Am I cold? It's hard to tell.
It drips from my arm to the floor. If I close my eyes, I can hear it. It sounds like water dripping from my face as I stood in the rain. As I so often liked to do in my childhood. It sounded like home.
I shook my head harshly. I wasn't home. I wasn't listening to rain droplets. I was sitting here. In a cell, deep in the heart of the Capitol. Bleeding. Red liquid seeping from my weakening body. One last warning. But it just will not end. I will not go that easily. I cannot go that easily. They wont let me go that easily. I will endure it. I will keep bleeding. I will keep fighting this battle, this war.
And, perhaps I'll see it end. Before I doomed to drown in a never-ending crimson sea.
Red. I have seen a lot of the color in my seventeen years.
I have seen good people go up in flames. I have seen allies take stinging whip after stinging whip. I have seen death because of red.
Red. It no longer means fresh fall leaves, or newborn roses, or departing sunsets.
No, I don't see that.
Red. It is the final scream of the dying. The final showdown. Death because you just can't seem to keep your blood inside your body, and nobody can stop it. Blood loss. The sea of crimson. Pleasant isn't it? Yeah, I thought so too.