"Red is the colour of life. It's blood, passion, rage. It's menstrual flow and after birth. Beginnings and violent end. Red is the colour of love. Beating hearts and hungry lips. Roses, Valentines, cherries. Red is the colour of shame. Crimson cheeks and spilled blood. Broken hearts, opened veins. A burning desire to return to white."
~Mary Hogan

Chapter One

Achillea

My head hurt like a bitch.

The funny thing was, for the first time in my life, I wasn't even exaggerating or pretending in the name of some sort of ridiculous joke. My brain felt as though it had decided to rebel against my very skull. Echoes of pain seemed to radiate throughout my body, clinging to every nerve ending, muscle, and ligament that existed from my fingers to my toes. My hearing was muted—hell, my eyesight was even worse. Was there even such a thing as light? I couldn't remember.

Was it a concussion or a mere figment of my imagination?

I had no fucking idea.

Maybe I was dead?

I doubted it, but with a splitting migraine I sure wanted to be. There was nothing quite like a mind-piercing headache to put your life into perspective. The swear words popped out of my mouth before I could even control them. At least I knew that I could talk.

"God damnit," I managed to croak before another shot of agony trickled through my brain. That wasn't even the worst of it.

There was a slab of brick—heck, a huge segment of a wall looming over my shoulders. How it got there, I couldn't quite recall. It was a wonder that I had known it had collapsed in the first place. Call it a miracle or the tooth fairy; I didn't particularly care.

"Can someone fucking help?" I hissed miserably. Pain spiked in my head and I could only groan in exasperation. No one was coming, but I felt better spitting out the words. It was like ripping a Band-Aid off. It was better to do it once and just get the suffering over with.

The ground suddenly lurched.

My head exploded.

"Shit."

That was when I had decided it was time to move. I scrambled to my feet, leaning against what I imagined was the giant chunk of concrete above my head. The slab shook dramatically, raining fine particles of cement down onto my head, hands, and hair. Grumbling angrily, my brain continuing to scream with discomfort, I pushed on the block, almost shrieking with pain when a sharp light pierced my eyes.

The sun of course. Could it have been anything else in the first place?

My footing was unstable, the ground continued to shake, and people were howling and shrieking, but I only considered that as another bonus. I wasn't alone. Morose, I knew—but I had never been one to cling to false pretences. The world wasn't some kind of science fiction story. The main characters, as noble and wondrous as they seemed to be, were simply assholes with a deranged morality complex. Hope was imaginary. Why else would I hate Star Wars?

Heat licked at my cheeks. An explosion rang out only moments later, somewhere to my left. Machine gun fire quickly followed suit. At one point in time I would have declared that as a close call, but after nearly being crushed by a wall, I was more than inclined to think otherwise. I simply threw myself at the ground. The pain in my head only seemed to increase from that point onwards.

Did I smash my head against the concrete? Was there a piece of glass or shrapnel imbedded into my skull? My vision blurred until the world was a muddled ball of colour smeared into oblivion. The screams around me, even the gunfire appeared to fade away, until all that remained was simply sensation. I could feel pebbles bounce and skip along the ground in tandem as everything shook, waves of heat rolling and smashing into my side—it was so hot. My skin burned. There was a cut in my arm. Blood was dripping on the ground. Was it mine?

Another stab of agony shot through my head. Red was the only colour I could distinguish.

Suddenly, out of nowhere at all, I simply knew what it felt like to die.

A/N: I felt a little nostalgic. Should I apologize?

Let's just say that I may have written a story for this fandom eons ago, in a time when Earth was simply a little spec in outer space. The details have been lost to the ages, but I haven't dabbled in first person ever since. Until now, of course.

Yes, it's an OC— and hell NO, it's not a frigging self-insert. I may be a little nerdy, but absolutely refuse to sink that low. I'm not the bloody Titanic.

Feel free to leave a comment! I'm working on a new writing style, so some criticism is always welcome. Sorry to all of my other readers; I tend to dwell in eight hundred fandoms all at once, so my focus is rarely in one place.

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what the story titles mean!

~IronEclipse