Finn - Gunshot
Red. All they see is red. The blood on their hands as the gun falls. The growing pool beneath their shoes as their lover laid before them. Bloodshot eyes, a gaping hole right on their trachea. A blow to the neck, snapping the spinal cord.
Red. Red on their hands. On their chest. On their thighs.
Wipe it off, the red. On the white walls. On the jeans they adorn. On the old sweater they should’ve burnt years ago. But red lingers. It just grows, sticky and pervasive and—
It itches. Like static and grass. Blood shouldn’t itch, should it? Or perhaps it always has itched and no one told them. How nauseating.
How would it taste?
(Red, red, red. Like poppies and velvet. Like the ants that crawl in their heart.)
Laughter bubbles at their throat; a raspy sigh escapes. C’mon, I’m not that insane.
Or maybe they were. Why else would teeth bloom from their fingertips. Or perhaps they were always there, just like how grass should thrive underneath their skin.
But is it that wrong to have a taste?
Perhaps it isn’t. What is meat but tissue and what’s tissue if not cells? So cells must be food indeed.
The ants are getting antsy, it seems. Perhaps they want a taste of the red?
It must be sugar, then. Blood and sugar. Blood sugar. Must be sweet, they reckon. So sweet it burns like wax and acid.
Ah, but that’s how it tastes, doesn’t it? Like honey and burning sugar and cavities.
Cavities. What do cavities look like? Oh no, are the dropping teeth a sign of cavities?
The ants are racing again, their knees fell. Teeth. More teeth. More red. More.
Rot. Static. Grass and poppies and honey. Teeth. Why are there teeth? Why are they red?
But are they red? The walls are white, aren’t they? But they’re the same shade as the floor! So it mustn’t be red. Yes. It’s not red. Of course. The teeth are white and the hole is white and—
The gun. Is it white? No it’s not. Ah. Perhaps that’s what’s red. Of course.
Perhaps that’s what they should’ve ate.
(They wake up to sweat dripping down their forehead, and hands too clammy to feel real. The room is cold, and their old sweater is suffocating. Their throat feels awfully bare.)