To be bathed in a sea of emptiness, graced with the presence of red and…

The red light was his anchor.

A curse of immortality, so to speak. It kept him here, prevented his complete and total assimilation to the numbing sludge of dark emptiness that had enveloped this dimension, that was this dimension. Light, red light, red beautiful light that kept his body together. He loved it. Hated it. It was all he had, and he was all it had.

Robert Scranton shivered, nonsensical mutterings filling the nothingness around him in a way that made his voice felt physically tangible. It was their existence that kept this place from collapsing in on itself, he was sure of it. 0.04 Humes? You could thank him for that. Him and Red. Existence itself depended on their presence, for without them, he believed that there would truly be nothing. There would be no darkness, no pain, no twisting of the flesh no red no movement no air no blood nothing you hear nothing there would be nothing and you can't feel nothing.

How could you? If nothing existed, then there would be no consciousness to comprehend it. No consciousness to pretend otherwise. That was the issue with non-existence. In the empty void, there wouldn't be an eternity of black, mute silence and numbing cold. There would be nothing. Truly, and truly nothing. How could it be?

Robert laughed and tasted blood. It was all he could taste these days, a sickening flavour of uncomfortable warmth and striking saltiness, leaving behind that foul aftertaste that clung to the back of his throat like a thick musk of copper and bile. It was how he tasted, so brashly vile that the taste overrode texture and scent, not that those aspects were particularly pleasing. And no matter what he did, it seemed like he couldn't quite get just the skin…

To think! They were the gods of this world! Their life, their breath, their blood, it was all that made up this dimension, they were everything. And yet, they were in hell. Because the universe was greedy. He'd given up so much, and still, still they wanted more. He knew. They wanted Red, didn't they? They wanted to take his anchor away. They wanted to consume him fully, to kill the golden egg laying goose and eat the entrails.

He moaned as his body began to thrash, a terrible tremor overtaking him as he tried to hold himself together. He could feel it. The invisible tendrils of terror wrapping themselves around him in an attempt to contain him. This wasn't how it worked. He was supposed to contain it, he was supposed to be an observer! This was all wrong, everything here was just wrong. Why was it so hard to move? Why was it so hard to live, to die, to exist? There was a small spark of almost childish anger as he contemplated the unfairness of it all. He hated this place, and yet, it wanted him. It lusted for his existence. Greed.

"Can't, can't, you can't do that. R-Red? They… can't do this to us. No, we'll show them. You… me… We're unstoppable t-together. Just you and me against the fucking world. Because they think that they can get the drop on us. They think that I'll just fall apart… Well maybe I will! Maybe I will fall apart, but I'll just put myself back together." Robert giggled and reached into his body, grabbing a rib. He pulled it out of himself with relative ease and held it up to his eyes, squinting in the dim red light.

"See? I told you, Red." The rib fell through his hand, phasing through his intangible skin and flesh and bones and veins and hairs and blood.

To live as a dead man, trapped in a plane of solitude where Death itself has turned a blind eye, away from the malicious intent of…

█ years, ██ months, ██ days, ██ hours.

"What? What are you saying? Stop speaking nonsense. Red, you're drunk. Red, you're going crazy. Are you okay? Calm down Red, have some food. See? Meat off the bone! It just falls off. Just… f-falls right off, oh my god Red it just falls off why doesn't it hurt it should hurt I need to just fucking DIE-"

"…"

"S-Sorry. Shouldn't lose my temper. Can't afford to lose it, actually, haha. That's… why. That's why we're being hunted. Because we can't afford to lose… anything." Robert sighed and dragged his palm against his cheek, cringing as about an inch of flesh and skin peeled off of his hand and stuck to his face. He coughed twice, two bursts of blood and empty air being expended from his lungs. Did he still have his lungs with him? Or were they thirty kilometers above him? Whatever, it wasn't important.

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"Red, after we get home, I should totally introduce you to Anna… She's lovely… Anna bo banna, Anna bo banna… Just lovely. You two would get along… Yes, you two would be great friends… Anna…"

Robert found himself staring into Red's eye, the anchor, the constant in his life that stood unblinking and bright with its alluring, slightly sinister glow. He reached forward to touch it, arm stretching and thinning in a grotesque fashion. It took a while, but he did. Such a thin layer of skin, spread thin over a league of distance over bones turned malleable… He couldn't even feel the warmth. There were no nerves. If so, why did it hurt so much? Why did Red rebel against his touch with that shuddering wail of quiet agony, rebounding waves of illusion, of something, that pierced through the veil of darkness to strike him down?

To be smote by a god, to be thrust into the inextinguishable flames of…

"Of nothing, right? Ha, I see now. Red… You genius. You fucking genius. I-I love you Red, we're just the perfect pair." Robert grinned widely, a crescent mouth with red teeth and a red tongue and red gums and… "Okay, Red. I'll show you. I'll show you just how much I need. For… Red? Your glow, your words, they're just amazing. When you put the dots together, they form an image… an image of cloth, cloth wrapped around a head. Is that my head? Red, are we getting close? I know you can feel it. The end of reality, where nothing meets nothing."

He wrapped his bony fingers around Red and squeezed.

It was a second of acute agony, a second separated from time and matter and any sort of possible reality, counting down independently from the nonsensical laws governing this dimension, acting purely through willpower to extend itself to monstrous lengths. A single second; yet in the pure abstract void of red, it was millennia. It was the absence of everything and anything, an indescribable sense of pain in its purest form that pulled him from the grave and rubbed salt on his gangrene.

"Red, STOP IT. STOP IT, you're HURTING." Robert said silently. His mouth had melted and folded onto itself, forming an ellipsoid of amalgamated flesh and teeth with the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Somewhere along the line, his arm had been severed, and yet his grip held. And yet, the illusion (not an illusion it hurts it really hurts please listen just listen to me) of pain cast its shadow over him. And yet, he felt it.

Red, his warmth. A soft glow, real heat, unlike the ambience temperature that had remained ever so constant with its blatant lie of warmth over the past…

"How long have I been here for?"

█ years, ██ months, ██ days, ██ hours.

"Hold on Red, I'm trying to think." Robert's grip slipped away and he found himself coming to a stop, wretched body floating listlessly amidst the great gel of void. It struck him dearly that he would have such freedom, such agency over himself. No longer was he bound by strict Foundation regulations, by the rules of reality, by gravity. Even death itself held no power over him, not here. In a way, total freedom had been granted.

Only now, he had relinquished some of that. The freedom that came with his death-defying pseudo-intangibility. He could feel the labour of breathing, he could feel the pumping of blood throughout his body. It was disturbing. A wicked sin made in vehemence, the equivalent of flipping the bird to the turned back of monsters and men.

"But I'm still fucking stuck here. I want out, you hear me? OUT. Ever think about that? Y-You prick, god damn it Red when are we gonna leave? Let me out, please!"

Robert reached into his chest and grabbed his heart. It pulsated strongly against his fingers, drumming loudly in uneven beats as it strained itself against his hand. The high pitched screams of tinnitus filled his ears as a cold sort of burning enveloped his entire body, sending him tremors strong enough that he nearly dropped the beating organ. There was no hesitation as he tightened his grip and pulled it out of his body.

To suffer in a fruitless endeavor, surrounded by bloodshot eyes that stared with…

There was a blinding pain, searing and all-powerful in its ferocity. It had been so long, almost too long since he had felt it, the twisted paralysis overtaking him as his mind struggled to comprehend the exploding neurons crying in anguish. What little amounts of meat and muscle that remained on body drew taut as his veins seemingly doubled in size.

Robert tried to say something. What came out of his mouth were indecipherable babbles.

"Anna, oh beautiful, oh beautiful red Anna. When will I see you again?"

Eyes rolling back slightly, he managed to extend his arm further outwards, and his heart with it. There was a sharp tearing noise, akin to the ripping of Velcro, and then a wrangled mass of arteries came loose. Still, it was not enough. His movements were animate. His brain still worked. He could still see, still hear, still understand that it was not enough.

He became enveloped in a spell of dry heaving, flecks of blood spewing from his mouth as he broke into a fit of harsh coughing. He pulled his hand further away. More tearing, and dozens of thin lines, veins, broke free from his brittle skin.

"oh but it's not enough never enough nothing goes right it's not real nothing is real anna red where are you please help me i need help i'm not strong enough oh god oh god oh god i can't do this I"

He made a feeble attempt to bite the bloodied cords connecting his heart to his body, but his mouth wouldn't open. The strength in his grip ebbed, and at last his fingers opened from their lock. It was dark, but Robert could still clearly make out the image of some sort of mass floating above him, with tendrils of blight and a rapid-fire pulse. Taunting him.

█ years, ██ months, ██ days, ██ hours.

To have a beating, glowing heart…