There was a veil of red. Red deeper than the Marianas trench. Red with wider vicissitudes than life itself.

It was red. The red of pain. Of blood, of hate, of war. Of chaos.

It was the red hidden within all of the most remarkable life. It was the eternal red.

This red covered the vision of the human.

This human was named John…. Turner. He was the one who would turn things around.

What is this?

John could think no further. That gateway was shut.

.....

Within the air, there was the scent of napalm, shit, spilt blood. And tears.

On the ground, there were charred corpses, Rats. And mud.

In the sky, there was. Planes, fire and darting drones.

Walking through the ground were massive mechs. They towered twelve feet into the air and had two wide mechanical feet slapping into the mud. They looked like a machine gunner resting back into a grinches poster as he sent bullets flying towards his enemies. Rolling through the ground with these mechs were massive blocky mechanical tanks. They shot large shells from their barrels that would cripple any mechs near them.

Although they were typically crushed or shot to death by a mech moments later.

A star-spangled banner was painted on the tanks and mech on the left side of this battlefield. And on the right side was a maple leaf.

The sky vs. the earth. It was Gaia vs the heavens themselves.

It was a battle that no man could take part in. Only heaving titans that were made from metal and bled gunpowder and their conductors could be included.

So then anyone would be baffled when they saw a man standing in the battlefield.

He was fat and So tall that his height resembled a tanks.

Rather than having any guns in his hand or anything else of a lethal nature. Instead, this man held a trumpet.

This man had a beard with dark grey hairs that descended to his chest. His face seemed to be permanently twisted into a scowl of agony, and his body was covered in scars.

Clothing this man was a large white tracksuit with many maple leaves sloppily drawn onto it. The tracksuit contoured his body and made him appear even fatter.

The man brought his trumpet to his lips and began to play a tune.

I'll dance till I die. And I'll play until reality tells me a truth that's also a lie… I swear I won't cry.

With a swagger to his step, the man began to add to shimmy to his shake as he walked into an active war zone.

RATATATATATATATA!

Bullets darted through the air around him.

The trumpet's sound rose. It sprinted up a hill of notes to reach the climactic finish.

FWIP!

And as the climax was reached. A bullet gingerly fell into the man's chest. And another not-so-gingerly cracked his brain.

He dropped his trumpet and fell to the ground.

The sky was filled with bullets. And the ground was filled with brains.

Those brains glowed with a redness deeper than the Mariana trench.

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"To all those who are watching... To my audience." The man paused to gurgle blood.

"My name is Clyde Turner. And this was my song."

His eyes closed. He was dead.

Wasn't he?

The world shifted as it fell down a rabbit hole.

...

Dark. It is darker than black. Light. It was lighter than yellow. Green. It was greener than envy. Red. it was, and it would be, for it was a mind.

It hurts. This mind said.

It's all it could say. But it could still say more.

It hurts. Thinking hurts. Being hurts. I hurt. Others hurt. That is the adjective. That's the word. The verb, the noun, the thought, the feeling. Regardless of what you say.

It hurts.

The wind hurts. The sky hurts. My eye hurts. To cry hurts. To not cry hurts as much as not hurting. Which also hurts.

The hurt is pushed up to a thousand Herts. It's all there is—the cycle of hurt.

One minute, it hurts. The next, it spins around and hurts again.

Am I insane? Or is life just pain?

What do I know?

After all….. I'm just a brain with no brain.

Then, there was a shimmer of something. Something deep red.

The brain reached. It reached as far as it could as hard as it could.

And it found something to hold.

.....

Bullets flying. Missiles exploding. Bodies imploding and mechs deloading. Within the mud. Around all this. There was a man.

A man holding something made from pure gold in his hands. It was his trumpet.

Where his skull had been shattered, there was red. And where his heart had been pierced. There was also red.

Within his hands was a trumpet.

I'll dance till I die. And I'll play until reality tells me a truth that's also a lie… I swear I won't cry.

He walked with a swagger and put a shimmy in his shake. Today would only go one way. The good way. The right way. Even if that way was the fight way.

A faint red aura covered Clyed as his music climbed the hill of notes once more. There was only one thing they could reach.

The crescendo.

RATATATATATATA!

The crescendo was reached. And bullets fell. But the one that was supposed to reach his skull just broke. It condensed until it was flat from its power and fell to the ground.

With a bullet in his chest, Clyde walked forward. There was a swagger in his step and a shimmy in his shake.

RATATATATATA!

The bullets fired.

This time, there wasn't enough red.

Three in the chest. Two in the skull.

And then Clyed fell.

....

The colour of Death is. Repeated five times.

And then there was pain—the pain of a game that was always lost but always played.

It was the pain of a dead man.

But this dead man had agile fingers. And he knew what to reach for.

His golden spear. The one that would pierce god.

Forgive me for my sins. But I just can't stop.

And bullets were flying.