1 The red

In between worlds and in between voids, there existed a colour—one hued with conceptualization.

Love hate war rape murder.

Red.

It was something that touched the globes that glowed with a light that would be unknown. It was red.

"IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! PAIN! PAIN!"

"I WILL KILL YOU!"

"HE WILL. HE WILL. HE WILL NEVER LOVE SOMEONE LIKE ME!"

"WHY DO I LIVE? WHY DO I THINK? WHATISWHATISWHATISWHATISWHATIS?!?!?"

"Why do I still keep going?"

"What is it that can't be seen?"

"It's your fault."

"Sinner."

"Murderer."

"Why do I live to suffer?"

Endless. There were endless voices. Voices as broad as humanity and as wide as infinity. They filled this redness. In fact, some might say that the redness was the voices.

And floating within all that was a man. A man with a calm face and a trumpet in his hands.

Every now and then, he would play a little ditty.

"Isn't the world coloured by colours and hues that can't be hated?" The man asked himself as he floated in the red.

"Isn't reality great? Aren't the gods eccentric?"

The man played a little ditty on his trumpet.

"Why do we walk when our feet hurt? Why is it that despite the sapient's propensity to pain, we still pave positive paths? It's quite a ponderious thought. That despite being built to break, we stay unbroken."

The man played a little ditty.

"We stand in the face of gods. And spit at their feet! We stand in the face of love. And SCREAM! Do you not feel the need to ponder it?"

The man played a third ditty.

"To be placed in pain. And yet, find a way out of the game. How could things be that way?"

The man played a third ditty.

"What I'm saying is this. How do we stand when what was becomes what is? How does one escape the chains of their brain?"

The man degenerated into a trumpet solo.

The redness spoke.

"THERE IS ONE SUCH MAN! CHAINED TO HIS BRAIN! LET US TELL THE STORY OF HIS GAME AND HIS CHANGE!"

And then it all shifted.