Seeing Red

Red.

It wasn't that he was ungrateful, being able to see without destroying everything in sight; no, he couldn't be more happy to feel less like a danger and more like just another new kid. It was just that, well...

Everything was red.

Slightly red, at least.

Scott blinked, once again testing the impossible theory that closing his eyes and reopening them would alter the tint of the ruby quartz lenses at all for perhaps the millionth time.

Or perhaps he was overestimating it a little.

He didn't usually mind red—in small increments—but this? It was just...too much.

The sky, once crystal clear and blue as the oceans, now looked almost violet in color; the trees, normally green and lively, now looked black, plain, and almost deathly in the shade; even the other people looked wrong—everything was simply...off.

A hand reached towards the glasses, and he couldn't help but adjust them again. It had become habit—one he was pretty sure wasn't going to go away any moment soon.

How else but through memories could he remember the golden rays of the sun, the purple bushes of lavender petals, the white piles of snow?

Would they all, one day, become red? As red as the lenses that created a barrier not only between his optic blasts and the rest of the world, but himself and the world.

An invisible barrier, setting him apart, tinted red.

His eyes scanned the campus, from field to court to garden. Red-tinted students threw a red-tinted football, a red-tinted dog chased after a red-tinted squirrel, and a red-tinted sky grew darker as the sun drifted towards the horizon.

Soon, everything would be bathed in a red light, and Scott would not be alone.

Except, when he closed his eyes for the night's sleep, he would not wake to find everything bright and white again. No, everything would be red. Like always.

And yet, there she was.

Red, but not because of his glasses.

The color of fire, but not because of his glasses.

Seemingly glowing, but not because of his glasses.

No, she was just red all on her own.

Soft, curling red hair fell in curtains past her shoulders. Smiling red lips laughed in response to something else tinted red. Blushing red cheeks lifted as her whole face seemed to take part in the smile.

And it made him feel red inside.

Not an angry, hateful red. Not the red of war, or the red of blood. No, this was a welcoming red. A red that curled up inside of him like a giant house cat in his stomach, and made his fingers and toes tingle. A red that could convince him that, perhaps, if things had been different, and he were in control of his own power, that just looking at her would have made things burn in that same, red hue. Just one look might have got him...

Seeing red.