Red

Red.

Red is love.

Red is passion.

It’s luck just as much as it is danger.

Red is the warning before the fall.

It is the colour of heat, of life rushing through veins, of the world at its most alive.

But red is also the final colour. The one that stains, that lingers, that does not wash away.

It’s pain. Corruption disguised as progress. It’s as much heartache as it is heartwarming.

Eliza would learn this in time.

At first, red was only a word to her, something the doctor described in hushed, reverent tones before the surgery.

“Red is warmth,” he had said, his voice steady but distant. “It’s the sun on your skin, the ember of a cigarette, the flush of excitement. It’s the colour people notice first, the one they remember.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to see.” She whispered.

She had imagined it then, tried to piece it together from sensations alone. The heat of a summer sidewalk beneath her fingertips. The burn of spice on her tongue. The pulse in her wrists when she was nervous.

But nothing could prepare her for what red felt like.

Not until she saw it for herself.

The surgery was a success. The doctor told her it was just a waiting game now. In time, she would be able to see—every colour of the rainbow.

“I want to see red,” she had told him.

The first time she saw red, it was gentle.

A rose in a glass vase by her hospital bed, its petals curling at the edges. The colour reached into her, unfurling something deep in her chest—warmth, wonder, a strange sort of recognition. This was red. The colour of love, of passion, of life.

She touched the petals, expecting them to burn.

They didn’t.

Red was not fire. Not yet.

There was a note, the letters familiar yet foreign, but beside it was another in braille.

Get well soon. Can’t wait to show you the world.

Ivan.

She smiled. He had always been there for her—her oldest friend, the one who guided her through the world she couldn’t see. She traced his name with her fingertips, warmth blooming in her chest. He was so sweet.

She had no way of knowing, not then, that red had already begun to change.

She learned the colours slowly. Blue was the sky outside her window, stretching endlessly beyond her reach. Yellow was the sunlight spilling across the tile, soft and golden. Green was the first thing she wanted to touch—the leaves of a potted plant, cool and alive beneath her fingers.

But red… red was different. Red felt different.

It was the lipstick on the nurse’s smile, the fabric of the scarf a visitor wore, the numbers on the clock that told her how many hours had passed since she first opened her eyes. Red was everywhere, waiting for her to notice.

She did.

She noticed how red clung to things, how it refused to be ignored. How it pulsed through the world like a heartbeat, steady and unrelenting.

How it watched her.

How it waited.

Ivan visited often.

He was there when the bandages were removed, red flowers in his hands, his smile wide and unblinking. He was the first face she truly saw. At first, he was just Ivan, familiar in a way that comforted her. But something was different. His touches lingered. His voice softened when he spoke her name.

At first, she thought she was imagining it.

Then, she wasn’t.

It was the way he hovered too close, the way his hand brushed against hers and didn’t move away. The way his gaze burned when she talked about seeing the world—without him.

She tried to set boundaries, gentle at first. A shift in body language. A step back when he leaned in. But Ivan did not step back. Ivan only stepped forward.

One evening, he brought her another rose, deeper in colour than the first.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he said.

She smiled, trying to ignore the weight of his stare. “Thank you.”

“I mean it. I’ve waited so long for this. For you to see me. For you to see… us.”

Her stomach twisted. “Ivan—”

“Don’t say it.” His jaw tensed, his knuckles going white around the stem of the rose. “Not after everything. Not after all I’ve done for you.”

There it was. A shift, sharp and irreversible.

She pulled away. “I’m sorry. I just don’t—”

The rose snapped in his hand.

Red petals scattered across the floor.

Ivan did not yell. He did not plead.

He only smiled, lips stretched too thin. “It’s okay, Eliza. You’ll understand soon enough.”

The first time Eliza stepped outside alone, the world swallowed her whole.

The city was an assault of colour. Billboards screamed in blues and yellows, neon signs blinked erratically, buildings loomed in shades of brown and gray. She turned in circles, dizzy from it all.

And red.

Red flashed everywhere. The tail lights of a passing car. The bright letters of a shop sign. The jacket of a woman rushing past, her scarf fluttering behind her like a flag of warning.

Red. Red. Red.

She walked, trying to focus on anything else—the gray of the pavement, the green of a traffic light—but the red followed.

She felt it before she saw it.

A presence at her back. The faintest whisper of movement behind her, too deliberate to be chance. She stopped. The footsteps behind her stopped too.

A chill crawled up her spine.

Eliza turned her head.

Ivan.

His eyes were dark, empty of warmth.

“You shouldn’t have left.”

She staggered back. “Ivan, please—”

His hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. His grip was tight, unyielding.

“I just want you to see.”

The glint of metal.

Then red.

A neon sign above a doorway, flickering. Its glow painted the sidewalk, stretching toward her like reaching fingers.

Pain.

Sharp, searing.

Red bloomed.

Not the warm red of a rose. Not the soft red of lips. Not the vibrant red of a city pulsing with life.

This red was darker. Heavier. The kind that stained.

The kind that didn’t wash away.

Eliza stumbled, the world around her blurring. Red smeared across her hands, dripped onto the pavement. She had wanted to understand colour, to feel it.

Now she did.

She felt red.

And it hurt.