Scarlet

“The room fell silent. Profound loneliness began to seep in from every crevice, vent, doorway, like a red flood filling the room soaking Raf’s feet and rising up his legs. He set his cigar on the edge of the table and pulled the clear vial from his pocket. He held it up to the light. Inside, the sparkling red powder tumbled over itself as he tilted it. The last of the Scarlet. As far as he knew, it was the last in the world. No one knew that he still had the final few grams of the beautiful, cursed technological miracle that had taken Chelsea, the only girl he had ever loved. The only girl he could ever love. The night she took the Scarlet and was taken to her death, to a horrible alternate reality, would always be a scab in his memory, waiting to bleed at the slightest touch.”