Red

A short story about a girl and her metaphoric journey inside herself after a heartbreak.

And all she could see was red. It looked like blood, but one could never be too sure of anything. Her eyes weren't closed; she was alert and awake. That was perhaps what perplexed her most, the crippled vitality she felt.The color seemed alive as well, rising and falling, beating and banging. It was palpable, like she could reach out and touch it, wrap it around herself like a blanket. The last thing she remembered was sleep. And then nothing. 
Silence stretched on as she puzzled over the peculiar redness. Vibrant, stark, crimson, but lighter, brighter. 
And the hands came. 
All around her. 
Ripping and tearing at the red until the color was severed, exposing instead a boxy gray. 
She found herself in a room, a small one, bare except for a lonely chair and a fluorescent lamp. It was cold decoration, creating an atmosphere of austerity. Something more existed outside, but the walls were stronger than force. 
The girl approached the chair cautiously, surprised at its seeming comfort at this distance. She sat down, temporarily blinded by the fake light. 
And the hands came again, a voice with them as well.
It echoed off the walls of the small room, resonating deep within her, "Ah, yes, that's all right, make yourself comfortable." 
Confused, the girl decided to prolong her silence. 
"My goal is not to hurt you, and yet I succeed in doing only that," the voice continued in a regretfully caustic tone. "I see your heart, and I have fractured it." 
The girl was puzzled. How had this voice damagd her if she was almost certain she had never heard it before? 
The voice let out a sigh and the room breathed. The hands moved in a frenzy, colliding with the others and slamming into the walls. The girl felt it; she felt all of it, and yet it was not physical pain that exhausted her. 
She felt the bareness, the crashing, the destruction. She heard the breathing, the beating, the choking sobs. The crying was animal and true and the girl could not bear to hear it. However, the harder she closed her eyes and ears, the louder the moaning became. And she realized the sobs were coming from her mouth, somewhere deep inside her, somewhere deep inside this room. 
The sorrow consumed her, embodied her until she was sorrow, undefinable without it. 
The room could not contain her any longer, and it exploded into red again, oozing and pumping into all parts of her. The hands were savage, shooting like fireworks in all directions and she was at the center, the broken heart of it all, inside of herself. The sobbing prolonged, dry and noisy, releasing all the anguish she felt. 
And with that anguish came the realization that her heart was a cold cage, red and severed, and she was dreaming and living at the same time.