Amethyst Genesis: Bleeding Ruby

Blood Rose.

Hal was dozing off to the lulling sound of the engine. Only be jolted awake by the sudden stop of the vehicle. Hal rubbed his eyes and stretched only to notice he was sitting at a table. The air was painted by night, and he was alone in a warmly lit pub. The establishment was empty, and it was just him inside, sitting by the table near the window. Rain tapped the window, but it was pitch black. 

"Hey." A familiar voice said while tapping Hal's shoulder. Long white strands of hair graced his presence, there a woman was, Hal couldn't remember despite the memory being there, as if he couldn't recall who she was. Her lustrous empty grey eyes wooed Hal, but he was offput by her for some reason. She wore a cheery grin, with a plaid red and black shirt and blue jeans. 

"Congrats on that project, I figured I'd find you here." The woman said presenting him a beverage in a glass. "Who knew a boy from the Shags could've made it this far."

Hal confused decided to play along. "I myself couldn't believe myself either." Hal chuckled, "How did others react?".

"I personally disagreed with your solution. It was a stretch, a gamble, too many variables. Yet it worked." The woman grins as she reached her hand across the table. Hal pays no mind and just drinks his beverage. 

It displeased her, a tinge of anger slipped out of her face. Hal noticed it and slowly stood up. 

"It's late, I outta head out." Hal chuckled to himself. "See ya later." Hal said walking out. The woman sits back and sighs as he walks through the night.

The outside night air was familiar, Hal wandered aimlessly through the streets looking up in the air; the vast spread of stars hypnotized him. Memories faded and was replaced by surrogate ones. He was a man who went to engineering school. He moved to the city, from a town dubbed the Shags, a risk taker. Hal forgot about what happened in the events of the week before. Hal was in a lulled trance. His subconscious struggled to maintain his self, but it served no avail. The world presented to him felt genuine. Hal was lost.

He lumbered to his apartment, fiddling with the keys as he walks in his home. But it wasn't his, was it? The furnishing, the placement and the floor plan, all the way down to the dust imprints on the shelves. The confusion was absorbed by memories, they felt at ease.

"When you view the world from a human, does your perspective change? In the eyes of the everyday man, do you still think the ways you do?" An alien voice crawls into the back of His mind, it wasn't a thought of his own. He looked behind him, tracing the voice to a cupboard in the dimly lit kitchen. Hal grabbed a lamp and slowly walked towards the shelves and opens the door, it opens up to an abyss, an empty black space.  With no other choice he crawls inside the depths. His size being no burden to the fit, Hal manages to fully enter the dark space, he looks around the depths. He notices in the distance a blue light flickered, shimmered and waved. 

The source was a koi swimming, flapping its fins as if they were floating ribbons. It swayed its dress in the cold depths and each feathery movement was smooth as silk. Hal could only gaze at the lullingness of the koi, he walked towards the figure with the same mind of a fish being snared by an angler. He was lost in the dance. One flap covered the fish entirely, the white curtain enveloped its full elegant frame.  But when its dance stopped, so did the loss of memory.

The fish disappeared as the flap reveals a woman dressed in white, along with the same patterns of the koi. Her eyes were closed as they were covered with gray silver hair.

"What I'm trying to ask, Slothful one. Do you know the consequences that will unfold for the common man, even just for a second?" The girl says booming her voice as her eyes open with a vibrant violet.