Spectrum

3.1: Red

Pt. 3/10: Red

red

[red]

noun

1. any of various colors resembling the color of blood; the primary color at one extreme end of the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 610 and 780 nm.

2. something red.

The teenage girl gripped the piece of equipment in her hands as if it were a lifeline - which, in a metaphorical sense, it was. A lifeline to her sanity. All her life she had been trying to photograph that color, that saturation, that fiery ghost that haunted her throughout her life, though with little prevail. That's what she called it, the thing. She called it fire, for thats where she saw it most - within the sparks of a raging blaze. And she had seen enough of blazes to fill her life and the next. 

When she was a child, she had woken to alarms going off in the apartment building she had lived in - smoke detectors. The fog had filled her room, almost suffocating her as she gripped tight to her stuffed cat that she had held tight to herself ever since she was an infant. Its ears had almost fallen off, for she held up the ratty creature by them every time she ran between rooms. She grasped it by its abdomen then, however, as her mother ran in to fetch her out of her room, having heard her infant cries. As the pair ran out of the building to meet their family members, a deafening crack and been heard and the roof collapsed. 

A blooming flower was growing on the side of the road, its fiery tip the only thing standing out to the girl against the black and white background. Immediately she fell to her knees to photograph it, almost tripping a nearby jogger. 

"Ey, watch where you're laying, lazybones!" They shouted, but the girl paid them no heed, raptured by the flower. "I said," the runner wasn't going to give up, "watch where you're laying…" 

"I heard you…" the girl said nonchalantly, "the first time. There was really no reason for you to stop and repeat yourself…" the teen stood and brushed the dust off of her knees as she placed the instrument of photography in a bag that she had strapped to her side. "Technically, I should be telling you to watch where you're going, seeing as you tripped over me, and I was laying on the side of the road, out of your way." 

"Tch. I have never met anyone so… rude!" the jogger's voice had a rough cadence to it, and the girl lifted an eyebrow lazily, not wanting to allow this impudent male ruin her day. She had things to photograph, places to be, things to see, not having time for this hellish behavior from such a klutz. "The most you could do is apologize, young lady." Instead of responding, the red haired girl simply walked away, not caring about any of the events that had just occurred. 

She wasn't a very social person, and preferred to keep to herself whenever possible. However, when people chose to speak with her, she had rather rude and barbaric tendencies, shoving them away from her like a plague. Why? 

Because wherever she went, fire followed. 

For many years of her 18 years of life, Copper Williams had figured that the reason why so many of her establishments had been lost to fire was because of their location. She could have fixed it in many reasonable ways, but for some odd reason - a reason she could not explain, nor knew about - she chose to move to a beachside apartment, teetering on the edge of a bustling suburban area. She never figured that the reason for the constant need to move could have been because of arson. All of the places she had lived in had contained rather low crime rates, so she ruled that out at an early age. however, now that she was in her third academy, she thought that things would finally be settling down.