Strings and Stars (YouTube Oneshots)

Red (Markiplier)

The Host still dreamed in colour.

That was the one splash of light that he hadn't been deprived of forever. The few fraying threads left from the life he used to live and who he used to be. Part of him was thankful for those dreams. Those colours. He could only see those beautiful hues in memories, and a lot of those memories were good ones.

He remembered the cabin in the woods he used to spend summers in. How the trees were always a cartoon-like shade of green, but the water was a deep, rich shade of blue. The stark contrast between the two always made them marvelous to look at, and the Host would often wonder how two contradictory pieces of nature could exist in such close proximity. It was as if some magic force had swept though that region long ago, dragging a paint brush behind it and filling in the colours, but it had switched colour palettes halfway through the job. Left behind were the stunning consequences of its madness, a forest thought to only exist in fairy tales.

The Host also remembered the old library in the old mansion just outside the town boundary. The owner of the house had been dead for as long as the Host could remember, but the house never sold, and so the town gave up on it. It had been left to slowly deteriorate and rot away, leaving nothing behind but the occasional dusty photo that might've featured it standing proudly in the background. Or at least, that was what everyone else expected to become of it. But not the Host. He saw potential at the very heart of its house, lying in its library, and he wasn't willing to let it go to waste.

The Host had spent countless hours in that library, reading book after book about a multitude of topics, scouring the establishment for as much information as he could get his hands on. He loved it. He loved the dark purple armchair that sat in the corner, the oranges and yellows of that one abstract mural on the wall, and the rainbow of books that decorated nearly every surface. It was beautiful in there. In fact, if he'd been given the chance, he would've never left.

Most distinct of all, however, were the Host's memories of the stars. No matter how many times he'd looked up at the night sky, he could never get over their beauty. Each pinprick of light in the sea of inky blue looked so small on its own, but when combined with their brethren, they were stunning. That simple kaleidoscope of different luminous points in space served as a reminder that the universe was so much bigger than any person on Earth.

Every time he looked up to the sky at night, the Host would to find constellations. He'd physically trace out the imaginary lines, not caring if anyone saw him, and would always smile with content whenever he finished forming the full picture.

Memories like those made the Host miss his sight greatly. He wished he could enjoy them again, just one last time, instead of living with the faint impressions they always left in his dreams.

But there were other memories that made the Host glad he was blind. Memories he'd tried so hard to forget over the years, but that always came back to haunt him.

There was one memory in particular, one colour, that tormented him the most.

Red.

Red was the colour of his guilt staining the walls and their agony painting his clothes. It was the colour of his written "masterpieces" that he could only regard with disgust in the present. It was what ruined his notebooks and pens and that old baseball bat that he'd destroyed a long, long time ago. It was the thing that had dyed the water of that deep, rich blue water a colour it should have never known. It was what damaged the rainbow of books in that library and ruined them for good. It was the last thing he ever saw, right after he'd caught a glimpse of the starry night sky.

It was the colour of who he used to be.

And it might just be his least favourite colour.