Pain is Red
Title: Pain is Red
Fandom: CSI:NY
Characters: Adam Ross
Prompt: 011. Red
Word Count: 263
Rating: PG
Summary: The moment he discovers that pain is red.
Author’s Notes: I don’t own anything you recognize. Any infringement of copyright isn’t intended. I’m making up all this stuff about Adam’s background, so don’t steal my ideas or my private angstyAdamUniverse.
Pain is Red
Red haunted him late at night when the lights were off. The reverberation of his neighbor snoring across the hallway faded out into dreams. The faintest of crackling noises cut through the quiet whir of late night Staten Island traffic. An exceptionally loud sound, left eye pops open. Another loud crack, there goes the right eye. Head lifts slowly off the pillow and it feels like his brain is rushing through his head and out his toes. He remembers - bad cold, so Mom told me to prop my head up - then realizes that he can’t smell something he should be able to.
He can’t think what it is, but long legs pop out of bed anyway. A voice in his head, tells him that it’s dangerous to test the metal door handle with his palm. When he cautiously touches the wood with the back of his hand, reflexes pulls it back to his side and then the pain comes. It is red. His tired ninth grade mind is confused, then the voice pops another piece of advice at him: fire escape. Fire. Oh, I’m in a…
He turns and runs at the window, now aware of the heat radiating from the inside walls of his room. Unlatching the window, he thanks the voice - if he had tried to open the handle in the usual way, he would have burned his hand, and then he would be doomed. The word repeats itself with each downward step of the large fireman holding Adam going down the ladder. Doomed, doomed, doomed…
He wakes up.