Aria adjusted her headphones and looked out the window, her eyes glazed over and faraway, as the static steadied her thoughts. She wasn't exactly looking for memories at the moment, but was abusing the static-- as one does-- to keep her mind in a sort of metaphorical limbo. She wasn't in her past, but she wasn't in the present either. The static held her in it's sway, her mind numb to her feelings-- her body numb to the world around her.
There's a sort of dissonant ambient noise when you're in your memories. That's how you can tell its not real-- that it's only in your mind. Though the static has a way of confusing you, even still. That's why most people don't fuck with memory mufflers anymore. Aria only has a pair of muffs from the 90s ‘cause they were her dads. Big shock the alcoholic would have a set of mufflers, right? Well, now they’re hers to trip with.
Aria feels the static in her chest, the warming buzz radiating through her body. It's a psychosomatic feeling-- one of the least deadly side effects of the technology exacerbated by the substance abuse of choice passed father to daughter along with the muffs, alcohol. More bad habits on top of other bad habits.
The past weekend replays itself in her mind's eye as the muffs attempt to do what they're designed to-- even without a screen in front of her, the static blurs the edges of her vision.
There was a district in the City, they called it the 16ths. There was a club— the Colors Club, to be exact. Then there was a girl, and they called her Red.
Red was the best of the Colors you could get. Selling herself, a fantasy— along with a couple drinks, a couple pills, and red dye number 3.
And everything was fine. She was dancing, she was smiling. She was laughing, she was crying.
And she was fine.
**Updates every Sunday**
They Call Her RED: It is the beginning, but also the nihilistic end, of one teenage addict’s attempt to find happiness in the late-stage capitalist hellscape that is the year twenty-nineteen.
All this and more conveniently compacted into a cyberpunk comic told from the perspective of the girl with Red hair— armed with only a deathwish and the cigarette between her lips.
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