Haruhiko paused outside the house, hearing the door close behind him. Here, away from the streetlights, the world was claret. It was like living in a darkroom. The crimson light made his eyes itch and ache, it felt like he was always straining to see things. He carried on, the clock in the back of his head prodding him into action and reminding him that he had an abortion to perform.
Out on the streets the arc-lamps washed much of the wine-dark daylight away. He shook his head, marvelling that it could be early afternoon and still seem so dark. The sun, a vast crimson ball with a roiling corona, hung overhead taking up easily a third of the sky. He raised a vermilion-tinged hand, hailing a taxi, and slipped into the back seat. Closing his eyes, he remembered what the world had looked like before the sun had abruptly and catastrophically gone off the main sequence.
Less blood, he thought. Now it seemed that everywhere he looked there was blood. As though people didn’t want to live here any more.