Canvas, paint and a world of possibilities all lay before Arthur Talbot as he breathed deeply in a sort of meditation, calling upon his creative energy. He was a painter by trade and by passion, one of such remarkable skill and vision that he could create near-masterpiece works effortlessly. Today he felt particularly filled with power and imagination, and with his fingers trembling slightly in excitement, he dipped his brush into a glob of red paint next to him, and went to work.

He could feel the brush becoming a part of him as he did so, his spirit extending out and entwining around each hair of the tip, engulfing every drop of the paint. He breathed out deeply as he prepared to spread a little bit of himself across the paper, filling it with a little drop of his essence from that well of his that never seemed to dry.

As he streaked the paint on, however, he struck a sour chord. He felt a significant twinge in his core and snatched the brush away. Looking at the painting, Arthur saw that he hadn't applied red paint at all, but by some accident had used grey instead. He cursed mildly and wiped off his brush. Looking down at his pallet, he saw that he hadn't even put any red down to begin with, but had instead been working from what looked like the shimmering dull guts of some juiced slug the entire time. As he leered at it, something about it disturbed him greatly, causing him to flinch away and wipe it off of the pallet. Taking special care to make sure he squeezed out a healthy dollop of red, Arthur again dipped his brush in and went to work.

Again a sour chord, again that cursed grey paint. Arthur forced himself to examine the colour on his canvas this time. It was a dull grey that actually seemed to go beyond the boundaries of actual colour entirely. It was a shade so lifeless that it didn't just lack colour in the sense that black may, but it actually seemed to be the antithesis of colour itself. Gazing at it felt like looking into nothingness, and actually losing some of what you started with in the process. It tugged at his soul and depressed him slightly, and with great effort he wrenched his eyes away from it.

Crumpling up the piece of paper he'd used for a pallet to remove any chance of further confusion, Arthur reached for the red and squeezed it out of the tube. He felt slightly comforted as its vibrant nature tickled his eyes, which further heightened his shock when, inexplicably, all the life visibly drained out from it right before its eyes, rendering it that dull grey.

Arthur backed away, and tried to convince himself that it had been a hallucination. As he did so, however, some quality of the grey slowed his flight. Something about the nothingness enticed him. Perhaps it was the fact that as he looked at it, he felt a part of himself being sucked away and diminished until it was destroyed, and he simply moved with those bits of himself as they were taken away. Perhaps it was that as he looked on, any ability he had to make himself WANT to look away was diminished. All the while, as the grey trapped him in its hypnotism, he felt something in the back of his head, some voice that remembered the importance of his soul screaming at him to drag himself a way, and he continued to ignore it.

With his head screaming, and the grey drinking him in and lapping him up, Arthur felt a final tugging at his soul. He was almost gone now, and in a mad final frenzy, the vestiges of his humanity forced him to leap away from the enchanting ink, stumbling in front of the bathroom mirror. Freed from its draw, he began to shake and grabbed the sink to keep himself from falling, as his soul entered its death throws, crippled beyond repair by his crushing ennui. Trying to make himself feel again, trying to make himself care, Arthur clawed at his face, drawing blood.

In that pain he felt rage, and that rage quickly morphed into ecstasy. He could feel again, the pain had given him back his passion, and as he looked at his bleeding face he smiled. Blood trickled down his face, and he could taste its coppery taste and feel his cuts screaming, or maybe singing. He felt that he had saved himself from a fate worse than death, more grisly than any pain he could ever encounter. This feeling evaporated quickly, however, as the red of his blood turned grey.