No one really knew where it came from or where it first appeared.  It starting showing up when I was just a kid.  It would start with a small little cloud that didn’t move with the wind.  The area inside the cloud would begin gathering dust, a muddy taupe at first, but once it became ‘thick’ enough, it was unmistakably red.  It was a vibrant dark red and gave off a faint glow that was warm where it touched.
Along with the warmth, an irrational sense of dread, anger and fear would creep in if you lingered in the cloud long enough.  Spend enough time inside of these red clouds and you’d begin to carry one inside you.  Inevitably, it would grow and change who you are… and sometimes what you are.
Once you were taken by the dust, you’d lose yourself and head deeper into the “red”.  First your eye’s start to have that faint red glow, then the blood vessels through out the body and finally each breath you exhale has a faint glow to it.  What happens next is seemingly random, but nearly always grotesque.

It wasn’t long before the whole world was taken.  There were pockets of the world that held out, mostly underground, self-sufficient and hidden.  I didn’t come from one of those pockets or even from this world.  I came from before the world was completely taken and just recently woke, apparently I was in hibernation or comatose.  What I do remember, is that I was taken running from the edge of one cloud, only to run headlong into another.  I’m told, that at that moment, it looked like I had exploded into a redder shade of dust briefly before disappearing in to the larger cloud of dust.
The thing about that memory, of me running at all… well it comes from a dream, one that I’ve had time and again.  Or maybe, this is… this might be the part that’s a dream.  It doesn’t actually matter.  What matters is … what matters … what … … The red.  It takes from you and it gives.