pretty like blood on sand

Mochi prowled along the black sand beach, the unnatural red light overhead, even at her best approximation of what should have been sunset, set the stones to glittering like rubies. Like they were drenched in freshly spilled blood.

She kept to the water's edge, the waves occasionally creeping up to swirl around her toes, the undertow eroding the sand from beneath her paws. It felt like she was barely clinging to the surface of the world. It seemed fitting somehow, at the seeming end of days. She paused for a moment and looked out over the ocean, her fox calling an alert somewhere in the distant dunes. Mochi only deigned to flick an ear. If the world was ending anyway, why bother being on guard?

"speech"