I've had a fascination with these types of buildups, especially ones like Jujutsu Kaisen 0: Jujutsu High, that help to introduce characters and history that feature in the actual story quite some time later. Think of Red as something along those lines.

That said, this was not the intended message for this note. Red was originally designed as a PDF, and as such, it contains certain stylizations that could not be conveyed over to Tapas. As an original piece, it was designed to read as a stream of consciousness, with no decisive distinction between the entity (the stein) and the boy. Yet, I had used different fonts for either, so that it is better to make a contradistinction when need be. For instance, the first chapter of Red is told entirely through the entity's POV. Hence, it comes off as archaic, verbose, and needlessly complex at times - signifying an inability to properly express oneself.

Similarly, the first half of the second chapter is told in a manner that it can apply to both the entity and the boy. Who the narrator is is left ambiguous, and thus, you, as a reader, must make the decision. Who is it? Who do you think is talking?

When we reach Viscera, it is told entirely as a flashback that the unnamed boy is experiencing. Hence, even the computerized tone of Professor Montgomery, a key player in the future of the series, might itself be because of how dry and dense he came off to the boy. Lastly, in Apogee, the first half is told through the boy's perspective, yet the moment Red is first mentioned, the subsequent dialogue is that of the entity. I tried to signify this with (change), but it is possible that some might not have picked up on it. The entity continues to speak, and the next change in voice is encountered in "For. They. Used. To. Say". My intention there was to show that both the boy and the entity were repeating the same words, uttering the same complaint, almost as if they were synchronized - the lines once more being blurred.

This leads me to the final "Red". It was Montgomery, who, observing this debacle unfold in front of him, could not help but describe what he saw and what was being conveyed throughout the prelude. This isn't fixed in stone, since it was purposefully written in both bold and italics, which were being used for the entity and the boy earlier, so there's a chance that this was all three of them becoming one as object, subject, and observer. The fate of the other two, as well as the details in between, is for you all to piece together until the narrative decides to bring them up. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy what is to come. Have a lovely day/night!