Writing Championships #5

Purple Protags

Stress hugged her knees to her chest, staring out at the world dully. For once, her vision was silent and clear. She was tucked in the corner of her skull base, the white walls stretching around her. The bland color was a refreshing change against the splashes and spurts of rainbow that coated her vision daily.

Stress was special. That's what people said. 'Oh, I wanna have chromesthesia, just like you! Seeing sounds would be so cool, how does it look?' Stress could never answer their questions the way they wanted her to. Truthfully, it was normal to her, so she didn't care about the vision half of her problems. The people made up the second half, though, and she could do nothing about them.

Just earlier that day, Stress had been minding her own business when she came across a shulker box under the tree she had built. It looked out of place, and she was immediately suspicious. She couldn't remember the color now, but at the time she had almost missed it against the streaks in her vision as sounds echoed around the shopping district.

Now she had no idea what the time of day was, but she had the feeling she had been sitting in the same spot for a while. She was overwhelmed beyond belief. The Resistance? HEP? She knew a minimal amount about them, and she didn't like the idea. She had been keeping her distance, until now, when it was unavoidable. Didn't she have a choice? Couldn't the Resistance members look away from mycelium for a single moment to think about her?

She could hear someone flying over, from the fact that small spurts of green were in her vision, and the sound of fireworks that were blaring in her ears.

"Stress? Are you here?". Grian. The boy with a sunflower yellow voice. She looked over at where she heard him, a smile on her face. "Grian! What are you doing here?"

His reply was simple, yet it scared her all the same. "I saw you were upset, so I wanted to play you some music." There were thousands of messages that ran through her mind. But, at the same time, she didn't want to be rude.

"Sure, what is it?"

Grian smiled, pulling out a music disc, before putting a jukebox down.

The music began to play.

She put on a strained smile, as to not offend the boy, but on the inside she was cringing as the distasteful music was the colour of vomit.The music hurt her ears more and more as the track went on, she didn't want to say anything but eventually she knew she had to at some point.

"Grian? Can I... speak to you about your music?" She uttered quitely, the other nodding in response. She went on to briefly explain about her chromesthesia.

Stress made up her mind right then and there to never be ashamed. From that day on, she would block out all of the jeers and all of the laughter and she would dance along to the music that only she heard. As long as the sun shines, she will listen to this music, and won't ever stop it, or let it stop. Stress stared out at the sunset, as Grian flew off on his elytra, finally she felt happy. Happy to be alive.

Score: 9.5 (Spectator Favourite)