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(4) Bright Green

Pov: ???

Location: Somewhere in the Overworld

Wc: 1056

The world was desaturated, tinted purple by the visor covering his face.

He remembered waking up and trying to look around, but the details of the space around him were lost, not sticking in his brain.

He wasn't sure where he was and despite the earlier failure to comprehend his surroundings, he decided to look around again.

He was lying on the floor and grabbed onto a handhold next to him, pulling himself up.

As he grabbed onto it however, it turned out to be the drawer of a shelf, opening and almost making him fall over.

He caught himself and glanced behind him at the shelf.

Turning around to face it, he looked inside the opened drawer. Inside were two things: a shiny lavender silk cloak, and a single object buried beneath it.

Taking the cloak out of the drawer, he folded it and put it to the side. Leaning back to the shelf he pulled out the previously buried object.

It was a mask.

Or at least it used to be.

It looked like it once would have fit over a face perfectly, covering the eyes and nose. But now it seemed to be broken in half.

It was a solid ivory porcelain, with a lavender symbol similar to a broken rectangle engraved on the front.

If you looked at the mask from the left, it seemed perfectly intact (minus a few cracks), but looking at it from the front you could see that a large section that would have covered the wearer's left eye was completely broken off, the cracks and small remaining piece of the side's top the only indicator it was supposed to cover both eyes.

The mask felt odd in his hands, seeming to hum with a magic he wasn't quite sure he could trust.

It made his hands tingle as he held the mask, the cold object leaching the heat from his black fingerless gloves.

A voice seemed to whisper in the back of his mind, telling him to put the mask on, nudging him to trust it.

He nearly did put the mask on, zoning out for a moment until he was reminded of the visor he was wearing, blocking him from putting the mask on.

It wasn't just a visor, it was a full helmet, the base of the helmet seeming like some sort of gas mask and a darkly tinted purple visor covering his eyes, bathing the world in a deep violet.

As far as helmets went, it wasn't the most uncomfortable. But it was still a bit awkward having it on and shifting around it.

He didn't want to put the mask on and carefully set it back on the shelf where he'd found it, wanting to get rid of it before he was tempted to put it on again.

He looked around and spotted a mirror on the opposite wall.

The mirror was cracked and a large chunk had broken off two of its corners.

He walked over to it and looked at the person in the mirror, the cracks distorting their image.

They, or he rather, wore a set of desaturated green armor and tall dull brown boots, coming up nearly to his knees. The helmet he wore was a smokey gray, looking even more like a gas mask from the outside and sporting a trio of switches with labels he couldn't read along the right side.

Or rather, that's what he saw at first, before realizing the purple tint of the mask was what had desaturated the colors, and the switches would be on the left side of the mask, seeing as he was looking in the mirror.

Derp.

While looking at himself in a full suit of armor was cool and all, he still didn't really know what he actually looked like, the helmet blocking his face and visor shifting the colors.

He raised a hand to the base of the helmet and felt around for some sort of clasp, finding it and unhooking it. He pulled the helmet off his head, a slight sound like a vacuum ringing in his ears as he tugged it off.

Looking into the mirror again he studied his face.

He was tan and had quite a few freckles dotting his face.

He had poofy brown hair and his eyes were a vibrant sapphire, fading to shades of violet around the pupil.

He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and froze as spikes started to line his throat.

Clearly the helmet had been some type of gas mask, and without it the normal air was heavy and warm, grinding at his throat like sandpaper and filling his lungs like molasses.

He quickly grabbed the helmet back and shoved it over his head, the filter kicking back in and allowing him a few shaky breaths.

The colors without the helmet had been too bright, the vibrant shades forcing his eyes to adjust too quickly. With the helmet back on he closed his eyes for a moment and just focused on taking deep breaths.

He stood there for a moment, leaning on the shelf. His fingers twitched slightly toward the mask and he quickly yanked them back.

As his head cleared he started to become aware of how sloppily he had shoved the helmet on his face, scratching himself on the cheek and hitting his head.

It had worked while he panicked, allowing him to breathe. But now that he was coming back to his senses, the helmet started to hurt.

And it wasn't helping him breathe.

When he had panicked he hit his head, causing the helmet's filter to crack. and while it was still helping for the moment, it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Eventually after a few moments it almost completely stopped working all together, the helmets enclosed space becoming suffocating instead of cool and filtered.

His vision started to darken as he quickly tried to take off the helmet, its presence only making his head hurt more.

He ripped it off and it clattered to the ground next to him.

The colors were too bright.

The world was too bright.

It burned.

It burned.

Bright.

Bright.

Bright.

Bright.

Bright!

He was barely even awake, not even noticing as his hands reached for something behind him.

Hardly noticing as something dark covered the blinding lights.

Hardly noticing how it only covered one eye.

Hardly noticing how suddenly

It wasn't bright

Posted: 12/5/23