A World Without Colour

03 | ophelia

"And when we go crashing down we come back every time,

'Cause we never go out of style."

–Style (Taylor's Version), Taylor Swift

I was a genius.

Yes, me, Ophelia, smartest person in the world, had made a choice. To refuse Casseopia's offer to stay at the 'Nightwatcher Mansion', was an entirely possible decision for me to make. I wouldn't have had to negotiate with Solis and everything would have been perfect! Right?

Ah, but as we've already established. I. Was. A. Genius. The pros of staying overruled the cons––as getting to know the rest of the Nightwatchers was easy access to information, which would help me with my plan to break into the police station and figure out how to escape this eternal darkness.

That first night was the strangest of my life. Wandering around the building proved to be a dangerous decision (the mansion was huge) and it also earned me odd stares whenever I walked past someone. They weren't the only ones in shock, however. It seemed nearly impossible for me to be seeing everyone in monotone for the next few weeks. The only colour was that of the mansion itself. Stained-glass. Paintings that must have been done by the Nighwatchers themselves. One wall was even covered in hundreds of handprints, each a different colour from the next with names written beneath them.

"Sweet idea, isn't it?" a cheery voice said behind me. Jumping from shock, I turned to see the most beautiful girl in the world.

Her hair was an extremely light shade of grey, almost white, and it cascaded in long waves down her shoulders to her waist. Her milky white skin was covered in blemishes but her wide smile made her look like a greek-goddess. She might have actually been glowing.

Her eyes were what shocked me most.

Bright blue.

"I don't know how it happened either," she shrugged, as if reading my mind. "But hey! I guess that means we're in the same boat."

I nodded, suddenly shy for some reason.

"I'm Aurora," she held her hand out for me to shake. I took it. "Cass probably mentioned me. You can call me Arie, or Rora, though. I don't mind."

"Oh, um, nice to meet you," I said, finding my voice, "I'm Ophelia."

"Nice to meet you too, Ophelia!" she beamed brightly, "do you wanna do yours?"

I tilted my head in confusion.

"Your handprint," Aurora explained, "we all do ours on the first day. See? There's mine up there," she pointed to the icy-blue handprint on the wall, with her name beneath it in swooping, sloping, cursive letters. Before I could say anything, she whipped a paint palette out of her bag and handed it to me.

"It's...empty?" I mumbled, "where's the paint?"

"Just put your hand flat on it, then on the wall," she said, practically jumping up and down from excitement. "Trust me."

Unsure on whether this was some sort of prank, I did what I was told. After placing my hand on the empty palette, I brought it to the wall, beside a sunset orange handprint.

"Hey, this one says Solis's name on it," I noticed all of a sudden.

"Yeah, he just had his turn, I think Neo's showing him around now."

Nodding, I placed my hand right beside Solis's, and when I removed it, I could have screamed.

On the wall was my handprint. A mixture of blues, pinks, purples, greens, oranges, reds, every colour you could name on this planet was in my single handprint. With my name beneath it, in my exact handwriting.