The Queen

Chapter 10

 

I groaned. "Seriously? I already can't escape you during the day, and now you're invading my only personal time."

Purple had the biggest smile on his face, obviously proud of something.

"I did it," he beamed, looking at me expectantly.

I could feel the glare on my face, but it wasn't making any impact on him.

"Well..." he continued to look at me with his joyous expression.

"Well what? Let me sleep." I crossed my arms.

"Glad to see you don't lose your feistiness with consciousness." He rolled his eyes.

"ha-ha." I said, depleted from all amusement. "You interrupted something that could have been important." I turned my back to him finally taking in my surroundings, compared to the complex scenery I had just been in, this was entirely bland, washed from all color, and had nothing that would make it stand out, it was as though we were floating through an endless white void.

"You're dreaming," he said as if it wasn't obvious, and still wore an accomplished smile.

"Yes, and you're interrupting it," I shot back.

"No." I couldn't crack his smile in the least. "I control it."

I wasn't entirely surprised, I mean Isaac had told me earlier that Purple had been working on trying to dream walk, but I didn't think he would actually be able to accomplish it. While I was happy for him, I made the resolve not to show it.

"So give me a little color!" I exclaimed.

His smile faltered, but I only noticed it because I was trying to make it disintegrate. "I...I can't yet. But I'm working on it!"

It then became obvious to me that standing here (wherever 'here' was) trying to crack his smile, was no use with the serious inflation he had done to his ego by being able to accomplish this.

"Look Purple, congratulations, but this is the first sleep I've had today that wasn't from fear or stress or any other cause that makes me pass out, so I was kind of looking forward to...I don't know... maybe actually sleeping!"

My attitude seemed to finally penetrate his smile and he realized that I was tired as if I hadn't been telling him that for the last seven exchanges.

"Oh, my bad." He still beamed at me with perfect teeth. And with that, as though he flipped a switch in his mind, I was returned to the safe darkness of my mind, only to find out, it wasn't safe at all.

I thrashed and twisted all night in the beautiful whiteness, but it didn't provide heavenly relief. It only entangled me more in my mess of ever crowded thoughts. Everything I would learn here would be new and exotic. They were depending on me to do...I don't even know what.

When the sky became painted like a piece of artwork we were told had cluttered the earth long ago, I sat on the end of the cliff to watch the colors become more vibrant. It was beautiful, I decided, also starting to question why we would want to eliminate color from our lives. Purple, Isaac, and Rae would probably all tell me that it was because they wanted everything to be in their control. To have color would allow us to think about that thing with color. While we did have color back in the Realm, these were a brighter more lively shade of everything. Everything in the Realm now appeared to be to the extreme. Extremely dull or lifeless, or extremely vibrant and harsh.

I had to be up at least 30 feet, and the resting hush was beautiful. It was pure silence. There was not a hum anywhere, no birds chirped, no crickets sang, it was as if all of the world was taking this resting moment to drink it all in, and prepare for whatever chaos would become bestowed upon them with the rise of a new dawn.