Achromic

Our Special Crayons.

My eyes flickered open and I was greeted with the regular. The sweet, salty scent of the ocean and the white curtain of sunlight blazing through my open window; along with the soft, black fur of my kitten- Jett- brushing against my face.
I rolled over and stretched as the mass of sheets unravelled themselves and fell to the floor.

"Hey, Jett." I cooed softly to him as I slowly tickled his ear. He purred and meowed, clearly satisfied by the affection. Not long after the share of affection and love, my door creaked open. There behind it stood my little sister, Harper, in the arms of my brother- Luke.
Luke grinned at me; my hair was probably a mess and I most likely looked like I could star in a horror movie as the antagonist; so I couldn't say I blamed him.

"G'Morning." He smiled sweetly at me.
"G'Morning."

I sat up and pushed the small strands of hair out of my eyes. Luke came over to me and sat down on the edge of my bed- while Harper struggled out of his arms to give me a 'Good Morning' hug.
"Can you see yet?" Harper asked me with a toothy grin.
I already knew the answer: no, no I couldn't. But I still looked around the room to make sure absolutely everything was completely colourless.

"Nope." I smiled back at her with hope in my eyes; for I knew that one day I finally would.
Wait, nevermind. Knowing my luck, my whole life is always going to be black and white- my eyes will never, ever catch a single glimpse of colour. I guess I'm just going to have to keep asking Luke what everything is like, because that's the only way I'll probably ever know.

"What colour is the sky, Luke?" I asked my brother. He frowned a little on hearing that my time hadn't come yet, but he gladly gave my daily description while Harper and I sat there in awe; imagining the scenery.
"It's... Bright blue and it ombrés towards the bottom, getting lighter and lighter until it hits the sea and it kinda looks like the sea is a glistening, blue mirror. The Sun is shimmering down in sheets of gold, it's almost blinding... There's a couple white boats with little red and white sails, and some seagulls flying around..."
Then he stops for a moment; stares out of the window at a passing boat with longing in his, what I see as, light grey eyes.
"I wish you could both see it for yourselves."

You see, this is the problem about life. You're born totally suffering from monochromacy: not being able to see in any colours except from black, white and grey. You spend your whole childhood and adolescence never experiencing a bright, happy world of colours.
And then you meet your soulmate.
Your soulmate is the key to a remainder of life without monochromacy. You're finally able to experience what you've always wanted- the world how it really is. Not the dark, dull, greyscale version you knew and hated as a kid.
But some people do get lucky, I guess. They meet their soulmate in their younger years, so they get to experience life happier instead of as some super old 1950s movie you would be forced to watch by your grandparents...

Luke was one of those people: he met his soulmate when he was about six. A pretty- no, absolutely stunning- girl with perfect hair and a speckled face. Her name was Aubrey Jaxx.
From what Luke has told me: her eyes are shocking orbs of hazel, edged with forest green; and her hair mousy brown with flecks of gold. I can tell she's beautiful, but she must be even more stunning with colour.
Luke always said it was the best moment of his life: meeting Aubrey.
He and I (he was six, while I was four) were running through the park and Luke managed to fall, scraping his knee. He was covered in blood and tears from the pain of the collision with the hard ground, hoping someone would notice him. That's when Aubrey came in.
She was playing with her friends nearby when she heard Luke crying. She saw him and immediately threw down her dolls and came rushing over. As soon as they made eye contact, that was it. Bam. Their whole world lit up and they no longer had to live in the dark.

What makes everything even better is- Luke is almost seventeen. And guess what? They're still together and just as strong as ever.

Harper, well. She's only six now; the age Luke got lucky. She, like me, lives life in greyscale. All I hope is she doesn't end up like me: fifteen and still no speck of light.

I looked over to my open window- which still granted a strong, sweet but salty breeze which cooled and freshened the air.
"I wish I could, too." I sighed.
Harper looked up at me, then at Luke.
"Why can Luke see but we can't, Bailey?"

She asks this every day. She's still young and so confused about the whole soulmate situation, even though we remind her every day when she hits us with the question.

"You just haven't met your soulmates yet." Luke began.
"Aubrey is my soulmate, she gives me colour so I can see the world properly. One day, you and Bailey will meet the person who makes the world colourful and you're gonna love them just like I love Aubrey."
Harper still looked a little confused. I wanted to finally make her understand what she needed to.

"The world is just a huge colouring book full of lots and lots of pages which are all joined together to make one big picture." I started to explain to her. Maybe this might be easier for her to understand for a change.
"There's somebody out there in that big colouring book that is the crayon to your world, and everyone has their own special crayon. When you find your crayon, the world gets coloured in so you can finally see properly."
Harper began to smile at me and I guessed that she finally was starting to understand.

"Aubrey is my special crayon, and I'm Aubrey's special crayon. Bailey has a crayon and she's somebody's special crayon. You have a special crayon and you are somebody's special crayon. Get it now?" Luke smiled along with us. Harper nodded.

She started to climb across to sit between me and our brother, Jett curled up in my lap while I scratched behind his ear carefully.
"Where's my crayon?" Harper asked us.
Luke and I exchanged looks. We couldn't really answer that because we didn't know, nobody knew.
"Somewhere out there, I promise. One day you'll find them. So will Bailey."

Yeah, I'll find them. Of course I will.
I thought.
You've got more chance of seeing me dancing naked infront of the whole of Devon while standing in the middle of the sea with a dozen seagulls perched on my head.

Luke glared at me, a smirk spread across his face.
"Even if Bailey the spoil sport thinks otherwise."
He lunged towards me, pulling me down and tickling me while I squirmed and squealed like a child.
"Stop! Luke, stop! You know I hate being tickled!" I managed through giggles and thrasing my arms and legs around.
Harper joined in with the torture of tickles and Jett started to paw at me to add to it all.

I love my family; but I wish more than anything in the whole, wide, grey world that I could see them- and everything else- in more than just the dark and boring old style of a 50s movie.