ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

16: I'm Drowning

16 Ella

Red hair melts away as the girl with the colour is put in a dark room. The room they put us in when we got here. The Walls were grey, much like the Glade, the boys here, and the smoke man.

"You know you can't escape." He whispers the words over my ear, and the sound sends chills down every corner of my body.

I can feel his shoulders leaning against mine, and his stubble tickling my shoulder. His greyness swallows me whole, and I try to concentrate on the garden. Nothing can protect me from the clicking of his white pen, nor the words he writes on his white page. It is impossible to see the ink on the paper, and for the longest time I thought he was writing in invisible ink. Secrets that he can look at later.

The smoke man has secrets, but not ones that he feels the need to write down. He sees and remembers everything. In his skull is a constant video feed, and when he is done talking to me for the day, he plugs into a computer and downloads all the information.

No, he writes with his white pen everything he already knows, because the smoke man knows everything. As grey as he is, there is no room for grey in his life. Grey is faded and distant, and it is how he wants me to see and feel. It is why he puts me here.

He writes in white because the world only exists in two colours, black and white. Only he chooses to ignore that which does not suit him. The black is something he does not see value in, and I have black skin.

"You can't ignore me."

No, but I can keep trying. He surrounds me and fills every crevice of my body until I am nothing but smoke and white. My body was not built to hold him, nor all that he encompasses. There is too much to him and all the people he shares everything he knows with. As much as I pretend the smoke man is the only one watching me like a rat running around in a Maze, he is only an instrument in the bigger plot. He is only part of the smoke, and he obviously isn't all of it.

Whatever is watching me, and whatever is watching him, and whatever is making the both of us into little rat-nosed people, is certainly wicked.

My brain hurts as I think, and I drop my shovel into the dirt. It's not going to serve me well if I keep trying to discover what is going on. Though I don't care. If the smoke man doesn't want me to do it, I am going to keep searching until I am dead and buried.

"I am always here, Ella." He has his arms wrapped around me, as he absorbs me into his stomach.

I am drowning in his lake, which he has measured to the millilitre. Even considering the amount that evaporates per second, the smoke man has considered every possible variable. It's just enough water inside him to make the water reach just above my head. Even if I tilt myself up, my lips will only graze the surface, and there is nothing that I can do.

Here, he has given me the illusion of a choice. The smoke man wants me to fight and to battle with him, and he wishes for me to try to defeat him because he gets power in making me struggle. I am just so close to breathing, and to seeing the truth, but I know that no matter what I do, I will always be drowning.

His arms strangle me too, holding me in place. I want to scream, and I want to cry, but I can't even manage to open my eyes, for the water and the light behind it stings. It breaks away at my skin, and there is nothing I can do to stop it from hurting.

I open them anyway, because I know he wants me to hide from the world.

What I see is the Garden. I am still drowning, and he still has me in a frim hold, but I am also free from him. Unfortunately, liberty comes at the cost of clarity. He will let go of me if I let go of the truth, but he fails to comprehend that the truth is buoyancy in the lake he holds me in. Everyone else is drowning but doesn't know. At least I am close enough to salvation that I can see it.

I would give up anything for clarity, and freedom is simply a cost that I spend with ease. I have never known freedom, so it makes no sense for me to trust it to hold me up. Besides, everyone else only has the illusion of freedom.

Everyone else is drowning too, and only I know it.

I stumble forward, as my head rings. When I spin around, I can finally see him. He has not let go, but he lets me breathe for a second.

Or maybe I force my own freedom out of his white hands.

"No," he hears me, but he says nothing.

Instead, the water begins to pool in at our feet. It sinks up around us, until it reaches my knees and my hips. The smoke man wants me to look down. He craves my screams and wails, and he wishes for me to beg. My lips are nailed together, and my eyes are attached to his. I am not letting go.

"Sorry?"

Both our heads turn together to stare at the boy who keeps me. He digs through a flower bed, glancing at me over his shoulder. He must have heard me talk, but I can't speak again.

My head ticks as it rotates back to stare at the mirror image of the smoke man. When our eyes meet, I realise they are the same colour.

I stumble back, landing in the tomatoes behind me. His has broken away from copying me, and he steps forward. His eyes tilt around his head, and the mechanical gears that control him grind together as he moves closer to stare at me. Every move is calculated, and every glance is preprogrammed. He has all the power, and I am a puppet of a girl.

"Curly?" The gardener stands up next to the boy, glancing down at me in a lucid motion.

He doesn't realise it because he can't see the smoke man, but the two stand the same way. In a way that they are watching me and trying to figure me out. From the outside, it is impossible to tell that the two boys have different intentions.

The keeper breaks free of the hold he shares with the clouds, leaning forward to offer me a hand. I can't take it though, because then his grey will get on me. I need to keep the little colour that I have, although the smoke hand has made sure that almost all of it has been washed out of me. If it were to rain, then I would lose everything I have.

I simply need to concentrate on something, anything. I search the ground and the gardens for every colour.

Next to my hand, in the dirt, grows a plant. A flower, not planted by us, rises up and out of the soil and blooms. Small but mighty, it fights to survive despite all the odds that are stacked against it.

I take the flower in my hand, staring at its deep purple colour.

Once there was a violet girl

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, I love this. The words, the feel, and the everything. Also, sorry for disappearing. I was in another country and forgot my USB with all my writing on it. But I did attach a moodboard for Ella. So maybe this will make up for it?

Until Friday (yes its coming early because I feel bad), stay alive.