ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

28: I'm Colourless

28 Ella

Every time I wake up, I begin to think I am becoming increasingly asleep. Today, I decide I cannot bear to get out of bed. I feel eyes on me, and I don't know whose. If it is his, then my body will ignite inflame and burn to the ground. I will be reduced to nothing but the cinders and the smoke that passes with the wind.

If it is her, I fear that worse will happen. Because if she is here but still not here, I fear I might die.

So instead of moving, I let myself sink into the sheets. Maybe if I lie down long enough, my mind will leave me again. Drifting off into a place I do not know, a place I do not remember. Where the living people are. For you see, I was born a corpse. This body is a shell casing for something that use to be in here. I can feel how light my head is. It is a barren field.

I used to know something. Something very important. That is why the smoke man has chosen me, and that is why I should feel guilty for leaving the violet girl behind. I have disappointed us all.

"Are you going to lie there all day?"

The voice belongs to the brunette. It is her eyes and no one else's who stare me down. I don't want to look at her regardless, because more wandering eyes can't be very far behind. Perhaps if I continue to lie here, they will leave my skin.

I know what it feels like to be stared at, and I will be damned to live here for the rest of my life of I let people like the brunette stare at me until every inch of my flesh is memorized in their minds.

Perhaps I can pretend I'm mute. I know I've spoken to them before, replied in ways that confused them more than enlightened them. It won't work. Another alternative is pleading insanity. Which is ironic, because my head is the clearest in the whole Glade. No matter how much I try, I can't help them.

So instead I lie still and pretend I can't move a muscle. In front of some predators, it is best to keep still. If you don't move, they can't see you. Leo is not a dumb animal, but I don't think she is as persistent as she would like to be.

I am right. She gets up and moves out of the room. When I think she is gone, I still can't manage to peel myself off of the bed. Why must I be like this?

"If you need anything, let me know." I hear her voice call out from down the hall.

It finds its way into the room, relaxing the air. Of course I can tell her anything. That doesn't mean she will listen, nor does it mean she will believe me. Why would she? I know that her whole world is a fabrication. It would be easier, despite it being cowardly to hide out in the lies. That's why my thoughts are so dangerous. They could tear apart the very fabric which her entire existence is built upon.

Would I want to do that? Honestly, I don't think I actually care.

It's easier to hide out in your thoughts.

The words tint the air purple. The gas that fills the room is normally translucent, but her colour slowly tints the space. I am trapped in a violet haze. Soft and warm, the feeling is much like her arms. I long to be in them again.

She is gone, though. And she is right. Here in my thoughts, I can hide and pretend I am breathing her in. My violet girl is separate from the air, no matter how I wish she was here with me.

Once, she whispered me her name.

I can feel the blood trickle down my face. It sprouts out my nose, and it takes everything I have not to scratch the itch and find her name. It's stored in a filing cabinet deep in my brain, like the rest of my memories. Ever since I got here, the cabinet has been locked. When I go to retrieve a memory, I have to smash and break open the cabinet. It's not worth breaking in to get her name. Any other crumb of information I would leap at the chance to discover and saviour.

What does her name matter when I don't even know mine?

You are still hiding.

Not from the truth. I am being sensible, sitting here in this room. I have bled out of my face for however long I have been here. I have lost sense of the time since I arrive. When we first popped up, I remember the clock counting on the time. One second, two seconds, three seconds. I could tell the difference between 30 minutes and 27 minutes. 30 seconds and 27 seconds.

Of course now I know it doesn't matter. Time is not a concept I have to deal with here. As terrifying as it is, it is the truth.

No it is not

What would you know? Violet girl, you are gone. You have never breathed in this room. For all I know, you have not breathed in the years we have been apart. I doubt you even recall me. Of course I do not remember myself, but you would not know my skin if you saw it with your own eyes.

I wonder if you saw me as a colour. If I were one as beautiful and magnificent as you. Though there could never be such a thing, I can always pretend it is possible. I know it isn't despite how much I wish it would be.

Everyone here is a colour. Almost all of them grey. They stem from the Smoke man, who spews off clouds of grey, ranging to near white to near night. All of the boys share the shades, though each differs from one another they blur together unless I am thinking directly about them.

The leader is a grey that bites. His is sharp and steady, never changing or shifting. It holds him together instead of puddling around him at his feet. When he is near the colours, he absorbs them like a black hole.

The boy I saw in the forest is easily tinted. He is grey like old cobblestone. His grey is cloudy and it billows off of him in waves. Easily mixed in, I more often than not find hews of blue inside of it, even if I don't want to.

Even darker is the boy who is in charge of me. He is the colour of slate. It could be because he doesn't talk, and secrets wash in him and dirty the blankets of colour that surround him. It's not like a brick wall like the leaders, nor is it like the cloud that is on the Runner boy. His grey is solid yet flowing. It defies gravity and all laws, and I imagine that if I were to reach up to him, I could unbutton it and drag it off, revealing the colour below.

The medics share shades that are so close to one another I cannot tell them apart. It's hard, because the more boys I think about, the less I can distinguish their colours. The rest of the Gladers I have not been alone with.

Except for many of the girls. Even if I have not been alone with them, their colours radiate off of them. Blue for the adventure and the sky that lives at the tips of her fingers. Green for the support and rationality that stands beneath her feet. Red for the fire that burns in her blood.

Three colours for three girls. I have none.

You are yellow for the sun set that may set but the stars that live on past it. One day, we will see the sun rise.