Did you think turning another page would save you?
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The colours, were they back once again? Did they bring me to a new world? Or was it the old one?
I opened my eyes. Or did I close them?
I was in the streets of the village. Again? Hadn't this happened before? No, this is new.
I rise from the brown, lifting into the unseen. I must continue.
The message… it must be delivered.
I must stop. The ritua–
I must continue.
I walk, one step after the other. Colours surround me, trapping me. All colour is confinement. Only black is free.
The huts decorate the streets, their colours an audience to me. They know what's happening.
But do you? You need to—
I continue to fulfil my role.
A man walks up to me. He opens his mouth.
Sounds bleed through me.
It must stop.
My arm shoots forward, grasping his.
I wrench back,
SNAP
The voice cuts through me. His screams.
The scream enters my mouth like smoke. It doesn't taste like fear. It tastes like memory.
A new colour appears
Red.
A beautiful colour, better than the rest.
No.
The screams stop.
I walk over the body of the man, his mouth still open, his face wearing an expression of pain.
You see what's happening, don't you? You know what must be done. DO IT.
I continue once more.
The end is near, but it's still only the beginning.
A crowd of faces forms on the sides of the street.
It's not real.
Only black is.
The faces change. Their skin slides off their bones. Yet they still stand, a smile printed onto their faces.
I tried to warn you. It's too late now.
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3 years prior
I walked, my friend by my side.
He was skinny, malnourished almost. But he was the best friend one could ask for.
We sat together in the wooden cabin, the dusk bleeding orange through the cracks in the walls.
The hearth crackled. The windows fogged.
Outside, the wind clawed at the trees.
Inside, the candlelight held it back.
"My brother took my doll," he muttered. His lower lip trembled, eyes wide with injustice.
I leaned in. "Did you hear about my father's doll?"
He looked up. I grinned. "His brother stole it too. But Father loved that doll, treated it so well, it learned to punch.
One night, it crawled into his brother's room and socked him in the face.
Ran straight back to Father. No one touched it again."
"Did that really happen?"
I shrugged. "No, what did you think, idiot?"
He burst out laughing.
It was times like this I wish lasted forever.
"I'll never leave you," I said. Even if the dark eats the world."
"What if the dark isn't bad? What if it just wants someone to talk to?" came the reply.
But the black is perfect.
And for a second, everything was still.
Then the wind changed.
But the black doesn't talk.
It doesn't need to.
It just takes.
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The air is still now.
The screams are gone. The colours too.
The scroll waits.
I don't know when I came back here. Back to my room. Or what's left of it.
There are no walls anymore. Only the scroll. Only the silence.
I kneel.
My hands don't shake. They should.
But it's warm beneath my fingers. Familiar. Like skin. Like home.
It's been waiting for me.
Waiting for me to return.
And now… I'm here.
I dropped the scroll. But in the mirror, I hadn't. I was reading.
I peel the scroll open.
The ink moves.
The same symbols as before.
The ink on the scroll crunched like bone as I read it. The scent of burnt hair hung in the words. My skin itched where the vowels touched it.
But this time…
This time I understand
The message has been delivered.