The world didn't die in a bang. It bled out, one color at a time.
I still remember the last time I saw 'Red.' I was five years old, clutching the hem of my mother's crimson saree. Then, like a failing vintage film, the saturation began to leak from the sky. The deep blues of the ocean turned into a dull charcoal, and the vibrant greens of the forest faded into a ghostly silver. By the time I turned six, the world was nothing more than a funeral of grays.
They called it "The Great Fade."
Eighteen years later, I stood amidst a crowd of a thousand gray souls, waiting for the gates of the Elite Academy to open. Everyone wore the same expression—a hollow, rhythmic indifference. In a world without color, emotions had become a vestigial organ. If you couldn't see the warmth of a sunset or the heat of a blush, why bother feeling them?
"Kaisen," a voice grated beside me, sharp as a razor.
I didn't turn. I knew that voice. Zyro. He was leaning against a monolithic stone pillar, his dark hair falling over eyes that seemed even darker than the monochrome world around us. He was the only person in the orphanage who never looked at the gray sky. He only looked at the shadows.
"You're still looking for it, aren't you?" Zyro sneered, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. "That mythical thing they call 'Hope'."
"I'm just looking at the rain, Zyro," I replied, my voice as flat as the pavement. "It's all gray anyway."
"Liar," he whispered, stepping closer. "Your eyes... they don't reflect the gray. They're searching for a glitch in the system. But remember, in this academy, a 'glitch' is just another word for a target."
The massive iron gates groaned open, signaling the start of the entrance ceremony. As the crowd surged forward like a slow-moving ink blot, a sudden gust of wind swept through the courtyard.
I stopped. My breath hitched in my throat.
There, in the dead center of the monochromatic sea of students, I saw it.
A flicker. A spark. A violent, beautiful anomaly.
A girl was standing near the fountain. She wasn't gray. Her silk hair caught the light in a way that defied every law of physics I had known for eighteen years. To everyone else, she was just another student. But to me... she was a burning, blinding Crimson.
My world, which had been a silent gray prison, suddenly screamed with a color I had almost forgotten.
"Who is she?" I breathed, the words escaping before I could trap them.
Zyro followed my gaze, his eyes narrowing, but his expression remained unchanged. He saw only gray. "That? That's the Director's daughter. They say she's the coldest soul in this entire city."
I didn't hear him. I couldn't. All I could hear was the sudden, violent thumping of my heart.
The color of her silence was the loudest thing I had ever heard.