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The walls are white.
It’s not hard to figure out, when you have working eyes and the walls are your only companions besides the ceiling and floor and Stella, sometimes, but most of the time red drips from her throat and her chest and Simon can see her face twist into something horrid, chunks taken out, muscle visible, distorting, glitching, please save me-
So Stella isn’t a great companion most of the time, but that’s fine! (It isn’t fine, it hurts so much when he sees her die, die, die again, begging, SCREAMING, trying to breath but failing failing failing , I’m so sorry Stella I know I’m useless I’m so so sorry please, stop dying, stop stop stop stop stop-)
It just means he has more reason to stare at the room. It’s a simple white, almost blinding, and any other color is hard to come by besides the brown of stray dirt.
Everything in this room is soft and inoffensive, nothing to use for any murder purposes. (He’s tried. He’s tried so many times, to escape, to go back to Stella, “Don’t you know, I’m right here?” She smiled, outstretching a hand. “Follow me!” Her color was so welcome, even though her face twisted into something dark and ugly when Simon couldn’t escape, failed again.) It’s a stark contrast to the piercing pain of electricity, stabbing at him, the hot-cold so overwhelming, he thrashed, tried to control his movement- and then he passed out, he would always pass out, to the tune of the doctors’ grating laughter.
Everything about them grated, from their blinding white lab coats to the restraints that dug at his skin to the insults they would hurl at him as easy as breathing, to the echoing laughter whenever he showed any vulnerability, useless, weak, recalcitrant-
He couldn’t discern any of them, and the words would blur together as he passed out, yet again to the clashing screeching hot-cold that hurt hurt hurt-
Simon wouldn’t remember, but that was fine, because it would happen over and over and over again, the same treatment, the same pain that hurt fiercer every time, but he wouldn’t know, would he?
He missed Stella, and her being gone was like ripping his heart from his chest, still-beating, and being in this place that repeated and grated was like taking away his lungs, too.
When he saw her again, it always felt like inhaling after holding his breath for so long that black would start to overtake his vision. Everything about her was soft, but full of color, nothing like the false safeness of his room. She was so animated, so happy, so kind , something he would never find here.
In comparison, pacing here was like everything was dimmed, monotone. There weren’t words to describe the easy friendliness she carried with her everywhere, or the fun they had together, dancing and singing and laughing with easy wit that gleamed in grey-blue eyes. Any time Simon had with her was always nice, even just sitting together at the edge of the island, dipping toes into shallow water as she hummed.
She was so, so beautiful, in everything she did. Nothing here was beautiful. He could see her, calling out, as he was drowning in this place, and he stretched out a hand but nothing.
Nothing.
Without her, in this place, he would never be whole. He was rotting, here, in this place without true color, as the doctors laughed at the disease that was overtaking him.
In that moment, he wanted to go back to her, where he could hear her tinkling laughter again and her full color would seep into the world. (He wanted to die. He begged for it, needed it.)
(“Let’s go back!” She skipped, cheerfully, happiness present always, beckoning.
“Follow me!” He could see the silk fabrics that he worked on for days spin in a flurry of colors that matched her so well. ‘To Heaven,’ was the logical conclusion to that sentence. Simon didn’t care though, almost reveled in it: he would go anywhere she went, even if that was to a choking noose or freezing water or a burst of crimson staining his hands.
He would die for her, will die for her, and so he smiled, for the first time in forever.
Simon would be reunited with Stella, again. Simon would die, and that only added to his joy.)