Chapter Text
The urge to hold a pen, the yearning to feel the ache in his hand after holding it for too long. The absence of the sound of pen on paper, the lack of the scratchy sound leaving a hole in his heart.
The malnutrition, the sleep deprivation, nothing else mattered. Those things he could deal with. He’s dealt with those before. He knew how to cope with that. The lack of creativity however.
The grey walls didn’t leave much to the imagination. There are only so many things you can think about when all you have to stare at is the same shade of grey, no matter what angle the sun was at. At least he could see the sun, imagine being out of the grey cement and in the wilderness, surrounded by trees, fresh air, and bird sound. Imagine watching the sun rise, or set, he couldn’t figure out which was which any more.
The air was stale. The food, when they brought it, was stale. The mattress was stale. The sheets were stale. There was nothing inviting about any of this.
All he wants to do is escape into the abyss. Finally put pen to paper in the way he wants to.
The paper they give him is silent. The pen they give him is silent. The words on the page are silent. They are silent. The only noise is the hum of the grey neon. All he desires is the noises of normalcy.
The ink is the same grey as the walls. His clothes are grey, his eyes might as well be turning grey from the lack of any other colour in his life.
The red of their robes stands out in the normalcy of the grey. He knows what they’re going to ask him to do. That never changes.
After he has completed what they deemed necessary for the day, he goes back into the grey. The grey that never changes. Sometimes he’s out there longer, sometimes it’s shorter. The routine never changes.
When he returns, he wishes there were some other colours in his life. He longs to see green, yellow, brown, blue, pink, white, and every shade in between. Only having one colour when he has seen millions hurts. He will never see grey, or red, the same ever again.
Somewhere out there there is someone wearing green, and yellow. There is someone standing waiting for him.
Whilst he is sitting as small as he possibly can sit on the floor. Knees drawn up to his chest, hands clasped together in front of his shins. The neon pillars in the room emit more grey, a pitiful way to light a room when the sun in all its fiery glory sits outside. But even that is grey. The sky is grey.
He’s seen the sky a different colour. He’s seen the sun a different colour. Everything has at least one other colour in the universe. He cannot see them.
He tried to plead with them, he tried to ask them to leave the cell. Leave this prison. Leave the tower. Step outside, even if just for a moment. One moment, feel the wind on his skin. Fill his lungs with air. They declined him the littlest of freedoms. The isolation that followed this request will haunt him forever. He knows he can survive. Just a little bit longer.
One day they come to him with an idea. No, not an idea. An order. Take what he has written and turn it into a song.
Song?
He can turn his pen into a weapon. Something to change people’s minds. Take them down one by one. He knows that if he even attempted it, he would cease to exist.
What did they mean by song?
Silent pen turned to silent paper, and his scribblings and thoughts went down. He didn’t write just one song, he wrote eleven. He could feel his creativity coming back to him after song two, life coming back into his fingers and hands. The ache was beginning to come back.
The person wearing green, and yellow was slowly going to be a real person again. Just a few more weeks. He could do this. He had gotten through all of this.
How long had it been since he last saw the person in green, and yellow?
The thought of bending to the will and desires of red made him want to protest, turn this weaponised pen against himself, telling everyone he was sorry. Admitting his faults and submitting to this role the red had forced him into. He didn’t want to, but he had every urge to. What if he submitted, let them change him and live a blissful life, enjoy what his life could be.
Why did he have to be different? Why did he have to venture out, why did he have this desire, this urge, this overwhelming, mind splitting, feeling? Only one person can tell him what he is. One person can tell him who he needs to be.
It’s not the reds. It’s not the person in green, and yellow.
The silences are screaming. They want him to be moulded, be this perfect puppet. All he wanted was to forget. All he wanted was more colour in his life.
Not this artificial colour they brought in. Not these neon colours, not these shades of green, brown, blue, pink, white. He wanted the dull colours, the colours that inspired him. The colours that kept him going.
Not this pink. Not the pink that now covered the grey. The grey had taken a backseat, now everything was artificial.
If he tried hard enough he could see through the colour. Have the grey stare at him in the face. He knew it was a facade, he knew they were overcompensating to keep him docile. So he let them believe it. Performed his songs, words that he wrote in that silent room with the silent pen on the silent paper, but now had noises attached to them. They were too loud, too vibrant. Too chaotic, he longed for the silence to come back. It was too much, overwhelming. All he could do was grab his head to try to get them to shut up. Even for a brief moment until someone, one of the reds, looked at him. That look was enough to deal with the pain.
He didn’t know what was going to come after that. He was back in the grey room, grey eyes staring back from the grey glass in the grey wall in the grey cell in the grey tower in the grey city. But his hair was pink.
It was starting to break through.
He looked out the window, the sunrise, or sunset, he still didn’t know, staring back at him. Forcing him to stare until his eyes hurt.
A deep, fiery yellow glimpsed back at him. Like the fires out there, in the dark green wilderness.
He knew what he had to fight for. He had to get back out there.
He wouldn’t let the red drag him back this time.
He was going to see the person in green, and yellow, even if it nearly kills him in the process.