In this world everyone has a color. You are born as what we call a Leukòdi which is a combination of ‘white’ and ‘child’ in Greek. It’s in reference to children being born pale as ghosts and staying that way until one pigment eventually shows itself as they age.

No one knows where the color will appear but It always starts off as a spot before it spreads, or I guess it’s more accurate to say the other colors leukòdi are born with fade until only one remains.

Some kids find it scary, others love to show off their new form, but at the end of the day it doesn’t hurt. Dots of color simply become blotches and you go from a leukòdi to an adult. Most people are fully colored between 21-25 but the reason for our bodies doing this is still unknown. It’s an odd phenomenon that started a couple hundred years ago, though many people can’t believe there was a time before the stain.

I do admit It is hard to believe when you see the pictures. The people in them always look unreal. They were similar to us in a way, they were different shades like we are, but they never ranged as bright as us. They came in tans and browns but no purples or blues, it was odd.

Even weirder was the society. Historians say that at that time, when they were less vibrant than us and people from specific regions came in more shades than others, there were also things called racists. We don’t have those here. There’s no point. You can hate the yellows but your color might change later in life and who’s to say that you won’t become one of them? So I don’t understand our ancestors in that regard but today I related to how they must’ve felt when they met people who were shades they never saw before, because today the world met the first person to ever be iridescent. According to the news they were born 5 years ago and just started to color last month but the kids mother was worried about their color being off and took them to the hospital. Doctors were astounded to find the childs arm gleaming in the light, and the condition was spreading.

I was on my lunch break, chilling on the rooftop of the office as I watched the news caster say all of this through my phone. No color had ever glowed before.

”Now please welcome in Laura and her gorgeous blue mother and father!”

Two parents of the same color were rare and as the kid walked in holding each of her parents hands I noticed that even their two shades were similar. I hummed and pushed my earphones in deeper as I kept watching. Just as the host had said, the kid was gleaming like stained glass in the sunlight, she looked hollow and breakable.I felt pity for her, she was too young to be shown off like a caged animal.

”alright Laura,” said the host as he creeped down to the girls level, “How are you feeling?”

She looked at the man with her hands squeezing her parents, then her head turned to the cameras, then the crowd. We were shocked when she suddenly started crying. Her mother picked her up and rocked her but the damage had been done. The girls voice was heard, her siren song captivated the whole theater and trembled the camera as she wailed. I was affected for a second too but I got out of it somehow and immediately dropped the phone and my earphones went falling with it. The screen cracked at the impact but I didn’t care, I was busy catching my breath. Then I felt how still the world was and I turned around and looked over the edge of the building desperate to find people. They were there, but they were stopped. It was terrifying to watch how piles of people were on the ground frozen in place looking at big screens and phones and tablets. No one moved, and I knew no one could even think to.

I glanced back at the News channel blasting on the side of a building and watched the little girls parents look around at everyone confused. They had made her, they couldn’t be affected, whatever was in her was in them and they were immune. Everyone else was not so lucky and only when the child calmed did people come back to their senses. The news caster asked what had happened and the mother was quick with her lie.

”The cameras went out.” She said and looked at her husband for backup, he nodded but his face was hard and unsure. I kept watching until the little girl went home I noticed that this whole time I had been sweating. I undid my tie and stood up straight with my head to the clouds. I gave it a month before someone died. Her parents were in a grave yard in 2.

I went through so much to adopt her. I went through even more to move with her somewhere else. I knew no matter where we went that there were others who had woken up from her spell and who knew, but they were a small portion and no one ever believed them. I relied on that. I made sure she was safe, she grew up as a kid, and through her experiences I learned that racism had come from the past to visit. People were mean to her, kids bullied her, she used her powers sometimes to make them do things like cut their own hair or run outside naked but I tried my best to advice her not to. We laughed a lot together. I never saw myself as a mother but I don’t think she ever saw herself as a daughter. But now our run is over.

She is 21 now and she still shines. She’s stronger too. And I am on my living room couch with a gun to my head as government officials ask me where she is, and I don’t know what to say, so I smile, because I don’t know. But she is alive and she is happy, and that’s all that matters.

“Then we’ll see her at your funeral.”

I laughed, as if she’d ever make such a rookie mistake. I let her be a kid yes, but when she was 16 I taught her to be a solider. I taught her to hide her shine behind a false color like my dad had taught me. I was born iridescent too but my father smelled trouble from a mile away. He covered me from head to toe so noone would see and he scolded me for being childish pretty often. He was hard on me. But it was because he cared. And with that same love, i taught laura a similar game. She learned to hide, fight and to let go. I made sure she knew that last thing so that she could be strong enough to live with never seeing me again.

Truthfully i wasnt weak, I could fight these guys off easy. I could live if I really wanted to and i would be alive hiding in shadow to make sure her life stays hers, but ive been around. No facade lasts forever, and i am so absurdly tired.

So i will die, and she will read it in the paper, and she will not come, and that’s that. Its time for her to do this on her own.

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Will be updating normally again from now on, after tests im getting back on schedule until midterms🙏🏾