Warning One-Twelve [Peter Ballard, 001]

002 : Patience, Patient.

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

  You let the pads of your fingertips run across the colors on the wall, sitting cross legged on the tile floor. The surface of the concrete wall was smooth, uncomfortably so. Too perfect. To pristine. You had a thing about that, things too perfect in your mind had something deeper to them, covered up imperfections. People, objects, anything. If nothing was perfect- the things that seemed  to be were always hiding something deeper, something they don't want to front. Ever since you planted this idealisation in your head, you have made sure to have something around you imperfect at all times- familiar.

Human.

Something you hate to remember you don't see yourself as.

  It was the same with the primary colors that your fingers were connected to right now. They were the main colors, common knowledge for anyone. They were a starting point, a base- once again, familiar and strong. Other colors were unpredictable, endless, but those three always remained. Like a safety barrier.

You only allowed your hands to run over those colors, despite the rainbow in front of your eyes.

   You had been in this place before, it was familiar, yes. throughout your years however, you had discovered there were two types of familiar. The warm, fuzzy nostalgic feeling-

  And then the one that let your heart sink till it felt it had left you, exited your body and left you there emotionless. Like memories you have wanted to bury, so far into the ground where light could never reach, leave them to decompose and become forgotten. This was that type of familiar.

  Nothing about this room has changed since you had last stepped foot into it. Or more accurately- escaped from. The florescent lights still brought immediate migraines, the tile was cold, colder than anything you could imagine to fit the description of cold. Nothing would define it. It was freezing, but not only in temperature. Funny, you thought how words rarely only had one description. You wondered if that was true or not, defining a lot of things, not only words.

  The room, though stuck in a standstill since you had last laid your eyes on it- differed to you. It was common knowledge to you that you looked far from what you did since you were here last. You were older- and your hair wasn't shaved, But it remained messy. Not unkempt, just not fitting the category of perfect either. You liked it that way. You also were not dressed in nothing but a hospital gown as you once had been. Instead, a white button-up shirt replaced the gown you had grown to hate, scratchy white shorts, and a black leather belt. The uniform of an orderly, and not an experiment. You knew these clothes didn't define you to the people in this lab, they never would. They would always  see you for what you once and still were. a guinea pig. A test subject. an experiment. But you had asked for them, demanded for them- it gave you a sense of freedom.

"Ouch- fuck."

   You had been too enthralled in your collection of thoughts to notice how quickly you had been absentmindedly rubbing your fingers against the concrete- as if your fingers were sandpaper in attempt to erode the surface. The pad of your middle finger had snagged against a small, sharp bump in the concrete- leaving a small cut, a crimson dot of blood beading on your fingertip, soon bleeding into the lines of your fingerprint.

   You let a hint of a smile spread across your lips. It didn't hurt, not at all. It was only the realization of what you had just been thinking about, now determined by the present being correct that brought the smile to your face.

Perfect things were always imperfect. You just have to discover the flaw.

    A shuffling from behind you snaps you from your little world of thoughts, sprawling out as your head turned, heartbeat already skyrocketing. You hated that, everything about this place was no different than an active bomb. Everything could be fine, until it just... wasn't. And time always felt like it were ticking down to disaster.