Blue Moon

Chapter 1

"Clouds up above, casting shadows on the ground."

🜙☾🜙 🜙☾🜙

There are five stones of power. Red , blue, yellow, green, and purple. All energy, all used, all stuck. Until one day the green stone starts to beat acting as a human heart. The power is too much for the stone to contain so flesh weaves itself into a body around the stone heart. Blood flows, bones grow, and a soul is missing. The body is easy to create but the soul takes much longer, so the body is an empty vessel. It can run and breathe and sleep but only if it's told.

It's a puppet. Or rather he is a puppet. He doesn't have a name, only simple clothes colored crimson. He doesn't know if that is his favorite color or not. It's the only thing he wears and one of the few things he sees. Everything is dark and when the door opens, he only sees a white light. The place he is in is small, sometimes it's too hot or too cold but he says nothing. Because he has nothing to say. He's only seen this room and this room alone. He wonders nothing. Not what's beyond the door, what his favorite things are, what he wants to be different. He just is. And he knows no better than this.

When his body was formed he was found by a stranger. His eyes weren't open, he had no memory of anything, not even when they found out he could heal all wounds. Not when they put him in a wooden shack and asked people to pay to see him. He did not react when people hugged him or thanked him or when he was fed or told to sleep. Nothing, just dark, just empty.

So when a child he just healed asks him, "what is your favorite color? Is it red?" He blinks and his mind wanders for the first time.

"What is red?" He asks, his voice scratchy from never being used. He's not sure how he even managed to say anything in the first place. When did he learn how to talk? When did he learn how to think? What does he know?

"It's the color you're wearing," she giggles.

"What's color?" His voice softer and growing steady.

"It makes the world pretty. Like the colors you're wearing or the trees outside!" The man frowns, even more questions pop into his head.

"What's a tree and what's outside?"

"Trees are plants, they give us air and food. Outside is anywhere that isn't in a building, which is what we are in." She laughs louder, scooching closer to him. She places her hands on his knee and he flinches for the first time.

"Why are you-" He stops, because he has no idea what he's feeling. So he grabs her hands.

"Woah! You're cold!"

"What's cold?" She scoops up his hands and breathes hot air on them.

"The opposite of warmth, which is what I'm trying to give you."

"Warmth," he whispers. The world has been given to him through those words. He likes warmth.

"It usually doesn't take this long!" The caretaker from outside knocks loudly.

"Coming!" She shouts, the healer covers his ears. "Oh, sorry." She pats his hands. "I have to go, uh but-" There's a pause. "What's your name?"

"Name? What's a name?"

"It's what you and others call you, so you know they are talking to you."

"Oh... I don't have one."

"Oh." Her expression falls. He doesn't like that. "That's sad."

"What is sad?"

"Hurry up in there! There are other people waiting!"

"It's when-" She taps her chin. "It's when you hurt right here," she points to his heart, "but not a physical hurt." She opens the door to the outside. He covers his eyes from the bright light, shining in the darkness of a tiny room. For the first time light reaches his eyes and he is awake. "Goodbye and thank you, for healing me." Her smile is just as blinding as the light outside. And before he even knows what a smile is, he's doing the same. He likes it. Then the next person comes from the light. He is carried in by two others and laid in front of the healer. As if nature, the healer stretches out his arms, he lays a hand on the stranger, he's warm, he likes warm. He lets something from his heart pour into his man's legs. The bones of the stranger glows until the healer knows deep within him, he is healed. The stranger who once could not walk can now jump and run and dance. They shout for joy, hugging, laughing, and singing.