The Last Daffodil

Chapter III

I awoke with a start. Not with the terrible dreams or alarms for even more drills for possible attacks. The slight rapping noise of pebbles smacking against the stone walls of the caves became silent as I tried to move toward the sound, the sound that could be my intruder. I feel the dry walls that enclosed me as I move toward the stranger.

I came to the clearing, which lead out to the dirt floor of the planet. As I look down, footprints going in all directions were imprinted in the dust of the ground. I heard a breath to my left, and quickly snapped my head in the direction. A girl around my height made a sudden jerk of her head, left to right, and made eye contact which lasted under a second. Her eyes opened wide, and her breathing quickly turned shallow. I froze, knowing that my hiding place had been discovered. She scanned the filthy landscape before darting off in the most alert and fast pace I thought was not even humanly possible. What struck me the most about her was that even though most of her hair was covered in dirt, I could tell her natural color was dark brown, like my own.

Normally, humans start out with black hair, jet black even, because of the lack of direct sun, and it is not considered "ideal" or even "pretty" to have that as your hair color. Why? Because every single person on this miserable planet thinks that if you can not have the sun back, you might as well dye your hair and your eyes to make it look like your "normal" with sun and Vitamin D. So naturally, most people on this planet dye their hair, some at the delicate ages of infancy. These procedures are permanent, and not very expensive. My grandmother forced my mother to have the procedure, which permanently left it's mark by leaving her eyes a delicate shade of crystal blue, and her hair bleach blonde. She looks like she was one of the ancestors, back when there was such thing as sun and vitamin D naturally changing your hair.

When I was born, mother vowed to let me decide if I wanted the beloved procedure, and from a young age, I had realized I was different. I did not want to look like I just went to the sun and back. I want to look like the atmosphere was in the worst condition and there was no sun. You know, a statement. Now, every time someone looks at me with distaste about my dark eyes and dark choc hair, I force eye contact and make my muscles in my face form a smug little smile, to remind these wasted beings that we are still screwed.

This girl did not have the hair procedure done, but here eye color was all wrong. It was not dark brown, black, or even blue. They were a different shade, like the labels of our choc desert cans. They were green.

I did not know of any procedure that made your eyes green, clearly because it simply was not desirable to have such a bold color of eye. She was not from here, maybe she was from this planet, but not from this community. I wanted to know her name, and better yet, understand why her eyes were a different color than any I have ever seen before in my life. I wanted to know what she was doing in my hiding place, in my caves, in my place of escape from this world. How long has she known about these secret caves? 

She flashed away before I could catch another glimpse of her, now even here dark, long hair. I was torn between running after the intruder, or stay in my rightful place and not get involved. I ran back into the caves and held my throbbing head. I wanted to just get out of this community, where people could have pretty eyes, not blue, but green. It was not fair. She could have the best community and I am stuck here, where I am an outcast by choice, and forever will be. I wanted to go somewhere where I was not judged, my mother was not so distant from this world, and where I could be free. 

Pride. Love. Freedom. I wanted to find that.