ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

48: I'm Blind

Ella 48

"Can I see Zart?"

Clint looks at me funny as he shuts the door behind him. "I forgot you could talk."

He says it in a tone so straight I detect no sarcasm. Although, I've never been good at listening to people. Sometimes they talk and I hear them, but hearing, listening, and comprehending are very different things.

I don't listen, I occasionally hear, and I never comprehend.

For example, I am stuck in this room. I heard listened to the first half of Clint's explanation as to why, and though I heard all of it I comprehended nothing.

Clint sits down, pulling up a chair near the end of my bed. I would say I expect a physical examination, except I expect nothing. The silence creeps up on me and I wait for the fog to roll in. I wait to be lost amongst the grey clouds that pool in around my feet. The world is a strange place though, and I am held afloat.

"What were you doing before you had the most recent seizure?"

I remember, at least mostly. Zart and I were in a field. There was an injured Runner. I remember grey, but I remember black more. It slithered towards me, wrapping itself around my ankle, before spinning up my chest until it asphyxiated me. There were daisies, on a chain, hanging around me. Hanging me by the neck as I stopped breathing. The flowers are the colour of the walls that enclosed around us. Running through the halls in an attempt to escape that smoke man.

Every colour flashes before my eyes before I notice Clint. He is grey like Jeff, or not like. He is the grey of Jeff. Skin intersecting and intertwining at angles I've never seen but dreamt about. It's the way I imagine the purple girl to feel against me. In my grasp, small and warm and wonderful and everything.

"I don't remember."

He looks at me funny. "Let's walk through the last day you remember, before you were in here."

"It was white."

"Sorry?"

Before I was here it was white, and now it is grey. Nothing is ever like the black that I am. It's an alienating experience to live among such colourless people. The only black I ever encountered terrified me deep to the core, and I hate this is what my culture has become. Washed out into a blanket whiteness.

It is not just because of my skin that I am different from these people.

They chose to fight a battle they will never win.

"The daisy chain was white." Sure it was, but before I was here I was in an elevator, and before I was there on my way up, I was trapped in a white hallway. Before that, there was her, and our dark room, and the smoke man.

It comes to me in a clouded vision. What was it like before here? I remember there were tools, and empty rooms, and old sheets, and sterile cold environments.

This is a paradise I must escape.

"What daisy chain?" He knows the question, but asks for the answer anyway.

"He thought they would look nice in my hair." I take a stand, twirling it through my fingers as I reflect on the colour. "Do you think it did?"

"Do you think it did?"

I didn't get the opportunity to see myself. "No. I much prefer violets."

"Why?"

Because they remind me of her. Gold and purple look much nicer together than white and black. She was the most magnificent thing I had ever seen in my life. Nothing shall ever compare to her radiance. Especially not me and the daisy chain made by a turquoise boy who isn't her.

Why do I prefer violets?

"I love her. I don't love daisies."

"Who is she?"

He is full of questions. It's a game he is playing with me, under the guise of being concerned about my physical health. This is not an examination. This is an interrogation.

"You don't trust us girls, do you?" I ask him carefully, even though I am certain his answer is yes. "You think we are a bad omen."

"I don't think anything," he tells me, honestly, "I was hoping you'd disprove any reservations I have about you. Do you remember the first time we met?"

No, but that isn't because I don't have a brain tumour. "Something went wrong with me. It didn't work."

He cocks an eyebrow at me, waiting for my voice to scrape its way out my throat. They are listening. Even if I could tell him anything, he wouldn't believe me. I don't care to tell him anyway. Silence is my game.

"When did we first meet?" he continues on with his line of questioning.

"I couldn't see until the flowers started growing, but that is all I can tell you." I wait for him to ask why, but he doesn't.

"Was your vision blurry?"

"Grey."

"You're colour-blind?"

I shake my head. He isn't listening to my words. I can't explain this to him if he isn't listening as best as he can. This is where listening is more important than hearing. "Cloudy."

He stiffens in his chair as he cracks his back. "Are you in pain? Do you feel feverish and faint? How do you feel?"

Like I am drowning in an ocean of fog. I feel as though I will never be found in an infinite universe of screaming. My soul drags off the ground since I know I will never see her again, and my head is numb with heartache.

"Alone," I tell him.

He nods, sitting up. "I don't think you have anything human I can cure."

"What do you think is wrong?"

He cracks his knuckles, leaning closer to me. "I think what the Creators do to us didn't work properly on you. Whatever they erased, it wasn't your memories. If they erased anything at all, although there is something definitely wrong with your head. I think it might've made you seriously ill. You seem to have brain damage causing you intense hallucinations and seizures. We're going to keep you under observation for the next couple of days, until I decide what you and I are going to do moving forward."

"Am I going to be here alone?"

Clint shakes his head. "I'll let Zart visit you tomorrow, but not Leo yet. You are not to tell anyone what I think, although you are smart enough that I assume you already were going to stay silent."

I was. Normally I am silent anyway. I'm not going to let Clint in on what is going on in my head anyway. It must be mine to uncover and comprehend, and no one else's.

Until then, I shall be alone.

~~~~~

Pauvre Ella. And poor everyone else as well. Do you think her memories are real?

I'll see you soon in Leo and some lies and some truths.