“Eyes open, you’ve just been created.” A gentle voice rippled through the air. “It’s time to pick your color!”
His grey-blue eyes snapped open, his head inclining from its resting position as he took in the sight before him. A woman, wearing a pure white robe and a soft smile spread across young her face. Her eyes were a shade of clear blue and her golden curly hair cascaded down her shoulders. She made a quick gesture for him to follow her.
He stood from the wooden chair, one which he didn’t realize he was sitting on, and moved around the small alabaster table which he had been leaning on. “Color?” He asked, testing out his voice for the first time. “What color?”
The woman simply let out a chuckle, not turning to meet his gaze before answering, “That’s for you to choose.” Her cheery reply revealed nothing to him and as he trailed behind her, he found himself observing their surroundings.
Long white corridors with windows taking up the entire walls as the artificial light seeped through. The crystals that hung above their heads were clear and reflected the light across the hallway, creating an ethereal atmosphere. The white and pale-yellow checkered tiles lined the never-ending floor, and as he looked up, he noticed the doors to a room unknown to him. The double doors lined with gold, arching over him and far too large for anything more than show.
As the woman pushed open the oversized double doors and there stood a room and a man just as ethereal as the hallway had been. The man stood before him with vivid brown eyes, white hair, and wrinkles from old age as he stared down at him. Wearing the same white robes as the woman, only now
decorated with golden lace, and holding a staff with three rings chained to the circular top of the staff. He held flickers of wisdom in his eyes and gentleness in his smile.
“Welcome.” He began, his voice as powerful as an ocean storm but as calm and rhythmic as the changing of tides. “This is the beginning. The place where all beings begin. Our next question- our only question to you will determine your life and the path you are placed upon.”
“But- what am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? Why don’t I know anything other than the basics? Wha-” He asked before being stopped short by the man’s raised hand.
“You ask far too many questions that you will know the answer to later. Now, think hard about my next question.” He said blankly. “Which color do you wish for? Choose wisely.”
Just then the man waved his hand, panels upon panels of colors came to life, floating above and around him as they spun into place. Thousands of several colors covering multiple spectrums were shown to him, his eyes flickering left and right before he said, “What are they called?”
The man bellowed out in laughter and shook his head in amusement.
This angered him, he wanted to know genuinely. There were too many factors he didn’t understand, but as he raked over the thousands of options, he noticed a small number in the corner of each color. “What are those numbers for?”
“Now that I can answer. Those represent the number of people who have chosen that color.”
He began to become dizzy. The several different shades and combinations were confusing him and the reason behind why the colors determined his life
made no sense to him. Why? Why? Why? He kept asking himself. He didn’t understand and he desperately wanted to. It wasn’t until he saw a color without a single number on it. It was blank, apart from the gunmetal grey color it gave off. He wondered why it was blank, had no one chosen it? Had it been a glitch in the system? Was that supposed to be his color?
He decided that instead of asking questions, he would act. No point in asking questions that weren’t going to be answered right? He moved forward, raising his hand to the color and as it slowly descended downwards the man who answered very little questions began to physically panic.
“No! Not that one.” He said, sweat beginning to bead down his forehead.
“Why?” He asked once more, this time out of spite.
The man could hear the challenge in his voice and as the color floated closer to his hands. The man could say nothing to him, nothing that could not be questioned and led eventually back to his hands on to undesired color. So, with nowhere to go, the man stood there, mouth agape and as he stuttered out a hesitant reply, the gunmetal grey color brushed across his fingers.
The man withdrew himself and looked away, seeming to barely hold himself together as all the other colors dispersed and faded into nothingness, the only thing left being the single panel with his chosen color. The woman, upon seeing the absence of a number on the color flinched and began to push herself farther and farther from the center of the room. The color began to morph and shift in above his curious open hands, not being able to choose a form.
“May the Gods curse your selfish, unforgiving, bastard soul.” The man spat out as the color dispersed, shooting and bouncing across the white walls of the large room before merging once again with the choosers body.
The grey color liquifying and crawling all along his body, covering and seeping into his skin. Slowly glyphs and markings appeared all throughout his body, pulling itself to the surface and making itself known to the chooser and all those around him.
His body now covered in gunmetal grey colored glyphs of a language no on knew but himself and markings of patters long forgotten by all- he looked up to the man and glanced at the crying woman in the corner. His grey-blue eyes flickered back and forth before he looked back up at the man.
“Why?” He asked again.
“For you have managed to pull the balance between everything we have ever known with a simple question.”
“And you with an answer you could not provide quickly enough.” He said, turning from the man and walking towards the (now darkened) double doors. Pushing past them effortlessly as he marched onwards, to a path he was being guided to with the pull of his chosen color.
He reached the end of the hallway, from the room he had thought he had woken from, he realized that just beyond it was his path, his way to a world full of several different colors; just as diverse as the thousands he had to choose from. Just as he reached the beginning of his path, a song played for him.
He knew this song, from somewhere far beyond the reach of possible memory or imagination. One that played from the soul and was made real by the ethereal of the building he had just come from and the color he had chosen. Bells chimed in the distance, pulling together a mystical melody for him, almost saddened by his departure.
“Halt.” Something whispered.
“Halt…” He repeated.
And with that he moved forward, descending to a world that he would shape for as long as he wished.
Turns out grey was his color after all.