The Narrative Continued by Alison

I hurried out of the alley, feeling my way with my cane, inhaling the colors of those around me. Blues, reds, oranges, greens, blacks. So many colors, so many people. I felt them brushing along side me; coming in close, pushing past me, shoving me out of the way. Tossing me like a piece of drift wood. I used my cane to steady myself, regaining a strong footing and pace, parting the waters like a Saint. Counting my steps I cut through colors, ignoring them and expecting them to move. Some did; others had to be pushed. Like myself a moment ago.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four.
I stopped and turned to my left.
One, two, three...
We had rehearsed this countless times: Twenty-four steps out of the alley, sixteen steps to the left. Shane would meet me there with Esther, and (if everything had gone as planned) Knox would be with me. But we couldn't let a small tarnish ruin the entire work. We would have to work around it.
I searched eagerly for Shane's color. Through the mists I saw a hint of gold. Two steps later, I felt his hand in mine. We walked without stopping.
"Where's Knox?" Shane asked.
"He choked. I sent him back to the apartment. How's Esther?"
"I'm okay," she said, her voice steady, but stressed. Her color was very close to Shane's.
"Have you told her the plan yet?"
"Yes. She knows what to do. Have you seen Claudia's color yet?"
"No. She's hiding in this mess somewhere."
I strained hard, trying to pick out as many colors as possible, senses peeled for that cream colored demon. This was a foremost a kidnapping, an attempt to steal her away from the Saints, as she stole me away from the Synners; but on a secondary level it was an intelligence mission. Esther would touch her, stealing the woman's color into her mind, saving it for later use. Knox would have taken note of her invisible markers as well, committing the gender and age of a jacket, shoe or bag to memory. In any case, we would have the upper hand.
There!
"Shane, I sense her."
"Where?"
"To the left, the sinister side."
"Okay, I see her. Esther, get her color and get out of here, understand? Touch her hand and go."
"Alright," she answered, and the green haze floated past me.
My body quaked with excitement nearly sadistic in quality, my mind already pumping out ideas of torture. We were so close to having her, so close to righteous judgment. Vengeance reached out her hands.

The Narrative Continued by Esther

The comforting blue left my hands as I again tore off my gloves. The flurry of colors returned to me, shocking me with brilliance.
I saw the little girl Shane had pointed out, she was heading in the opposite direction. Shane and Alison seemed so far away now. I was alone with this killer, and I could only move closer to her.
I followed her from behind, struggling to keep her in sight, too scared to overtake her. her long blonde hair bobbed through the green-clad crowd, shiny and well kept. She looked as any other girl, ducking beneath adults, shifting through their legs like sand through a filter. But there was something very different about her. Her step was powerful, her pace determined, every glimpse I caught of her eyes were as the essence of white. She was evil. But I had to touch her.
I held my breath and lengthened my stride, catching up to her. I pulled a small teddy bear from my jacket pocket, a light green plush no bigger than my hand, the soft fur a pale brown to my synesthestic sense. I reached out and grabbed her palm, bringing her to a halt as I bent down.
"I think you dropped this, little girl." My heart was tearing through my breast, trying to break out.
"It's isn't mine, wretch." She tried to yank her hand out of mine, but I held it fast. The color was smooth, a purple shade that screamed its power.
"But, I-I saw you drop it. Here."
She stole the bear from me, slipping her hand from mine, whipping around to her previous task. Just then, Shane swept across from the left and took her up in his arms. Clasping a hand over her mouth.
"Esther, go!"
I fled.

The Narrative Continued by Shane

Claudia bit my hand like a shark, drawing rich red blood from my hand, staining her white teeth and sage coat. I held fast and burst through the sea of people, trying to break free of their waves. I held her feet in check, but she convulsed her body like a fish on the cutter's board. Her grinding teeth sunk ever deeper into my hand, the sawing motion of her jaw butchering the meat of my hand. She was an animal.
No one paid us any attention; kidnappings were commonplace and not the problem of strangers. They needn't worry with someone else's child.
I spotted several Saints from the Sage Gate exiting the crowd as I did. Turning I covered Claudia with the fold of my jacket and redirected my course, nearly bumping into a man now in front of me.
"Excuse me sir, you are in violation."
A Saint.
Blood dripped from my hand in steady flow behind my jacket, drops of red pooled on the green cobblestone. The Saint dropped a green rag over the spot, covering the color, wiping it with his dark, green leather boot. I glanced back behind me; the other Saints had adjusted their bearings, stalking this way now.
"You must excuse me," I stated. "My daughter has dementia, she doesn't recognize me."
"I see," said the Saint, a older man with a pale face, wrinkled and scared. "But you understand I cannot allow you to leak that color here."
"We are making our way out now; I'll be careful not to bleed." Claudia fought with all strength, nearly exposing her face. "We really must hurry home before she hurts herself."
A crazed, muffled scream came from beneath my jacket, her feet kicking wildly outside of it. I nearly lost my grip.
"Allow me to give her a sedative. You can wrap you hand up then, and the both of us will be happy. How does that sound?"
I clocked the time in my head, colors passed as I counted. Alison would come looking for me if I didn't hurry.
"Most excellent," I replied, sounding as cooperative as any Saint.
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, his pale face hidden by the wide brim of his hat. I glanced back over my shoulder. The other Saints were hidden. They must be close.
The Saint pulled a small glass bottle and a pale rag from his pocket.
"Let me see her face."
There was no time for hesitation. I took in a breath and held it, pulling Claudia into view.
"Hello, my dear." The Saint shoved the rag into my face. I kicked the bottle out of the pale Saint's hand, shattering the glass on his jaw, saturating his face in the sedative. He staggered to the ground, consciousness failing.
A pairs of arms grabbed me from behind.
"Take the Synner!" he ordered, gray overtaking his eyes.
Slipping my foot behind the leg of one attacker, I threw my weight behind me, setting him off balance, crushing him with my weight when we fell to the cobblestones. The breath I had held escaped me, but I dare not take another. Rolling off the man I swung Claudia with all my strength across the face of the second Saint, her feet snapping his neck to the left. I heard a crack and Claudia cried out. I may have broken her foot.
A hand reached from behind, pressing a rag to my face, jabbing my spine with a blunt tool. Reflex forced me to inhale. I staggered, fighting the black that overtook my eyes, and the liquid feeling that morphed my muscles. With a final burst of strength I threw Claudia at the Saint. My energy back-flushed and my body went limp. Black stole over my sight. Alison...

The Narrative Continued by Alison.

I let out a yell and brought my cane across the skull of the first lively color. The fog moved into the background of my sight. I heard a body crumple to the stones.
Shane's color was dull, so was the orange haze next to him. Without turning I jabbed the cane beneath my arm, straight back. It sunk into something soft. The man's gut. Turning, I swung the metal pole downward, striking something hard: the back of his head. The metal pole rang out, singing an enraged dirge. I whipped back around. Red met me there.
"Marilynn?"

The Narrative Continued by Marilynn

"We have to get out of here. Now."
"But Claudia--"
"Is gone, she'll bring more Saints when she returns. We have to get Shane out of here, now!"
Shouting amplified my pain like nothing I could think of. My head throbbed with deep red color, saturating every thought with severe discomfort. My breathing was shallow, a clean rag over my face. The chemical smell of sedative in the air, fogging my thoughts. I couldn't get enough oxygen in my blood, and my body wasn't shy about letting me know.
I pulled a bottle from my coat pocket. Kneeling by Shane I unscrewed the thin metal top. My fingertips ached with the task. The mind is the worst thing to be injured. It makes everything else hurt along with it.
Dipping a rag with the solution, I pressed it over his nose. He stirred.
Standing up brought a fresh wave of red pain, a brighter shade filling the inside of my head. It was as if my blood had been turned to dull tacks, every one of them rushing to stick my brain. Synesthesia illuminated many veins in my head, each one inflamed with red. The phantom colors were as angry as I was.
"Help me lift him up; he won't be able to walk himself home."
Alison didn't argue, not this time.




The Next Shade: Red

The Apartment

The Narrative Continued by Alison

My sister was clearly angry at us.
I had known her long enough to realize the consequences of my actions, but she was fully ready to inform me all the same.
"What you all did jeopardized everything we have worked for." I thought that was a bit over-dramatic, but I didn't say anything. Her color was raging.
"Not only could the Saints of the Sage Gate have taken you had they seen you dumping me in the garbage bin, but you put Esther and Knox in danger by trying to catch Claudia."
The name made my insides burn.
"Now, I understand that you want to catch her, I understand that you want to pay her back for what she took from you," --she didn't understand, but I let it by, knowing that nothing good would come from arguing with her. In her mind she was always right-- "But what you did was reckless and immature. Shane was almost taken! I still can't believe you dragged Esther and Knox into your plan."
That was too much.
"So you can drag them into your plans, but we can't ask them for help with ours?"
"Do we not have enough to worry about with the City against us that we have to further divide ourselves?"
There was no winning this argument. My sister knew this, but she challenged me to the unfair fight anyway. I started to speak again but realized that I had nothing more to say.
I shut my eyes but I could still see her color. Blast. At that moment I didn't want to see that shade of color ever again. I held my breath, not inhaling another pheromone. The colors slowly faded from sight; lonely black taking ground in my mind. My lungs began to burn, their fire burning whatever oxygen was left there. I was forced to breath again; the colors returning with each breath.
So my gift became one that I would like to return.

The Narrative Continued by Marilynn

My sister was exasperating. I would never be able to wrap my head around her or her ways. At least she was being quiet now. I knew she was seething, but if she wants to act that way, who am I to stop her? Let her pout. She was the one in the wrong this time, not me.
I put my hand to the bandage on my head. The cut still hurt badly, the wound still red to my eyes, though the color had subsided a bit, losing territory to the healing endorphins.
I narrowed my eyes at my sister, knowing she couldn't see the act of dagger throwing. I nearly laughed at her being blind. The thought amused me, but I quickly slapped it away. What a horrible thing to think, and about my own sister no less. I needed to find a handle on my anger and pull it to a stop.
"But enough. What's done is done. However horrid the deed there is no going back to reverse it."
"So what now?" asked Shane, rewrapping his hand with red bandages. Somehow I found it hard to be angry with him. I guess it was because he was the only one I could trust, or at least he always had been. I imagined him more the victim of my sister's plot than one of the plotters. I knew he was too smart for that, but I needed to think this way. Even if he had planned the whole thing from start to finish, I don't think that I could afford to be angry with him.
"I have another lead. This one comes from the archives, so there will be no trickery." There was still an edge in my voice, though I had already decided within myself that I would drop it. I suppose my tongue had made a different decision.
"What do we do?" asked Knox.
"We are not going on this outing. It's a one-person job, just research. I'll handle it myself. I don't need the riffraff this time."
My sister jerked back a bit and I knew I had stabbed her. I shut my mouth, not ready to apologize, not wanting to draw another knife. The next moment was awkward; no one said a word. Alison gripped the edge of the table.
"I'll be back before dark." I traveled briskly from the kitchen feeling horrid. Walking into my room I pushed the feeling as far from myself as I could. Now was not the time for feeling. I stopped at that thought, my arm halfway reaching into the closet. How dare I think that way? I sounded as a Saint. A cold, wicked Saint.
It seemed the intent of those around me to make me as cold as they are. And by the way I was acting their frost was sticking.



The Next Shade: Green

The Narrative Continued by Esther

I walked home, thinking about the things that had happened that day. It was so confusing. Alison and Marilynn always had their little disagreements, but it was never so severe, so intense. I don’t know what I’d do if it happened again, if I would chose the same side. I would probably ask Shane, and pick whatever sister he did.
I let my hand fall down into the thick ivy that coated the short wall by my side, the cool leaves felt good against my skin. The color was relaxing.
I could see my house already, the large mint-colored plantation with many steps. I can’t say that I ever really loved my house, but everyone who sees it says that they would die to have it. It is pretty, but to me it’s just a house. Now Shane and Alison’s apartment: that was a home. Even though they fight with Marilynn often, it had that homey feel. It was safe. This place was just a thin mantel, a pretty shell that could be dashed and broken without much effort.
I put my hands in my pockets, icy blue meeting my hands, and ascended the first stair. The place was so formal that I almost knocked. I would have laughed at myself for the mistake, but here I did not find it funny. I opened one of the large double doors and stepped inside. One of the pale maids greeted me and tried to take my jacket.
“No, that’s okay. I’m cold.”
She nodded and exited the room quicker than she had entered it.
I really wasn’t cold, the house was kept warm, but I hated having the maids do everything for me. It got so old; it made me feel like deadweight. I didn’t mind serving, so why should I be served?
I ascended the second stair, the left side of a massive double stair that lead to the second story balcony that overlooked the front door.
Climbing the third and last stair, this one a little shorter than the others, I opened the paneled door to my room. I wasn’t sure if my mother was home, but I didn’t bother to check. She would be busy with someone if she were here. Besides, the pale maids would cook dinner.
I hung my jacket back in my closet, a rainbow of green waiting to be used; each fabric a different color in my mind. I ran my hands through the many articles of clothing, their colors channeling through my fingertips: soft reds overlapping light greens, pale blues on dark sage. Even treacherous White had her place in my closet. I arranged all my clothes by their synesthestic colors. It made it easer to find what I needed.
I made sure to button my coat on the rack so the red lining would not be visible. It was something I had picked up from Knox, though I needn’t use the trick here. No one cared where I had been or where I would go next. I might as well have been one of the maids, entering the room one moment and disappearing the next. Not a word, not a question, barely living. I don’t want to say that I hated it here; part of me liked the freedom. But I knew that I wasn’t happy living here. It got so lonely living here practically by myself. My mother had been married three times already. None of her husbands paid me much attention either. I don’t know if she was always that way, not really wanting me, just letting me live. I guess she could have killed me before I was born if she wanted to. She knew of abortion. She could have ended my life before I even resembled a human. But she didn’t, and I often wonder about that. Why didn’t she just kill me? It’s a common procedure. Lots of women do it. She could have done it so easily and then not had to worry with me ever again. It just didn’t make sense to me. Maybe she liked the idea of having a child, someone who would love her, someone who would need her, but found that it wasn’t as easy as planned? Maybe it was when my birth father left that she decided she didn’t want to deal with me anymore, that it was easier to let the maids take care of me than for her to do it herself.
I know my father wanted me, he paid for the house and he still sends my mother money to help take care of me. She doesn’t let me read the letters he sends me though, and she won’t let him visit either. What difference does it make to her? She doesn’t want to see me, but he does. Why not let him? Am I some prize, some ransom that she has to keep hidden? Am I some treasure to her? She treats me like dust, something to be swept under the carpet and forgotten about, and yet she wants others to think that I’m some type of rare diamond. Something new and exciting, something purchased on a whim, something to show off to others. Some thing. If I am a novelty, then she has long sense tired of me. I don’t see how someone would treat a child like that, but I guess that’s what I am. If you were to ask me how it feels to be a novelty, I could tell you, but by the spewing above I think I already have.

The Next Shade: Gray

The Narrative Continued by Knox

I slipped back in through the window. It was late and the lights were long cold, but the other kids were still up, ungodly beings that they were.
"Out late again, Knox?" Asked Rinji through the black, being far too awake for my taste.
"Sure looks like it, huh?"
"So what were you doing?"
"Nothing important." I was almost sad that I had spoken the truth.
"Are you going out again tomorrow?"
"Would Parker care if I did?"
"No, I doubt it."
"Okay, then."
"But you'd do it anyway, even if Parker did care."
"Yeah."
"So--"
"Look Rinji, I just want to go to sleep now, okay? Slit your speech until tomorrow at least."
"Oh, yeah, sorry." He went off to talk to some of the other kids. They were just as hyper as he was. Sometimes I wished I could come back to a normal home, with quite nights, and enforced bed times. Parker had already left for the night; there was no one to keep them from staying up all night if they wanted to. Even Marilynn didn't seem so bad compared to this complete disorder. I must have been wiped out to be thinking like that.
I climbed into bed, gray hidden by black. There were no familiar genders to greet me, no inanimate persons to wish me a goodnight. But I knew they were there just as well as the other kids were; the only difference being held in volume. The Synners were quiet, the orphans loud.
I closed my eyes to fall asleep, hoping my headache would be gone in the morning, knowing that it would still be there when I got up.