Hue

Prolog: A Vision of Insanity

I see her each and every night.

A vision, a quick glimpse of her, then a full body.

I don't know how many days it's been since I've started seeing her. Locked here in my cellar, I have lost all feeling for any passage of time. The one I see stand before me likely being unrecognizable to whomever might be her now - if she wasn't captured or killed in the first place.

Her hair a light violet, long brushes of it falling down her shoulders. They look like the strokes of lights I haven't been able to reach in forever.
The roots are glowing in a fainter shade, almost white.

Her face is first scrambled, distorted, ripples in her features before they slip into place; reminiscent of a heart with soft, big eyes, her skin lightly tanned from the days we'd spent training back at the prison academy we'd been stuffed in.

Ruining the image of what I'd come to accept as my home are the torn up clothes and the markings on her skin - scars - covering the edges of her fingertips in a bright violet of the roots of her hair.
It's the last I've ever seen of her, perhaps the last I'll ever see. A constant reminder of what happened the night we, the Liberation, had tried to rebel for the first time.

Moreso the failure of it.

She comes closer to me. I could properly look into her eyes now, her lips which I've kissed before, convince myself for a second that it's her and not just another illusion my mind has conjured up.

But I know where a look into her eyes would lead me.

"Blue," she whispers, only for me to hear. Her velvety voice gnawing at me, begging me to look at her, but I can't, I simply can't or all the work I've put into my potential escape might be lost.

"You can't even bother to look at me. But that's okay." She laughs. My heart twitches and I swallow back tears. "I wouldn't be able to look at a walking corpse either."

She moves closer. I can see the black academy shoes slowly inching forward towards me. Focus on them, Blue. Focus on them...

"You're not the only one tired of me visiting every night, believe me."

Another step forward. I notice I'm shivering, but it's fine, it's fine, it's fine...focus on the shoes, the shoes...

"You killed me, Blue. Do you think I like seeing my killer every night?"

I can't listen to her. I can't. Maybe it's another one of his games. If I keep falling for them, it's over, it's all over.

"I trusted you. I trusted you! Do you believe I'd like to be reminded of my most fatal mistake every night?"

The next part is probably the worst. Each and every night I sit here and I have grown an expert at staying cold, but no matter what I do, no matter my defenses...it will always hurt to hear it.

"Loving you was a mis-"

A loud thud interrupts the nightly violence, turning the shoes, her legs, arms, her face and hair into ashes. Her face remains another second before the guards' laughter and a wimpering, childish voice let it fade away at last.

"How pathetic!" One laughs as he puts on the same draining shackles I too have on the child.

"Let me go!" They whine. "Let me go, please! Mother where are you?! Mother-"

The other guard puts his hand on their mouth and restrains them while the other lets the second shackle snap into place. The current is complete. The color of the child rippling into them, giving off a unique light.

I look down at my own for a second - a faint blue glow reflecting off the sterile tiles and faintly shining onto the dark skin of my hands.

"Let me g- AAAAAH!"

They wimper again, the guards now closing the cell door with a horrifying calm barely audible swoosh. The speakers carry their screams all the way to the exit, the punches they throw against the - as a painter once put it - "most stable structure in the human plane" only make the guards laugh louder.

They keep knocking against the glass for a few minutes, but I can see the hope getting sucked out of them by every missing indent.

I'm about to lean back and fall into a restless, dreamless sleep again, before they raise their course voice again.

"Who are you?"

I try to dismiss it, close my eyes. But they call out again.

"You, with the messy blue hair. Who are you?"

I sit up. It's hopeless to get a night of rest at this point. Reluctantly, I take note of their almost flawless human speech.

"Me? In human tongue you'd...call me Blue."

I can see the gears turning in their head, as if trying to place me. Trying to categorize me, similarly to how I was actually categorized as an energist many years ago.

"I'm River."

"What do you want me to...do with that information?"

They sit quiet for a while. This is usually the point where the new ones fail in their quest of gruesome inquiry.

"I was hoping you'd want to..."

"What?"

I sit up again.

"...you'd want to join me in my run to the Liberation."