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GLOWING EYES, prologue.
⠀⠀⠀PRUDENCE LARSON HAD NOTHING LEFT TO ARRANGE. If she could collect the dust particles that drifted across her room, illuminated by the afternoon sun that filtered through her window, she would. But, instead, she was stuck obsessing over the rainbow of colours through the open doors of her closet, in the stack of books by her desk, in the pictures above her bed. Whether the shade of scarlet moulded with the rose beside it. If the Polaroid of her and Bill had to move beside the one she took of Damien and Richie, or if it could stay with the one of her sister.
And with each 'What if?' her heart skipped another panicked beat. Suddenly the colours moulded into brown and she could differentiate nothing but her black-painted fingernails and the sky-blue of her bedsheets. Before her mind could emerge from the mud, she found herself whispering a line of numbers; numbers she used to calm herself when a sensory overload shut down her system.
Humans were just like machines. They needed rules and routines to function properly. Rue was more like a machine than others, unable to breathe unless her rituals were fulfilled.
So, after the muttering of numbers, she pulled her ponytail tighter. Which activated another cycle; the ponytail in the black scrunchie, which always had to match the colour her nails were painted; tucking the loose strands of caramel hair behind her rosy ears; leading into her cracking her knuckles twice each side. Exactly twice. No exceptions.
Rue knew that she was never usually this bad. And so did Misty, who had wheeled herself down the small hallway, stopping just outside of her younger sister's open door, watching as the numbers slipped past her lips once more.
When the girl had stilled, cross-legged on the mattress, Misty spoke. "You still up for going out today, Ruey?"
Shocked out of her thoughts, her azure eyes landed on her sister, perched in her wheelchair just outside the threshold of the room she couldn't get into.
"Sure, no problem." Prudence shrugged, although her brain was aching. She was lucky to have a sibling that knew how to deal with her, Misty purposely avoiding talking about it as to not set her off again. "Regular shopping?"
