Colourless

Chapter 3

Will they take him away?

What will happen now?

What will people say?

How will he feel when he is the only one without a colour?

My mind raced across every question. Everything that could happen. From Ash being bullied to him being taken away from us, experimented on.

Each thought was more nightmarish than the previous one. Each one drawing more tears as my heart ached for my brother. The brother whom I shared a room with for five years, the same one who likes to call me Ari, the same little brother whom I taught to play soccer. My brother, my Ash.

How can I let him fall into a haunting future?

I won't let him.

I roughly wiped my tears away with the back of my hand, removing any sign of weakness from my face as I made up my mind.

No one is taking him away from me.

I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking but I pushed away any thoughts about the consequence of my action in the far corner of my brain.

"No," I spoke, but no one even bothered to acknowledge it, immersed in their sorrow.

But I am not, not anymore.

Crying will get us nowhere and Dad knew that. I saw him lift his head and lock eyes with me, I stared back, letting him see the determination burning in my eyes.

" NO," I said more strongly, pushing my shoulder back as if I am about to speak in front of an audience. Gathering all the courage.

Their heads snapped in my direction, focused on me, waiting to hear what I have to say.

" He has a colour." Ash's fingers were still dipped in the water, till the cuticles, lazily resting on the rim of the bowl.

I dipped my fingers into the water, grazing it slightly and then putting it deeper. I immediately felt the full of the water, pulling my colours from my veins, all my colours but I resisted and instead let it pull only one colour.

Electric blue started spreading from my fingers like ink in water. Like veins reaching towards Ash's fingers threading with his. I pulled my hand out, willing the colour to stay there against its nature as the water pushed it away.

Tried to, but I am stronger, I have practice, seven years of practice. The water of Xile doesn't bother me now, I refuse to let it.

The colour took shape wrapping around his fingers until it gave the illusion that it was extracted from Ash's fingers.

He gasped, immersing his fingers knuckle deep and he gazed at me, the question clear on his lips but I didn't let him voice it.

" He has a colour," mom swallowed, we knew what it meant.

Hiding my identity was easy, compared to the current situation. Train to hone your colours, hide it from everyone else, but what can we do to protect Ash? He has no colour, we can't train him in anything, we can't lie.

We can't hide him.

But I won't let anything snatch him away. No matter how much mom and dad try to convince me that there are other ways, talk me out of it, but I won't move from my decision,

They either stand with me or against me.

A tense silence passed, no one uttered a word, still stuck in the conflict.

But there is nothing to think about, there is no better way.

Two days from today Ash will have to go for identification. He would have to perform the same ceremony there and then smear his colour on his ID card.