The world is a lot more colorful...

“You’re on this train, because nobody cares about you. Your standing in front of me right now, as hungry for food as you are for blood because your families have abandoned you. You’re about to give your life to a cause that’s above you, because your old life meant nothing to you, and you wanted to make a change. You lot have got nothing to lose, and that’s why you’re the fiercest, most dangerous soldiers we’ve got. Do you understand that?”  Copper asks, his arm wrapped around a metal beam at the head of the musty train carriage. His black commanders cap is tilted over his eyes as he speaks, and his posture sags like a deflating balloon. Dangling from his belt is a little cylindrical bottle, containing a dirty white liquid called Light. The newest of the vast array of chemicalized serotonin releasing hallucinogens.  

Cinnamon’s elbow pokes into my side. “Cheer up, Cyan. You’ve got your whole death ahead of you,” she says with a gleeful smile. I know it’s hollow. I know she’s just like me.  

I accidentally backstep into Cyclamen from Cinnamon’s push, my gun clanking against hers. “I never thought I’d reach the day where death was something to look forwards to,” I groaned, my voice like gravel from the overconsumption of burning plants I got from my best friends back yard. I’d only been with her for a year, but it was enough to permanently scorch my vocal cords. It seemed like eons ago when little pleasures still felt good. Lilac, my best friend, was in prison now and her little flower garden confiscated.

“It’s not all bad,” she hooks her leg around a pole and swings closer to me. Her fluid movement acquired from earning money off the streets in what my parents used to call the way of complete, utter, overwhelming failure.

A clunk in the train’s movements make me stumble into her, as I audibly curse my permanently unsteady legs. I let my gun rest against my hip and reached into my pocket for my flask, but it comes out empty.

“Sorry,” Cinnamon whispers into my ear, handing the flask back to me. Her kleptomania had only got worse as she’d been deprived of her medicine by the Primals.

I mumbled my thanks to her and pour a tad of the liquid into my mouth. Instantly, my shoulders slump, and my back relaxes. I slumped down against the pole, as the foul liquid burned my throat in the most euphoric way. My favorite poison. My fingers twitched with relief, spilling a little on my chest. A brown stain, in the shape of... nothing, formed. Not brown. It was considered generalizing to call something brown. It was more of a... deep coffee, or dark liver, against my cyan skin.

Cinnamon slumped down next to me, our shoulders touching. “You still use this stuff? Isn’t it like, back alley shit?”

I shrug. “Gets me through the day. What do you use?”

“Nothing,” she beams. “They confiscated my pills, so I accepted. I let my flaws control me. I sit back and watch. The Primals probably know better anyway,” breaths into my ear, kissing it. If you can call it a kiss when you don’t have lips. 

“Oi! All soldiers to their feet. We’ve reached our stop. Remember our first assignment is just to clear the outpost. Kill any Shade you see. No mercy. Remember that. Just kill them until there’re none left. Everybody clear?”  Gunmetal hollers. I didn’t believe Gunmetal was even a real color until Mango told me that she’d searched it up.

Cinnamon flows to her feet, and stretches her arms out, then helps me get up. I put my flask away in its pocket and check my magazine. Full.

My handgun. Full

My grenades. All three of them.

My saber. Right in its sheath.

“Doors open in two!” Gunmetal calls. His massive chain gun is resting against his shoulder like a log.

My mind enters a penumbral state, as had happened before every test, back in Sorting. I let myself drift, through the clouds of my mind. Not really clouds, more like spiderwebs. I drift, and collide with my thoughts, not caring, not noticing which are good and which are bad. Which would send me for a purification, and which would make the color beside me call me petty. I’m familiar with this state of mind, which is why I don’t fear it. Though I should. Because of this...drifting, I flunked out at the 13th level. I managed to get back into it though. Managed to complete all 15 levels of sorting. I put all my effort, time and life into completing it. Nobody told me that none of it mattered afterwards. Nobody told me that once you got out of Sorting, it was just a series of closing doors, one after the other until you end up on a train, taking you to your death. Suicide is looked down upon by the Primals, but suicide for the Primals is considered an honor. It makes me laugh when I think that after my whole life of trying, I got nothing but a few tokens in my pocket, and after I gave up, I would be mentioned in the list of heroes that would get statues, or tributes. Ironic.

“GO GO GO GO!” Gunmetal hollers, ripping me out of my, toxin-less intoxicated state.

Before I can take a step forwards, the crowds of colors around me surge forward, forming a blurry river, tearing forwards with whatever crumbs of their hearts were left. My gun is nearly knocked from my hands as I’m battered left and right, then knocked right out of the train. I hit the ground feet first, but the ground is swept away from me from the momentum of the speeding train, and I collapse into a roll. My gun bruises my ribs as I roll over it.

All around me, I can hear the sounds of colors yelling made up battle cries, guns firing color matter at the Shades, and the sounds of colors getting hit. I crawl to my feet, and hoist my overly heavy gun, so that the barrel is pointed forwards. Blinking through my headache, I attempt to see what’s going on. Colors are charging forwards, their guns blazing. I watch as one of them, some sort of a red I’ve never met before, hit with so much shade matter that half her body turns black.

I advance, slowed by the weight of my gun and of my conscience. I watch, progressing through the ground, as the first line of Shades are taken down. Each color gunshot splats color matter onto the Shades, and once their entire head and torso is colored, then they morph into a color. Its how Color warfare works. It seems great. Reduce the Shade population and increase the Color population, but its not that simple. Each Shade, freshly turned Color, has no mind. They have to first be introduced to the Verge, and then the fifteen stages of Sorting, before they’re of any use to the Primals. When the Shades shoot you, and you turn completely shaded, you instantly become a Shade. Another Shade just has to tell you what to do, and you’ll be doing it. Mindless creatures. No free will. It’s the propaganda that the Primals use to motivate us to fight them. Their overlord, Grey, is turning everybody into mindless creatures that suffer in eternal agony but can’t do anything but the bidding of their master. The thing is that nobody really knows. Anybody that’s been turned from a Shade into a Color, doesn’t remember anything from their past. And if they do, it’s cleared during the Verge.

I break into a run. I can’t shoot because of the amount of Colors ahead of me. I need to reach the fighting line. I see a Shade break through our advance. It has a pistol in each hand, and tackles a Color I recognize as Olivine, to the ground. It kicks her gun away and shoots her in the face and chest multiple times with his pistol.

Oxblood, one of my acquaintances from the barracks gets a shot at its shoulder, splattering the dark red over it. It turns, pointing its pistols at him, and shoots him in the face.

Why not? I wonder, raising my gun and firing the entire magazine at the Shade, and turning him nearly completely light blue, or cyan, like me.

“Oxblood,” I call. He’s one of the Color’s that I would actually give a damn if they didn’t come back. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he touches the sticky black grey substance that covers his left shoulder. “This stuff comes off right?”

I’m about to nod, when a blast of black hits the side of my face, sending me staggering. I trip over something, and crash to the ground, hitting my head on a stone. My vision blurs, and shapes sift through the sky. I can hear Oxblood scream something through my ringing ears, but I don’t catch what he says.

What now? Stay down and pretend to be unconscious in hopes that somebody comes to protect you? You came here to die, remember? Get your worthless ass off the ground. Oxblood might be dying.

I sit up. I don’t really care if I get shot again. There’s a figure I front of me. I look up, accepting the Shade that I’m about to become. My vision clears, and its Oxblood.

He slaps me softly across the cheek. His left shoulder is still black, and most of his right leg. “C’mon. Get up,” he offers me a hand. I take it, and get back onto my loathed, shivering legs.

The Shades are mostly gone. Just a few, maybe four or five, almost completely colored, desperately crawling away, only to be polished off by the most trigger happy of us.

“Color soldiers! Let us rejoice in another victory, over the Shades,” Copper tells us, halfheartedly.

“Wooooo!” Gunmetal screams, spraying his ugly grey brown into the sky,

“Cyan!” cries a high-pitched voice that makes my ears twitch. If I had ears, of course.

Cinamon launches herself at me, nearly bowling me over and wrapping her arms around my neck. “I honestly didn’t think you’d survive this.”

“I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted you to survive this,” I groan.

“Ok bastards,” Copper clambers to the top of a pile of boxes. “You’re all alive. Somehow. So, since we still got forty or so of us, we oughta continue this shit.”

His right arm is painted black, but he doesn’t seem to care. A bottle of liquid the same color as his skin is in his left hand, and puts it to his lips and downs it, before hurling it across the terrain.

“I wish the Artist could’ve thought of something more interesting,” Oxblood tells me, sitting down against one of the grey obscure cubes, as the other, proactive members of the squadron get the freshly colored into the train.

“Weren’t you ever told during Sorting not to break the Fourth Wall? Or something like that?” I ask him.

“Not all of us finished Sorting, you know,” Cinnamon tells me, shoving a new magazine into her handgun. “Besides, which person reading this would ever give a damn?”

“I finished all of Sorting, but I just don’t care anymore,” Oxblood says. “Artist could do a better job than this,” he gestures at the random cubes and cuboids around us. “What is this even supposed to be?”

“We’re damn stick men,” I tell him. “If we aren’t detailed, why should our environment be?”

“Well... I...”

I nod. “Besides, we’re anything but the main character. We’re background. Filler. Whatever we do, doesn’t need to be anything special.”

“Well if it’s not us, then who is it?” Oxblood asks.

“I don’t  know,” I grumble, pulling my flask out. I can feel my back already tensed. “And I don’t give a damn either.”

“It’s probably Blue,” Cinnamon butts in. “I mean, he’s rebelled against the other Primals right? That seems like an interesting enough story? Besides, he’s been in so many battles, and he hasn’t been Shaded once. That’s what I call plot armor.”

“6 O’CLOCK!” somebody hollers.

Then, all I can hear the pelting of bullets. You never really fear death as much as when you’re on the verge of it.

“Get behind the thing!” Cinnamon cries, pushing me behind the obscure grey cube we were leaning against.

Oxblood, who’s nearly entirely black, pulls out his gun, already behind the cube, and starts firing. Cinnamon follows suit.

Pull your gun you, bastard.

But then I might get hit!

You came here to die, remember? Now do something good with your useless insolent life, damnit.

I unsling my gun, and let it peek over the cube, barrel first. Oxblood and Cinnamon are screaming as they hammer their triggers. I see Shades dropping from the sky in what should be something like helicopters, if Artist has the time to draw it in detail. They fall from the sky in parachutes, raining their grey bullets down on us. Those that didn’t make it to cover, like us, are already Shaded, and attacking us front on. I press my finger to the trigger, letting my trail of bullets fly through the sky. I’m a terrible shot, but I manage to hit one of the Shade’s parachutes, sending him crashing into another Shade.

Two of what had been our comrades a minute prior charge towards us, guns blazing. Oxblood is hit in the face, sending him tumbling backwards, but not before he and Cinnamon manage to paint them front and back before the reach us. One of them crashes into our cube as it goes limp.

I see Teal getting hailed on. She cowers under the blasts, and within a few seconds, is completely grey. Her head snaps up, and she... it pulls out its gun. She’s no longer Teal. She’s a Shade now. Her head swivels and stares directly at me... if she had eyes of course. She gets up and sprints towards me, her gun spraying bullets randomly. I fire a round at her and expect Oxblood and Cinnamon to gun her down before I have to do any real work, but they aren’t at my side this time.

A bullet whizzes over me, barely missing my head. I duck down before I’m hit, and see Oxblood a few feet away, almost completely grey now, crawling back to cover. Cinnamon is desperately trying to reload but keeps dropping her magazine. Damn primals. She wouldn’t be so jittery if she’d been given her medicine.  

I see Oxblood get shot again in the side, knocking him over. I check back over the cube at Teal... the Shade, and it’s right in front of me, vaulting over the cube and smashing into me. I tumble across the ground, and it pins me now with a knee to my chest and unleashes a flurry of bullets at my face.

That’s it, you’re a gonner for sure now

I raise my hands in a pitiful defense as they’re painted grey. Then, suddenly, the Shade is gone, flung off me.

I wipe the Shade matter out of where I should have eyes and roll over. Cinnamon is viciously stabbing the Shade with her saber, the grey juice pouring out over her legs and lower torso.

I’ve got no time to tell her that she just killed what could’ve been a Color, as I crawl back to the cube, where my gun lies. Oxblood has made it back, and grabs my gun, emptying my magazine at a gun-less Shade that’s tearing towards us. It’s dark red, like him, by the time it reaches, and goes limp at my feet.

Another Shade is walking towards us and firing nonstop. As Oxblood and I cower behind the cube, Cinnamon takes the brunt of the shots, and her entire back is painted black before I can muster up the courage to pull out my handgun. I fire my six shot round, most of which whiz past it, but it diverts the Shades attention to us. By the time it’s reloaded, Oxblood has too, and unleashes my second to last Magazine at it, painting it completely with his academy aim.

Cinnamon crawls back to us and presses her grey back against the cube. “It won’t affect the storyline, right?” she asks me. “If I go Shade?”

I shake my head and reload my hand gun. “We’re filler, remember?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Oxblood tells me as he finishes my second to last magazine, and ducks down with us. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t affect the storyline,” he tells her. “You affect our storyline.”

“Problem is that we don’t matter either,” I growl, pulling my flask out of my pocket. Oxblood shoves my last magazine into my gun. “Hey, what happened to yours?” I ask him. 

“I lost it, while I was getting painted, when you weren’t watching my back.”

I grumble in response, and put the flask to my lips, letting the horrible, disgusting, euphoric liquid drain down my throat. The stressful situation eases, and my vision clears.

“Damnit Cyan!” Oxblood shouts, slapping the flask from my hand. “We’re in the middle of a gun fight!”

Instantly my handgun is pointed at his head, my fingers itching to pull the trigger. I see the flask fly in slow motion, its contents flying out as if falls. However horrid, however poisonous, however retched it is, it keeps me alive. It keeps me from going berserk. It keeps me from going any more nihilistic than I already am. I’ve already lost everything I’ve ever owned, the sole degree I once had, my parents and most of my friends. No single color is taking this away from me.

 “That was all I had.”

“Woah,” Cinnamon calms, placing her hand on my arm.

“Cyan, Calm down,” Oxblood pants.

“No you calm down!” I yell. “That flask was the only thing keeping my feet on the ground!” I stand up, exposing my chest and head to any Shade around. I shove the barrel of my pistol into what would be Oxblood’s forehead. “Ye know you were one of the people who I actually gave a little tiny damn about and look where that got me.” I press it harder, but Cinnamon pulls my arm back. I jerk, elbowing her in the head.

“Oh my god,” Oxblood cries, dropping to Cinnamon.

“Don’t touch her!” I yell, grabbing his arm and yanking him to his feet to look at me head on, when a bullet, shot from a Shade, hits him strait in the head.

Now you’ve done it Cyan.

It’s the last unpainted part. His body slumps, into my... my arms, and my pistol falls from my hands.

Idiot. Reckless unthinking piece of shit

His body begins to shudder, in my arms. A bullet probably meant for me hits him in the head. His arms and legs begin to shake so violently that I need to let him go. I recoil to the cube as I watch Oxblood’s still dark red parts, shift to a sickly pale grey. I’m frozen in horror as it happens. The gun in his arms. My gun, changes from cyan to grey, and his head snaps towards me.

Cinnamon smashes into him, crushing his body against the cube, and rips the gun from his hands, hurling it away. She pulls out her handgun and starts firing. “Help me damn Cyan!” she screams.

Do something you useless walking crap.

I raise my handgun and empty the magazine, shove a new one in, and empty it too. Oxblood.... the Shade can’t get up, being pelted with bullets from both sides. It gets to one knee, is shot back down, and gets up again, until we’ve painted him completely back to color. The Cinnamon browns and the Cyan blues shift and morph until a blank, clean brownish purple lies at our feet, confused.

Cinnamon looks like she’s about to cry as she slumps down against the cube and pulls her knees to her chest.

Don’t duck down, you bastard. Let the damn bullets hit you. You deserve as much.

I stand there, like a doll, frozen at what I’d just done.

“Oi! Scarecrow!” I hear somebody with a raspy voice hiss. I don’t turn to look at who it is. I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want to see them.

“Cinnamon! Get that twunt over here, now!”

I feel Cinnamon’s warm touch against mine as another bullet zips past my head.

Why am I the lucky one? How come the bullets aren’t freaking hitting me? I’m the one that deserves to be painted. Oxblood didn’t.

I yank my hand away from Cinnamon, but she locks her arms into mine from behind, restraining my toxin weakened muscles. I don’t fight her. I can’t fight her. All I can do is stare at the confused Color that had been my friend a few minutes prior.

It’s Puce. Or Plum. Or Wine.

I think of a name to call out to him, so that I can at least apologize, but none comes to me as Cinnamon drags me away from the scene.

“What happened Cyan? You’re the most useless soldier we’ve got, and you’re the least painted,” the raspy voice comments.

Gunmetal. Of course he’s still alive.

“Get up soldier!” A slap across my face. I’m dumped to the ground when Cinnamon releases me.

“I said get up!” Somebody kicks me in the lower torso. Would be a gut if Artist had done a better job. Instead, my body is just one long line.

He kicks me again. It’s Copper. I can tell because his muscles are as toxin weakened as mine are. He grips me by the shoulders and yanks me upright. My eyes are lifted to the Color’s around me. I don’t recognize most of them, but I can tell that there aren’t as many as there should be. All of them are almost completely painted, with just a limb, or a patch left. All of these colors had been fighting valiantly, despite their pasts, to protect each other, and stop all of us from becoming Shades. I was getting my comrades turned into Shades.

Damn you Oxblood. Look what you’ve got me into

“Cyan,” says a softer voice. It’s Cinnamon. She raises my head to look at her. I think that if I had eyes, I would by crying. Her left arm and the top right part of her face are a lovely brown. The rest is mushed greys and blacks.

“We don’t have time for this,” Gunmetal declares. “As we all know, our convoy’s been taken by the Shades, along with pretty much all the other freshly painted colors. We came here with a mission, and we succeeded. We were told to get this outpost, and we did it, but now we’ve got a new mission.” He steps out of the way as Copper, the captain of our squadron, steps forwards.

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“Fifty of us came here on the train, and fourteen of us stand here now. That’s a lot of casualties. But we need to get our freshies back, otherwise we’ve done nothing for the Primals.”

“So then? We’re all going to hijack the Shade vehicles and chase down the train?” somebody asks.

“Good thinking, Lapis,” Copper praises. Even in his battle toxic state, he automatically reverts back to his teaching mode. “Some of us will do this, but we still need to defend the outpost. Nine of us will go after the convoy, and the rest will stay here.”

Murmurs slither through the group. A few reach my ear.

We’re not fourteen. We’re thirteen. That bastard doesn’t count.

We’re twelve. He’s a negative.

I wonder where they’re gonna put him.

“Ok,” Copper continues. “Gunmetal, I want you here, defending.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Gunmetal begins.

“Shut up you gun fingering shit. We need you to defend.”

Gunmetal shuts up.

“Ok with Gunmetal, I want Arctic, Shamrock, Umber and Carob. Lapis, Heather, Dijon, Amber, Cinnamon, Iris, Cobalt and... Cyan. You’ll be with me. Two on a vehicle. Everybody move out. We’ve got no time to-” he collapsed sideways, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

Everybody looked around, unsure of what to do as Gunmetal checked him.

“If I had a nose, I’d say he smells more toxic than me,” I say, clambering to my feet. They’re unsteady, even though I’d taken a sip earlier.

Cinnamon doesn’t look at me and walks away.

“Cobalt, can you ride with me?” she asks.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he says. He has no facial features, yet he still smirks. I don’t understand.

I don’t bother to search for a partner. We’re nine people, I’ll be alone. That way, when I crash, I’ll be responsible for one death, not two.

I make my way back over to the cube, where the Puce, Prune, Wine Color is sitting, still confused.

I see my flask, lying open on the ground. The rhapsodic, rapturous liquid, dripping out the mouth.

Don’t do it. Just don’t

I pause.

“Hullo?” the Color that had just been a Shade, which had just been Oxblood asks.

I glare at him or her. Not really sure. “See the Color over there.” I point to Gunmetal, helping Copper to his feet. “His name’s Gunmetal. Talk to him.”

“Th-thanks,” he or she says, standing up and awkwardly walking over to him.

Reach for the flask again.

I said don’t. You’ve already messed up enough today.

Exactly why I have to.

I pick it up and slosh the contents. Still a third left in it. I press the flask to what should be my mouth, and let the tiniest of drops, spill in. I allow my fingers to twitch with raw pleasure. I feel the warmth of the toxins spread through my body. The security, the anxiety, the consolidation, the anger, the calm, the agitation... they all flow through me, making my shoulders jolt, and my head lie back, staring into the blank white sky. No sun. Only main storyline characters got a sun.

I bend down, try not to fall over, pick up the flasks top, and screw it on, then place it into what should be my pocket. It just disappears inside of me. No idea where, but it’s always there when I reach for it. Sloppy drawing skills. Not realistic at all.

“Hey! Cyan!”

I look back. It’s Dijon. She’s got no partner. “Yuh?”

“Copper’s demanded that he rides alone. That leaves me with you.” Her blank, mustard yellow face shows a mix between disgust and apprehensiveness.

“Well that’s heartwarming,” I tell her. My voice is more gravelly than usual.

“What’s your ammo situation?” She asks me.

“Right.” I pick up my gun from the ground. “One magazine left.” I check my handgun. “Two rounds of six bullets. All three grenades, and my saber.”

She tosses me a magazine. I fumble it and it drops to the ground. I pick it up and shove it in my pocket. “Give me a grenade.” It’s an order, not a request.

I unclip it and toss it to her. She catches and clips it to her belt. “Let’s go.”

The first pair, Cinnamon and Cobalt, are already leaving. We reach our vehicle. It’s nothing more than a cuboid. A rectangle. It doesn’t even have wheels, it just floats. There’s a handlebar for steering presumably.

She hops on the front. I get on the back. We reverse out of the garage thing and speed off after the others. The only Color that hasn’t left yet is Copper, who’s struggling to maneuver out of the garage thing.

We catch up to the others pretty quickly. I can see the train ahead in the distance.

The environment around us is no longer an expanse of grey. It’s covered in thin brown lines, with green blobs atop them. Probably trees. We’re in a forest.

“They’re shooting at us!” Iris screams from ahead. Sure enough, two shades are at the end of our train, frenzy spraying us with their guns. I’m sure we’re about to be picked off, one by one, when Cobalt pulls out his own gun and paints them down. Nearly everybody in the front was hit. Even Dijon took a bullet. Not me. My skin is dry.

Cobalt leaps off his vehicle and lands on the train. Cinnamon does the same, leaving the grey rectangle to fall behind us. The two of them disappear to through the right train door, as two more Shades appear from the left.

“Shoot them!” Dijon screams at me as she takes the brunt of the bullets.

How? You’re in the way

I lean to the side and press my finger to the trigger. I see Amber toss a grenade at them, painting their backsides. One of them recoils back into the door, as the other throws its own grenade, with its last moments before it’s completely colored. I watch it sail through the sky, well away from my vehicle, and lands beneath Amber and Lapis. The blast propels their vehicle into the sky, but Lapis manages to leap to the only other vehicle besides mine, with Iris and Heather. I lose sight of Amber as she falls behind, probably crushed by her vehicle.

“We need to board the train! Cobalt and Cinnamon will die on their own!” Lapis shouts.

Then, the Shade that hid behind the door, steps out and unleashes his bullets at us. I can hear Heather, Lapis and Iris taking hits, but none of them goes down. I’m about to return fire when Dijon goes limp.

You’re dead for sure now

“Damn,” I curse. The vehicle starts to zigzagging zooming dangerously close to Heather, Lapis and Iris. If I crash into them, they’d kill me. I reach over Dijon’s body, and grab the handlebar. I don’t know what I did, but the vehicle calmed... I guess and started driving strait again.

Then Dijon turns. Her fully painted body goes Shade, and she thrashes. Kicks hit my gut and punches hit my face. She... It screams and lashes out, making me lose my grip on the handlebars, and fall backwards, only holding onto the vehicle with my legs.

“Grab on!” I hear. The slurred worlds tell me that it’s Copper. He hasn’t crashed yet.

I don’t see him, but I begin to flail my arms. “Help!” 

“Can’t save you if you’ve moving like a damn flag!” he shouts, grabbing my arms and dragging me off the vehicle, onto his. “You gotta help me Cyan.”

You expect him to just carry you? Help the damn drunk save your ass at least.

I grip the edge of his vehicle and begin to pull myself on, when the Shade on mine leaps at me. A searing pain shoots through my leg and into my hip as she rakes her saber down my thigh. Lucky for me... as usual... I’m skinny, even for a stick man, and the blade slips from my flesh, along with Dijon. The Shade.

Copper hauls me fully up. “You ok?”

“No,” I snap. If I could bleed, there would be blood pouring down the sides of the rectangle. Instead, I’m left with just the pain. I clutch my injured leg to my chest.

“You gotta be fit to make the jump,” he tells me. Heather and Lapis are helping Iris get onto the train, their vehicle is already gone. We’re the only ones not on yet.

“There’s no way I can do that,” I tell him. I’d be surprised if I could do it without my injury.

He growls, then hands me a small, cylindrical thing. I can’t even make out what it is. Our story must be really unimportant to Artist.

Why would it be? Heroes are brave and strong and goodhearted. The opposite of you. Blue is a hero. Cyan is a piece of shit.

I look the thing over. “Is this Light?”

Copper nods. “Pretty dilute, but it should do the trick. Don’t finish it though.”

“This is heavy stuff,” I mutter

You can’t get your body in a worse condition than it already is.

I shove the thing into my arm, and the pain in my leg fizzles away like a plume of smoke.

“You ready?”

“Wuh?” I look at Copper’s green face. “You- uh. Why yuh green?”

Copper shakes his head, leaving streaks of orange in the sky. He grabs me by the shoulders and lifts me to my feet. His touch feels good. The tingly pressure on my biceps makes me giggle.

Then he launches me forwards, and I’m flying. The clouds part as I soar through them. The sun beams in my face, warming me, as the atmospheric winds cool me. For an instant, a surreal calm washes over me as I glide through the heavens, but it doesn’t last long.

“You supposed to be up here?” a bird asks me.

I shrug and smile. The ground beneath me is no longer a grey expanse, it’s grass! Actual blades of grass, with flowers, and trees, and insects buzzing between them. A river, with crystalline water flows beside me as I walk, the dirt crunching underfoot like scrumptious cookies, waiting for me to gobble them up down my mouth... my mouth!

I touch my face and feel. A mouth, a nose, ears, cheekbones, eyes, eyebrows, hair! It’s all there! I can see my clothes, and my muscles beneath my blue skin. It’s a beautiful feeling. “Thank you Artist! I love you!” I scream at the top of my lungs

“Thank you for what?” The bird lands beside me.

“I said thank you Artist.”

“Yeah, and I asked why you’re thanking me.”

I look at the bird. The bird that isn’t an M in the sky, but a white bird, with feathers, and eyes and orange feet and an orange bill. “You’re the artist?”

“Well yes. Is there a problem?”

“Uh. No. I just thought....”

“Just thought that?”

“Um.”

“You thought I would be a human, didn’t you!” the bird shrieks.

“No! I swear!”

“Get out of here!” he flaps his wings in my face, and I’m cold.

“CYAN! GET UP!”

Bullets. They’re flying, hitting things, hitting Colors. Pain. Cold. Headache behind my eyes. Pounding me. Tearing up my brain. I’ve got no eyes anymore. The cold floor seeps into my back. The cold gun in my hands extinguishes the fire, warming my heart.

“WAKE UP CYAN!”

The world rushes towards me like a train, rushing towards Shade territory, like the train I’m on, rushing towards Shade territory. The sound of bullets fills my ears, and a hand slapping my face. It’s Lapis.

“Cyan get up. Take this,” he gently pushes my gun into me. The side of his face is grey.

I grab a railing, and hoist myself up, and stars fill my eyes. The stars are then gunned down by the bullets in my ears. I turn, and see a carriage, nondescript and without any purpose, with Shades hiding behind anything they can, and shooting at us.

Heather, Iris and Copper are shooting at them, using more nondescript boxes as cover. I fumble with my gun but find the trigger. I let what should be fingers slide over the cool, what should be metal, and then press the trigger down, letting a flurry of bullets escape. The recoil is too much for my intoxicated legs, and I collapse.

~

When my vision turns from darkness, to something other than darkness, the headache comes back, ten times worse. “What were you thinking, Copper?” a voice I’ve recognized as Lapis asks. “As much as he’s a useless fighter, he’s a soldier. He shoots, and we need that. We lost another Color because we were outgunned. I for one think that if he was awake, Iris would still be standing here with us.”

“Cyan’s more useful to us unconscious than awake. Besides, we painted eight Shades, and lost one Color. It’s a good trade off,” Copper retaliated.

“You can’t just think of them as numbers, Copper,” Lapis protested. “We’re alive, just as much as any Primal is, or you are. We aren’t just numbers. We’re living, breathing Colors.”

“You say whatever you want. It doesn’t change a thing. Iris is dead and there’s nothing we can do about it. You follow my orders either way.”

I see Lapis turn to Heather in frustration, but she looks away very quickly.

“Oh, look who decided to wake up from his beauty sleep,” Copper laughs.

“That was too strong,” I groan, rubbing my bruised forehead.

“Drink this,” Lapis crouches down beside me and hands me a water bottle. I nod my thanks, and gulp down the fresh fluid. Been a while since I actually drank water. Maybe that’s why my headache refuses to leave. I hand him back the bottle.

“We’re running real low on ‘munitions,” Copper states, checking his ammo.

“Yeah. We’ve got to regroup with Cobalt and Cinnamon. If they haven’t been shaded yet,” says Lapis. “Heather, how much do you have on you.”

Heather glances at me before she responds. “Enough. I’ve got enough.”

“How much do you have, Lapis,” Copper asks in a rude undertone.

“That depends on how many Shades are on board. Haven’t we got spare weapons in the third carriage?”

“Yeah let’s get to the third carriage first,” Copper loads his gun.

I clamber to my feet and look around. Multiple freshly painted Colors are sitting in a corner, heads down. They’re not talking. They’ve got no idea who they are, or what’s going on.

“Cyan, I need to know that you’ll have our backs if shit goes down,” Lapis tells me.

I turn to him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Ok. Lock and load everybody. We’ve got one carriage, four more to go,” Copper rattles.

“Wait. We need a strategy,” Lapis tells him. “We should storm through and get to the third carriage. Then we hunker down and fight back with fully loaded guns.”

The captain looks at Heather.

“Sounds like it could work,” she says.

He turns to me.

“What’re you lookin’ at me for?”

Copper knocks his gun in frustration, then twirls his hand in the air. “Move out.”

We approach the door wearily, uncertain of how to make the entrance. “Y’all better keep me alive,” he growls back to us. Then, he flings the door open and throws himself across the gap between carriages. Lapis follows, eagerly behind him, then Heather and then me. 

As soon as I enter, it’s complete chaos. I can’t tell exactly what’s going on, but I scramble for cover as a Shade bullet hits my gun. I press myself into the same spot as Heather and squish her against the wall. “Move damnit!” she hisses, kicking at me.

I don’t budge, but instead, decide to do something for once. I land the barrel of my gun on the top of the box and take aim at a Shade that’s desperately reloading. I press my finger to the trigger, and push forwards against the recoil of my gun. His entire face is painted by my bullets, though maybe six of the twenty I shot hit him.

Heather pushes up beside me and starts shooting as well.

“What’s happening?” I ask her. “Why do the Shades look so confused?”

The grey beings are sprinting across the width of the carriage, jumping into the center and cowering behind boxes.

“Cobalt and Cinnamon. They must’ve made it to the third carriage from the outside. The Shades are surrounded. Pinned down from both sides.”

“Well in that case,” I start, standing fully up and spraying my bullets at the pinned Shades. As soon as my clip finishes, I’m hit square in the chest, knocking me backwards.

“Get back to cover!” Heather screams, firing like mad to stop me from being shot.

I scramble back to her side.

“I’m out,” I tell her.

“Grenades,” she replies, ducking down to put in her last magazine. “Save your handgun.

I nod, unclip one grenade and hurl it forwards.

“Fire in the hole!” she screams.

The entire mid-section of the cabinet erupts in light blue, and a quarter the Shades are painted with my throw.

“Hey! Freshies!” Copper hollers to the newly painted Colors. “Get over here!”

They stand up, getting pelted by whatever Shades were still standing, and ran over to where Copper was, each of them now splotched with grey.

“Get into that other carriage, if you wanna live,” he tells them, giving the first one a shove towards the carriage we’d already taken back.

Heather throws her own grenade, but it doesn’t nearly do as much damage as mine.

Stop kissing your ass, everything about her is better than you.

I pull out my handgun and start firing. It’s only when my second to last round finishes, does the fighting die out. All the Shades are freshly painted colors now, being ushered into the other carriage.

“Ye know Cyan, you didn’t get anyone of us killed this time,” Copper tells me, thumping me so hard on the shoulder that I wince.

It’s Lapis who comes to me next. “You did good. I’m proud of you.”

“Shut up,” I growl. “I’m not a damn freshy.”

He swallows and checks on Heather.

It’s then when we hear gunfire again. We all turn, to see a Shade, staggering through the room and being relentlessly pelted by Cinnamon’s bullets, until it’s completely painted. Even for a cinnamon brown head with no features, she looks grim. “That was Cobalt.”

“He was a jerk,” I mutter under my breath.

Cinnamon’s gun barrel is pressed against my forehead in an instant. “Cobalt went down saving my damn life. All you ever do is get people killed.”

I look strait at her. “I didn’t say that I was any better,” I growl.

Lapis is between us now, trying to sooth Cinnamon. “The last thing we need here is a fight between our ranks.”

“I agree completely,” Cinnamon says, robotically.

“If you don’t want fights then don’t start them.”

“I didn’t start shit!” she yells.

“Hey. Relax,” Lapis is all up in her face again.

I duck out of the conversation before I can screw anything else up.

“Cyan,” Copper calls to me. “Load up. Get as many magazines as you can carry.”

I nod, and leap to the ammo carriage. The room is filled with guns and bullets, splattered with Color and Shade bullet markings.

I pocket four magazines and shove a fifth into my gun. Then, I clip four more grenades by my last one. I toss my nearly empty hand gun magazine away, and replace it with a new one, sticky with dark blue essence. Probably Cobalt’s bullet. 

When are you planning on jumping off the train? When it reaches the Chasm?

“Woohoo!” Copper screams. “What have we here?” he hoists a massive gun into air. “Mother effing grenade launcher!”

“What’s the plan this time, cap?” Lapis asks.

“Everybody cover my ass!” he hollers and kicks open the door, leaping into the second to first carriage. Lapis and Heather frantically launch themselves after him. Cinnamon shoots me a look that hurts more than Shade bullets before following them.

I’m about to follow when my hand automatically reaches for my flask.

How many times can you screw up in a day?

I press a knuckle to my forehead. “It’s to get the headache out.” I press the flask to my lips and let it pour down my throat. I feel better already, as I step into the gunfight.

“Suck on this!” Copper screams, unleashing grenade after grenade.

I can barely see anything with the constant eruptions of metallic brown. Heather, Lapis and Cinnamon are already in position, shooting at any Shade that has the guts to attack Copper.

You’ve got magazines to waist. Use them.

I unleash my bullets, letting them spray over the Shades. I don’t bother to duck into cover. I’m standing fully erect like Copper.

A Shade manages to score a shot at my forehead, sending me staggering into the back door. It’s only the left side of my jaw that hasn’t been painted now.

Copper gets hit in the shoulder, an already painted section. The force of the bullet knocks the launcher out of his hands, sending him diving for cover.

Cinnamon rolls into the open, snatches the launcher, and empties its ammo, clearing out the rest of the Shades while she’s at it.

“Cheers to another no casualty carriage raid!” Copper exclaims, gleefully rising to his feet.

As he says it, I see a Shade from the front carriage leap in and hurl a grenade.

I’m on the floor in an instant, and the explosion renders me deaf for a moment. I don’t see or hear anything, I just feel my heart thumping against my gun, pressed to the floor. My entire side is covered in a fresh splatter of greys. When my hearing returns, I hear bullets.

That’s starting to happen a lot.

I roll sideways as fast as I can, and don’t stop rolling until I’ve reached the wall. I open my eyes and look around. The Shades from the front carriage have entered this one and are attacking us relentlessly. Heather and Copper are lying in a grey heap, unmoving. Lapis and Cinnamon are desperately trying to subdue the Shades from advancing.

Looks like you’ve got to do something for once.

Kneeling on one knee behind a crate, just like Lapis and Cinnamon, I begin firing. I hurl two grenades, and with the combined force of Lapis and Cinnamon’s fire power, we drive them back to the first carriage.

“C’mon! We can’t lose the momentum,” Cinnamon orders, taking off after them. Lapis is right on her heels.

I can’t help but glance at Heather and Copper. The grenade must’ve been right beside them.

I run after my comrades, and leap into the first carriage, straight into the mayhem. I see a crowd of Shades, less than I expected, but still far too many, hammering their triggers.

I watch as Cinnamon manages to shoot a grenade before it hits us, causing it to explode midflight. Lapis throws his entire grenade belt, completely painting six shades.  I push the trigger of my gun to its max and don’t let go until I finish the magazine.

Suddenly, unrealistically, the crowd thins. Then, a Shade manages to score a shot on me as I’m reloading. The odds are impossible, but it shoots my chest in such a way that my flask is launched out of my pocket, and skids towards the open door.

Damn you Artist

I’m about to go and get it, when I see Lapis attacking the last of the Shades up front. His gun is kicked from his hands, and he’s punched so hard in the head that he staggers to the other side’s open door. The door I entered this train on.

“Lapis!” Cinnamon cries, dropping her gun and lunging for him.

As he falls out the door, Cinnamon grabs him. A fall from the train means death at this speed.

His entire body is out of the train, and Cinnamon’s holding his arm, and holding herself with the side of the door. “Cyan! Help!”

Damnit

I sprint towards my flask.

Cinnamon is being painted grey from behind. “Cyan I... I can’t hold him!”

I grab the flask and shove it in my pocket, then I let it rain. My entire new magazine, all twenty-five bullets fly from my gun’s barrel, finishing off the last three Shades with overkill.

I’m about to run to Cinnamon, when I see she’s not there. Her and Lapis are gone. I’m too late.

Fuck you, Cyan.

I drop to my knees.

You killed them. You damn killed Cinnamon! She was your only damn friend!

I shudder, as my conscience tears apart my innards.

You can’t undo this one. You’ve screwed up to the point where more than one people have died because of you.

I fall on my side. “Damn you Artist!” I scream. If I could cry, I would be sitting in a puddle. “I came here to die. These people came here to fight for the colors. Why them? Huh? Am I special or something? Is that why I’m alive? Because I’m part of something bigger? Well screw that! What’s stopping me from jumping off myself huh?”

“Hey, stop all yer yelling,” rasped a familiar voice.

I spin around to see Copper, making his way through the freshies.

“You’re alive?”

“Course I am.”

The bastard was fucking pretending.

“I honestly didn’t think any of you would’ve survived this. Let alone you,” he sits back in one of the benches.

I bury my face in my hands.

“Oh relax. We do what we have to in order to survive.” He reclines and pulls out his Light injector.

My hands are shaking as I reach for my flask.

“Think of this. Copper and Cyan, return as triumphant heroes, fighting off the entire train full of Shades by themselves,” he laughs. “The story can be whatever we want it to be.”

“We’re not heroes,” I breath through shaky breath, into my arms.

“What was that?”

“I said. We aren’t damn heroes.” I turn to tell him a third time, but the Light is fully into his arm, and his head has fallen back. He’s stoned.

I sit back against the wall. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Cinnamon. I’m sorry Oxblood. I’m damn sorry Lapis.” I look at my flask.

It was worth it. You know it. You would’ve traded them for it any day.

I could’ve come back. I could’ve saved them and come back for it.

It would’ve been gone. Kicked off the edge in the mayhem. You did good.

Colors died because of you. So you could pleasure yourself with toxins.

I press the flask to my lips, and let all of it drain into me. “You’re all I have left,” I shudder, holding the flask close to me.

~

“Cyan! Cyan can you tell us what it’s like?”

“Cyan how does it feel?”

“Cyan can you tell us what happened?”

Blinding, flashing lights flash across my face. A worse headache than ever before is throbbing, pulsing in my brain.

I’m being carried. In a medical bed. Two Colors on each end.

I look at my body. It’s crisp clean, light blue all the way.

A crowd of Colors mobs around me. Taking pictures and holding microphones towards me.

“Is it true? Were you the only survivor?”

“Whuh?” I try to sit up, but I roll off the stretcher, and hit the ground.

The medical Colors stop instantly to help me up. I shove them away.

“What happened?”

“How did the others die?”

“Was it scary?”

“Why were you the only survivor?”

“I wasn’t,” I growl.

The reporter shakes her head vigorously. “All the others with you were found dead. And everybody that stayed to protect the base died in the fighting, shortly after reinforcements arrived. You were the only one left.”

“Copper?”

I don’t get a response before a ghostly silence befalls the crowd in front of me.

They part, as a figure walks between them. I’ve never seen a Color drawn with so much detail. He has fingers, and feet, and hair, and facial features. He looks strait at me. He takes one of my hands. “Copper overdosed on Light, just before you arrived.”

It’s no mistaking who this is. It’s Blue, the leader of the rebellion.

“I want you to join me, Cyan. The rebellion’s in desperate need of heroes like you.”