Chains of words
Telling,Judging words
Shackles of rumors
All of them lies
They wrap around you holding you still
You hate the words
Wish you could block the hate
Hi, my name is Elina Ariel. I'm about to tell you the story that changed my life. Before all this happened I was just like everybody else. But then my 13th birthday came and I felt my whole world crashing down. Somehow, a certain person helped me lift it up again. For this story lets start it on my 13 birthday...
I ran happily to the bus stop excited for my colour. Here in Threa on everyone's 13th birthday a colour appears on our left wrist. A system calculates your color based on your traits and DNA. Your colour determines your whole future, your job, your social status, your financial status, basically everything. The system follows the rainbow, with purple as the highest rank and red as the lowest. It wasn't just your future that it decided it was how everybody saw you and how everybody treated you. My colour was supposed to come at exactly 3:00pm. Both of my parents were yellows and I hoped that I would at least get that. I couldn't wait for the rest of my life.
However it didn't quite go as planned. 3:00pm came and went but my wrist stayed blank. I hoped with all my heart that the clock was broken but when the bell that hope slipped through my fingers. After classes ended my friends Hecate (green), Lamia (yellow), Kasdeya (yellow), and Bronwen (green) came running to check my wrist.
"What colour did you get?" Hecate asked excitedly. The other crowd around me but I don't know what to say.
"Um, well I don't really know,"
"What do you mean?" Kasdeya asks. I pull up my sleeve and show them my blank wrist.
"Maybe it's on the other wrist?" Lamia askes I shake my head and Bronwen scoffs.
"Well we don't want to be friends with a nobody" He walked away Hecate trailing behind him. Lamia and Kasdeya lingered but in the end they followed the two anyway. I wanted so bad to go after them but it was clear that they didn't want ANYTHING to do with me. I just stood there looking like a lost puppy that nobody wanted. I tried so hard to talk to them and get my friends back. I felt so lost without them. I had nobody to lead me, nobody to laugh with me, nobody to play games with me, nobody to make me feel better, nobody to go to, at last but not least nobody to trust and love.
At home a similar thing happened, I didn't know why or how it happened but suddenly everyone I cared for and trusted in my life was gone in a blink. Nobody acknowledged me at all, my own parents only cooked for me and gave me a place to live. My teacher didn't recognize me apart from handing out a worksheet or two. I spent hours crying at recesses or in my room half-hoping that someone would rush up to me and say that they're sorry for leaving me but of course no one did. Even the reds were digusted by me, nobody even looked at me. Even if they looked in my direction it was never at me, I could see it and I could feel it. I was like a ghost that everybody forgot. That wasn't the only thing that changed though. My wardrobe was cleared out and filled with grey clothes. Sad, depressing grey clothes. It made me stand out at school quite a lot, as if I didn't already.
Have you ever seen those pictures where there are colourful people everywhere and in the middle there's a child dressed in grey and looks sad? That's what I looked and felt like. That sad child that stood out from everyone else. A child who was different yet ignored. People whispered about me behind my back and I heard it all.
"What is wrong with her?"
"She must be a nobody"
"She doesn't deserve anything"
"She was always mean in the first place"
"Why is she acting like she's depressed? It isn't that bad"
"Why is she still alive?"
"She deserves so much worse."
"I heard that she's like this because she's a monster"
"She must be worthless"
"If I was her I would probably kill myself."
"She should just go away, she's ruining the school's reputaton."
"Why can't she just disappear"
Those words were like chains. Not letting me go but forcing me to take the pain to the fullest. I knew that there was a way to escape but it was always out of grasp. Dangling teasingly Some days I would stare at my wrist as if willing it to change colour. It never did but I spent so much time huddled in my room feeling like I had a black hole in my heart. I didn't have a reason to live, I looked like a zombie walking around without a purpose. I stopped taking care of myself, stopped brushing my black hair, stopped taking time to shower or brushed my teeth. To me the only way that I didn't have a future was if I was nothing I never could amount to anything . No traits, no colour. I thought that I was nothing, and deserved nothing. That's exactly how everybody treated me too, like I was nothing. People seemed to see through me and although everybody whispered about me nobody acknowledged me. Sometimes I tried to take my mind off the sorting by drawing or listening to blasting music but it always seemed to go back to the thing I wanted to avoid most. Drawings had a darker meaning now. Lyrics changed to hurt me. I thought it would get better eventually but it didn't. In fact it got worse. The rumors got louder, the hole got bigger and the key grew farther away from me. I thought that all hope was lost, slowly disappearing into my hole of darkness and despair.