One

A Chapter by Brittney

One

I could feel it in the newly spring air, the crispness, the calm before the storm. The hairs on my arms dancing in unison embracing what was to come. Every inch of me suddenly felt alive, for these rare moments were the only time I actually did, the only time my body seemed to register with the creative sparks in my mind, that are otherwise handcuffed and imprisioned, locked away specifically and only for these moments, living dully and colorless until...

"Leiza!" I mustered up a quick frantic turn of my head, my body beginning to corporate with my emotions due to the oncoming weather.

"Leiza! Leiza!" Jemma, my best friend, screaming my name anxiously from somewhere in the distance of the meadows and I knew she could see.

A disturbing hint of jealousy hit me, growing stronger and stronger as the clouds rolled in that Jemma found her vice first.

I quickly as I could for someone still so dullisly dead released the unwelcomed emotion for I knew I would see soon too, it would only be moments now before the gray clouds dripped their drops of translucent life upon me allowing colors to burst in my brain being sucked up hungrily by my once turqouise speckled iris's.

"Leiza!" Jemma's now strong arms swooped me up as if I was weightless, her sudden movements thrusting me almost into blackness.

"Jemma!" "You almost made me go black! Calm down, I need to concentrate"

"Im sorry Leiz, im just so... so Excited! and umm oh whats the word... Energetic! and all those upper emotions I cant.. I cant list them all! Come on Leiz, I dont want to wear off before you see, how much longer?"

"Should be less than a minute now Jemma, but you jumping around and wailing like a primeval child is gonna throw me into the dark, so quit it!"

I tried my best to force my features into an disapointmented glare, but the most my frozen face could come up with was a slight twitch of an eyebrow, Jemma smirked, her face still grey and blurred to my dead eyes but through the fog I could see her wink, her muscles allowing her to express every emotion, every feeling. She was beautiful and admittily I couldnt stay mad at her, dead or alive.

...

Each precious drop feel slowly, sadistically dragging out my anticipation. The first, burst aganist my cheek, a painfully delicious pool of life streamed down to my neck disentagrating into my pores before reaching my chest. I could feel the sides of my lips curling into a smile, the firey burn of dead skin becoming alive.

I raised my arms to welcome the oncoming drops, coming faster now, each hit like a bullet awaking my senses. I opened my eyes wide and wonderstruck watching each splash of water painting ivory on my soon to be greyless skin.

"Leiza! Wow! You look... well you look amazing!"

In my awe I barely could focus on Jemma, the smells, the wind prickling my skin, the vibrations of earth beneath my feet, and the colors. Oh the infinte colors.

"Leiz.. Hello? You in there?" Jemmas loud giggles quickly brought my attention back to her.

"Jem! I can see you, I can see everything! Look at all these colors Jem, it's it's..." An unintentional gasp caught me by a horrific surprise. I had never breathed, no one did, even when we see we are still physically dead, this was unheard of, this was impossible. Seeing was an illusion, a very brief quick glance into a fake reality of life. All the sensations we felt when we saw, were a figment of imagination, created momentarily by explosions of dead brain cells.

I looked at Jem cautiously, the shock that filled my body in that moment was quickly filling her chestnut brown eyes.

"What the hell was that?" "You just... you just gasped? breathed?" The words came out whispered and fearfully broken as Jem spoke, she was shaking and I could see with my crystal clear eyes I was losing her.

"Jem, I dont know. We are probably so high off feeling alive it was just an emotional reaction, to the colors, my lungs are still dead Jem, my heart isnt beating. It was nothing."

The words hissed from my tongue and in my awakened state I could taste the lies of them, I just needed to calm Jem down, but I knew as well as she did it wasnt nothing, and there was no convincing either of us of that.

My concern for her was preventing me from going black, but nothing was preventing Jem. She was slipping away, the brown of her eyes being swallowed by deep grey the whites of her perfectly shapped eyes clouding.

"Jem, please" My ivory hand reached for her tenderly. Nuturing emotions consuming me, Jem was the only thing that made this dull dead place worth "living" even in my usual zombied state she was always there, always someone to raise a frozen eyebrow to, and to sit in cold monotoned uninteresting banter with, she was all I had.

"Stop!" The word muffled by her cries, she stumbled and as soon as her balance betrayed her she touched the still vibrant green grass and it wilted under her, instantly turning shades of grey and black.

Her seeing had vanished disturbed by my single impossible gasp, and as if in half a second color drained from Jems body. Like splattered paint dripping from a canvas, her perfect lightly tanned skin and strawberry blonde hair soon was being consumed by darkness, drying and dying with each passing second.

Finally she collapsed into a small childlike ball as I witnessed the last bit of color escape through her fingertips.