Your True Colors

A hardened girl from a feared and respected family finds herself stepping up when times get tough.

My best friend was patient zero. Violet hadn’t been feeling well and as sad as it is, I was fortunate to not be someone she saw and infected during her last days on this Earth. They had no idea, at first, what took my best friend’s life. Her mother tried to assure me, as much as herself, that her daughter would be fine. Her cough was relentless, as was her trembling, sweating, weakness and fever. By the time Violet began to bleed, out of every open crevice, there were already three more cases on the street. Her mother, Iris, and her father, Steel, both fell ill nearly a day before they pronounced her dead. The other victims on the street died within the week and all further cases were brought to the hospital.

It wasn’t long after this that the infected were quarantined and homes were emptying at an alarming rate. My parents kept me inside, away from whatever was brewing beyond the threshold of our home. Officials finally identified the killer as the Bubonic Plague, a bacteria based pandemic that hadn’t shown its face in decades due to developments in modern medicine. Antibiotics that once eliminated the Black Death as a risk now failed to save the lives of anyone who becomes infected. It was clear that over the years the bacteria that caused the Black Death became immune to the antibiotics that once kept it at bay.

We were virtually helpless against the black cloud that lingered above our neighborhood, then city, then country, with no signs of slowing. People smuggled family members out of the quarantined areas which allowed the disease to be smuggled out with them. Others fled the country, hoping to escape the hands of the Black Death but only furthering its reach. I understand the concern they felt for their loved ones, but they were foolish to allow their feelings to overcome their concern for the greater good. The only ones permitted to leave were those who were deemed to have no traces of the disease in their system. I had to leave my parents behind.

A rush of pain washed over me at the thought of leaving them, to suffer and die just like everyone else left in the quarantined areas. With a sharp pain in my chest and a knot in my throat, tears began to fill my large red and brown eyes. I brushed them away and stared numbly behind us as the military truck we rode in continued to grow closer to our new homes. Crying over them now would only slow me down and cloud my thoughts, it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Then suddenly, a boy who looked to be around my age stumbled my direction, against the orders of the guard. He ignored the glare he received for his disobedience as he plopped down on the seat next to me.

“Do you need a hug?” he said sweetly, as if he were genuinely concerned for me.

“What?” I snapped, taken completely off-guard by the stranger’s random offer of affection.

“I saw you leave them, your parents I mean.”

“No thank you, I’m fine.”

“Can I have one anyways? I had to leave behind my little sister. Our parents already died a couple weeks ago.”

After a moment of hesitation, I opened my arms to comfort the boy. During our embrace, I almost broke. I almost cried on the shoulder of someone I had never met before. I quickly retreated and threw back up my fiery barriers. The remainder of the bumpy trip to our unknown destination was, for the most part, silent. After what seemed like hours, we finally stopped in front of a facility that was entirely caged in. It was large and grey and surrounded by a tall fence that was lined with barbed wire. Military enforcement surrounded the establishment as much inside the fence as out.

One of the guards looked in the back of the truck, counted us, talked to the driver and then opened the gates. I was more scared in that moment than I had been our entire trip there, wherever there was. Without asking this time, the mysterious and unusual boy to my right tightly clasped my hand in his. I could tell it hit him as hard as me that we had no idea the magnitude of what was going on or how long we would last.

Inside the facility was as eerie as to be expected. The first day of our arrival they explained that we were in the DBOC (Designated Building for Orphaned Children) or “D-Boc” as it came to be called. We had assigned rooms, portioned meals, and a predetermined schedule for sleeping, eating, schooling and free time. With guards everywhere we turned and strict rules, it felt more like prison than a safe house. I shared a room with eleven other sixteen-year-old girls from my home state of New York. None of us talked to one another. We had all suffered in the months prior to our arrival and the weight of the situation loomed in the room like a dense fog. I hated being in that room, it was even more dark and dismal that the rest of the building. I spent all the time that I could outside of the sleeping halls.  

More often times than not, I could be found in the furthest back corner of the cafeteria. With a book in hand, I would do my best to forget the reality that surrounded me. That at any moment, we could all have only days to live. That I left my parents to die a miserable death. That the truest friend someone could ask for was the first to go, and I never got to say goodbye.

This was exactly what I was doing when I saw a group of boys shove the boy I had hugged on the military truck. They surrounded the boy and were steadily closing in on him. They were clearly full of rage, but couldn’t make the connection that taking it out on the helpless boy would solve nothing. Their momentary release, much like the temporary escape I find in my books, would soon be ruined by the facts of reality that we all faced.

They pushed the boy again and he fell hard against the wall. The guards only watched as the boy tried to come to an understanding with his bullies. He tried to explain that hurting him wouldn’t solve any of their problems. This is when I found myself closing the gap between myself and the group of boys.

“Listen to him,” I said firmly to the group as I approached “back off.”

“What are you going to do about it, throw your book at us” said the leader of the pack.

“Just leave him alone, you’re only going to cause more problems. We are all going through the same thing here” I persisted weakly, knowing his thick skull would not accept my logical reasoning.

“Why don’t you shove that attitude up yours and go back to your little…” the boy trailed off and stumbled back in fear as he caught a glance of my family color.

My eyes glinted an unmistakable scarlet, which made it easy to identify me as the daughter of former president and four star general, Oxblood Red.

“S-s-sorry S-Scarlet. We’ll leave him be, don’t worry about us” the boy stammered before waving for his followers to join him in his retreat.

    My father would be proud to see me follow in his footsteps. He was a remarkable man with unwavering courage and morals.

           “Thank you” said the boy from the truck, clearly still in shock from the events.

           I smiled at him politely, and somewhat awkwardly, before I turned to find my way back to my seat. As I did, I saw a crowd of awe-struck faces staring at me. I left their turning heads and open mouths in my wake as I passed my table and redirected myself to the moderately empty corridors. It felt good to be acting on behalf of my family, but I was not quite ready to be the face my father was for people.

           “Scarlet, Scarlet” the boy called after me, following me out of the spotlight.

When we were alone I stopped, allowing him to catch up.

“I know you don’t want all eyes on you while you’re still grieving. But what you did back there was amazing, it’s who you are. These kids need you, they don’t understand what’s going on and they don’t know what to do” he spoke kindly, but with a sense of urgency.

“Are you seriously defending them?! And what about the guards? They stood there and did nothing! Does that make keeping these kids in line automatically fall to me?” I barked at him, more rudely than I should have.

           “I am not defending them, Hunter Green has always been a jerk. This has just given him reason to lash out to more extremes than normal. My point is you’re a natural born leader, you’re our age, you’re experiencing the same things we are and whether you want them too or not they are going to look to you for guidance now.” He said, adopting a more firm tone.

           “What’s your name?” I asked.

           “Onyx Black” he responded grimly.

           “I can see why you were their target” I teased and we both chuckled lightly.

Onyx was right. It was time for me to be the leader I knew I was and help people, the way my parents would if they were here.