Draft: 46 Fuchsia, Grey, and Beige

There were colors surrounding her, moving, and playing around her. What James currently was, she couldn’t really say, since, looking down, she couldn’t spot her body. Weirdly enough, this didn’t scare her. Who really cared?

Reaching out with an invisible limb, she tried to touch one of the colors, but she didn’t feel a thing. There was neither resistance, nor sparks from the pink color she seamlessly passed through. There was some sort of reaction though, as the fuchsia seemed to abandon its previous movement and began to flow around her invisible hand. When she retracted it, it returned to its normal behavior.

Feeling like a ghost in the best way possible, James continued to explore this world of colors. Wonderfully alone and still somehow full of intent in a way she couldn’t describe, moving felt like gliding through the molasses: possible but somehow sticky.

The longer she stayed in that weird place full of colors, the more she noticed that all the colors almost seemed infected. A spot of grey there. A patch of beige here. It was more subtle than it sounded as often those discrepancies would disappear the second she noticed them, and James was left to wonder if she was seeing things. Something she really should have considered the second she looked around in the first place.

Moving across the colored plane, James watched in delight as the colors moved with her and around her. She had never been high, but if this was what psychedelics were like… no, drugs were bad. Even if they were breathtaking. If she was even breathing in this weird place.

Accidentally moving through a place where a beige swirl appeared, it didn’t vanish like the rest, or swirl with her in the same way the other colors did. Instead, it seemed to stick to her, latching on and filled the area with a weird tingling feeling. Suddenly it occurred to James that it was very dumb of her to try and touch the colors without finding some way to verify if they could harm her.

Doing a weird dance, where the only way to see her movements was by observing the colors changing, James tried to get the patch off of her, but it wouldn’t budge. In fact, the sudden movements seemed to attract more patches, or at least catch more of them on her. Unable to make a sound, James continued to struggle as the pain incrementally went up with each addition of beige or grey sticking onto her.

There was nothing exciting about her struggle. In fact, if anyone had watched they’d have probably grimaced and wished they could stop watching. Because it didn’t seem to end. The colors showed how nothing she did improved her condition, how her movements made her drift around more and more, made her grab more and more patches of ‘infected’ beige and grey. How the movements became progressively more sluggish as she got tired.

The movements became spasms of hurt, the hues sometimes moving abruptly as she fidgeted into them after a particularly painful zap went through her.

It did get better though. With less movement, no additional patches were added to her patchwork of grey and beige. Looking like a particularly boring quilt, James slowly tried to gather herself. Her exhaustion was mental more than anything: she had no body for her stamina to get used up.

Still, there were subtle, if invisible, changes that happened over that undefined time period. Even as she fruitlessly struggled, James slowly regained her ability to think clearly with every bit of mana, she could now correctly identify what the colors must be, that latched onto her. Her previous carefree attitude was replaced with an accurate assessment of her predicament.

James was in an unknown space, with lots of weird mana she couldn’t manipulate, other mana that actively hurt her, and without her body. Wonderful.

Refocusing again with some difficulty, James tried to push past the pain and concentrate. Feeling stupid, she tried to use her Mana Blast. The white washed her world for a second, before all the colors reappeared. Her own patchwork of grey and beige remained too. As a matter of fact, it had even grown larger.

Growling in both pain and frustration to herself, James tried to scratch at herself. Surprisingly, this time, there was some partial success as she could see her grey fingers chip away at her forearm’s beige. Grinning at her success, James continued in a furious pace, rejoicing every time her pain lessened.

Her single-minded focus paid off, and, finally, she was left with the one patch on her finger. Scratching at it without another color on her didn’t work. Oh well, it didn’t really hurt. And look around! She was in a world of color!