Colours

"-ike, holy shit Tori, I'm freaking out. What's happ-"

"- want you to take deep breaths, Alexa, it's going to be fine. Calm do-"

We were standing in front of my house. I unlocked the door and let myself in. Tori stepped in the doorframe, and I shook my head fervently.

"No, no, no, no, no! I need to call Hayley." I closed the door in Tori's face and then found myself in the kitchen with a portable phone pressed to my ear. It kept ringing into my ear, and my head started thudding. I started bouncing my legs up and down, not knowing what to do with myself. I looked outside my front window, seeing people walking by. They started at me and I stared back, my eyes continuously getting wider. They knew. They knew, they were going to tel-

"Hello?" Hayley's voice came over the line. I ran my hand through my hair.

"Hayley, I'm so high right now. Help me." Poor girl. The girl on the phone just looked so worried, as if she had been caught doing something horrid. Tears were swelling in her eyes, her makeup running all down her face. She was fidgeting as if she was trying to shake off a bunch of insects. Her mouth opened and closed, probably talking to whoever was on the line. Hayley's voice sounded sceptical in my ear, laughter hiding behind each word.

"Okay, champ. I'll be right over." The sad, frightened-looking girl hung up the phone and put it back in it's charging cradle. I then walked over to the kitchen counter, and slid down against it on to the floor. I started crying freely, still freaking out about what was happening to me. I needed food. My stomach growled loudly, but I couldn't find the energy to get up and walk over to the fridge.

"Mom!" A girl cried, tears running down her cheeks and her short, thin blonde hair in knots from rolling in a bed. She wrapped her arms around her mother's shoulders and hoped in her lap. The mother kissed the girls head, rubbing her back soothingly.

"Alexa, sweetie, did you have another nightmare?" The girl nodded and a tear fell on the red leather couch. "Sweetheart, you don't have to worry. They're just dreams, they can't hurt you. It's your brain telling you what you're afraid of. They aren't real."

"But it was real, mommy. It was real and scary and I couldn't run! I couldn't run mom, and I was being chased!" The girl buried her head into the mothers purple-clad chest, her tears staining the sweater.

"Honey, just watch. You can fight it off, like a prince and a dragon. Next time it happens, you can make it go away. Can you be brave and strong and fight the bad dreams off for mommy, Alexa?" The mother tucked the girls hair behind her ear, wiped away her tears. And the girl nodded and then trudged back upstairs. But instead of turning into her room, she turned to the room on the other side of the hallway. Opening the door as quietly as she could, she ran and jumped into the bed that was against the wall, and curled into the figure that was already lying there.

"What is it, Alexa?" The figure, the ginger-haired figure, was immediately awake when he heard his sister's quiet sniffs.

"I had a dream." She sniffed and bit her lips, trying to keep from crying more. "And mommy said that I can fight them away, but I don't know how. I'm only five, I'm not strong like you or smart like mommy or mean like daddy. I'm just Alexa"

"You don't have to be smart or mean or strong, Al! You just have to tell it to go away. Just say, 'Go away!' and then it won't be there anymore." The girl nodded and her brother smiled, happy to be able to help his sister.

"I can't wait to be old, Caleb. Then I won't have to bother with bad dreams. All the bad dreams will be scared of me, 'cause I'm gonna be strong and smart. But I'm not gonna be mean, I'm gonna be nice like grandma." The girl wiped her tears off her face.

"Go away!" I yelled, throwing my arms out in front of myself. I stood up and rushed to the sink, grabbing a dishcloth and soaking it in cold water. I can wake myself up from this nightmare. I ran the cloth over my face, over and over. Rubbed my eyes with the cool cloth, splashed some water all over my body. I grabbed a dry towel and dried off the water. I'm brilliant! I'm awake now!

Hayley was walking towards me, her expression turning from one of smugness to one of worry.

"Holy shit, Alexa. I thought you were joking! What's wrong? Why are you crying?" She came and slid down next to me, putting her arm around me.

"We were smoking, and when I was alive, I was a model smoker, I guess you could say. My pulls were always deep, and I could hold it forever. I always got so high, and that's what the point of it was; to be so high that I don't remember anything, and just being happy. So Tori hooked us up, and we smoked a lot for my first time in a long while, and my first time in this place. And I wasn't feeling any effects but now I'm having out of body experiences and everyone knows and I'm scared, 'cause I don't want to die. What if I get in trouble? Hayley, I'm so scared." My sobs overtook my body again, and I blanked.

"- ust take deep breaths for me, okay? Just stop crying. You're going to be okay, just breath."

"No! Everybody knows, what am I going to do? Shit, I need to hide."

"Alexa, look at me." I looked into her eyes, wiping my tears from my own. "Stop worrying."

"I - I can't. I can try but I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I'll t-"

"Don't smoke anymore. Nobody ever has a good trip here. All you get are shitty, horrible trips, so don't ever do it again."

"But Tori was fine! Tori was happy and giggly!" I pouted and sniffed, and Hayley shook her head.

"Tori smokes all the time. She barely even gets high anymore, so she can hide what she's feeling inside." I started crying again at that point, having not remembered moving from the kitchen to the couch. Hayley kept trying to comfort me, I would assume, since the words she was saying to me sounded soothing and nice.

"Okay, Alexa, I have to go to work. Take care of yourself, okay?" She put her hand on my forehead. "Holy shit, man, you have an insane fever..." She then rushed to get a glass of water while I laid on the couch, zoning in and out, watching Hayley get things in the kitchen from my perspective and from another person's perspective. Eventually she came back and handed me the glass, her mouth moving. I took it from her gingerly and sipped at it. I came back down from my dream-like state for a moment, and then chugged the whole glass.

"I just want you to lay here. Watch some TV, do something, and just don't worry or think about what's going on." I nodded my head and she left, locking the door behind her. I cocked my head to the side, realizing that I was insanely hungry. One word kept ringing through my head, and it sounded delicious. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

"Thank you." I hung up the phone and giggled. That was fun.

I sat up, crossed my legs on the couch. Looked at the small television. I must have looked at it for a long time, because my eyes started to sting from not blinking.

The doorbell rang and I hopped down from the coffee table. I walked to the door, opened it, and took the box of whatever a woman was handing me. My eyes widened as I looked at the lady. She knew, she knew, she knew, she knew. I had to get her away from here. I thanked her quickly and shut the door, running back into the living room and sitting on the couch. Opening the box, I squealed in delight.

"Pizza!" I pulled a piece out and chewed it slowly at first, becoming faster and faster as I realized how hungry I was. I still kept fading in and out, in the middle of each piece, so then I would be done the piece and not remember eating it. But each time that happened, I merely shrugged and continued eating.

Once I was done, I closed my eyes and laid down on the couch. When I opened them again, I realized that most colours had faded and disappeared. There was one new colour that I could see. It was bright and vibrant, and gave colour to a head of hair that kept revisiting me in my mind. Yellow.