✲ true colors ✲ [open]

[Lei]

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

The color of today is black.

It slides off my fingertips in smooth, inky ribbons, drip drip dripping down into the vat of murky dye in a quick, steady rhythm. I watch with vague interest as the ripples spread across the hazy outline of my reflection, contorting the previously flat surface into an ebony kaleidoscope of shapes. The piece of fabric floating within it, barely discernable through the tainted water, is thick and velvety, probably expensive once fully stitched together, and for a moment I wonder if I’m coloring a garment meant to be worn at a funeral.

I lower my hand into the vat and splay my fingers above the colorless water, the pads of my fingers just barely touching the surface. My hand, which had once been smooth and pale, is now stained with colors, as if the many dyes that have seeped into the cracks of my skin over the years have permanently dried there, a faded rainbow of sundry hues. My fingers dance across the cool surface, transforming it into a mess of tiny ripples spreading and clashing with one another. Or maybe… maybe the deceased person themselves will wear it. Maybe I’m dyeing the suit of a dead man. I withdraw my hand from the vat, watching as the surface stilled into obsidian glass once more. As strange as it was, I found myself actually sympathizing with the cloth. A garment painstakingly stitched together and tediously dyed to just the right hue, shipped off and out into the world, only to be place on the chilled corpse of a rich Capitolite and buried six feet beneath the earth until its colors faded and the fabric itself disintegrated. It would have a short, almost meaningless existence in this world. No one would care about or even remember it. Life is so unfair.

It also strikes me that I must be a very morbid person, having immediately thought that the garment would be worn at a funeral instead of, say, a wedding, or at an exclusive party somewhere in the Capitol. Sometimes my outlook on life is as bleak as the vat of dye sitting before me, evident in how it taints the skin of my hands and stains it the color of my frame of mind. How fitting, my job was, yet I still liked it. Sitting among the vibrant colors of the rainbow was a lot better than my life at home. Compared to this place, my house was every shade of gray, as colorless and meaningless as the suit of a dead man.

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

“Mathix!” The voice booms from across the expanse of dye vats before me, and I lift my head to see the rotund form of the overseer fixing me with an icy glare. I blink back at him, confused as to why he’s calling me out, and he responds by making a motion with his hands, closing his fingers around his own wrist and shaking it in the air at me. “Where’s your gloves, boy? The chemicals in these dyes are toxic, how many times do I have to tell ya?” I slump a little at this, as I like the feel of the thickened water on my skin, though I nod and reach for the box of rubber gloves at my side anyway, pulling out a pair and slipping them onto my already soaked hands. I hold them up for the overseer to see, little droplets of black sliding down my forearms and leaving dark trails in their wake. He grunts before turning away to yell at a dyer at the other end of the room.

I heave a sigh and look down at my hands, frowning at the little smudges of black from the dye trapped within the gloves. I don’t like the feel of them- tight and constrained against my skin, the vibrant hues no longer visible beneath the milky-colored gloves. The toxicity of the dyes didn’t bother me in the least, as the prospect of death and the idea of having my whole life ahead of me were one and the same in my mind.

I plunge both hands into the inky darkness, fishing out the thick fabric from the very bottom and pulling it out, draping it over the rim of the vat. I feel a strange heaviness in my left glove, and lift it to my eyes to see that it has filled with black dye, collecting in the fingertips. A tear somewhere, probably. Though I’m tempted to just take it off and relish in the unobstructed feel of the cool black water, I don’t want to be yelled at by the overseer again, so I reach to my right for another glove only to find the box empty. I heave another sigh. Life is unfair, but it really must have a vendetta against me.

There’s another worker sitting not far from me, and I can see their box of gloves sitting directly beside them. I really don’t want to disturb them, as they look busy and the overseer is strict on the “no talking” policy during work hours, but I need gloves. I check first to make sure he’s not looking before leaning toward the worker nearest to me, pointing an uncertain finger at the box at their feet. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but…” I cast a quick glance in the direction of the overseer, dark eyes flicking nervously. “…Can you spare a glove? I'm out.”

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had…

[*:+'.LovingSophie_D9.'+:*]

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Scarlett Lace Velour[/font][/size]

Today, I was asked to go to a place where textiles are being dyed. I was asked to go to a dye section where textiles are to dye with colored black. I need to talk with the overseer to get a certain package that is filled with about half dozen of black dye vat. I walked in the section, and the place seemed depressing. The colors of black were everywhere, and... I love it! Just like the black leather jacket I'm wearing and the black eyeliner around my eyes.

I started to look for the overseer, but before I spot him, I saw someone, his hand were filled with black ink, the overseer saw him not wearing any gloves, but then he managed to wear one. I walked pass some dyers, but before I pass by the guy, he went to another station of a dyer and asked for a pair of gloves. He looked nervous, and that's maybe because he doesn't want the overseer to shout at him for not wearing gloves.

Before I enter this place, the security gave me a pair of gloves for me to wear while I pick the delivery package for today. But I just slide it inside my black leather jacket's pocket. Well, they always give me a pair of gloves when I enter just in case something spill or whatever accident happen so my hands won't be intoxicated by the dyes. I don't really think I need the pair of gloves because I don't use them every time I come here, and nothing seem to happen. But there's one person here who is in need of the gloves more than I do. So, I walked toward him, as swiftly as I can, I slipped the pair of gloves into his hands, then walked away slowly toward the direction of the overseer.

"Scarlett!" The overseer said nicely.
I smiled. "Hello!" I greeted.
"You look different today." He managed to say.
I smiled weirdly. "How different??" I asked.
"You tied your hair up! It's good! It suits you." He said, almost giggling.
I let out a small laugh. "Thank you." Well... Yeah, it's a warm day, not hot, just warm since it's autumn, and it's about noon time so the sun is high up in the sky that's why I tied my reddish orange hair today.
"Come." He said.

I followed him to the middle of the place, he explained to me the small bottles of dye vats then he placed it in a small box that is just right for a half dozen bottle of black dyes. "For a while, I'm going to seal the box, and secure it, so the peacekeeper won't have to check the package for safety and security. You wouldn't want to be bothered opening the box and with all the checking. It's very annoying." The overseer went somewhere, he disappeared, and I was left to wait in the middle of the whole place.

My chocolate eyes stared at the dye bottles in front of me. I wouldn't even touch it. No way. I look at several colors, some were in purple, some were in pink, some were blue and green, but one bottle surprised me. Just one bottle out of the many I saw. The dye in the bottle was colored in scarlet, just like my hair. It was the only bottle in the table that is scarlet in color. Then something occur to me, like the bottle in the table, I was the only scarlet hair inside this place, at school but except my baby brother, and in the whole district 8. If this bottle could speak, I know how its feeling. The feeling of being different.

[Lei]

The man doesn't seem to have heard me, hunched over his vat with arms up to his elbows dripping with a dark shade of red, and I bite my lip uncertainly. I don't know if I spoke too softly or if he is simply ignoring me, the latter of which something I am so pathetically used to. I want to ask again, but the way the man is sitting- broad shoulders forward and long dark hair in a silk curtain around his face- he reminds me of my father, and I feel my the moisture disappear from my tongue while ice creeps up into my veins in little pinpricks of steadily rising dread and-

-I'm rocking back and forth on the cool tile floor of the kitchen, tiny hands pressed to my ears and tears streaming from red-rimmed eyes down a pale expanse of dampened cheeks. My father paces in front of me, hurtful words and pain pouring from his lips as I rock and rock and-

Cool hands press against my fingers, skin brushing against skin for just a split second before it's gone, the shock of the sudden contact zipping from my fingertips all the way up my arms, through the sinewy muscles of my shoulder and right to my heart as it momentarily flutters with the touch before it vanishes as quickly and suddenly as it had come. I stand, rigid and startled, and it takes me a moment before I realize my fingers are enclosed around something cool and soft and velvety against my paint-stained grasp. I blink, eyes drifting downward to my fisted hand, pale fingers uncurling to reveal a pair of faded gloves wadded up in my palm. My lips part in bewilderment, head twisting and eyes flicking behind me, about to thank whoever it was that had saved me from having to speak to my father the man with fingers dripping crimson, but there is no one around.

I shiver as if I'd encountered a ghost, and for a horrible moment my mind begins to delve further into the idea, images of translucent faces and dead eyes like mine and ice-cold fingers flashing in my mind, but I quickly force it away before it can spiral out of proportion and I'm whisked away into my ridiculous fantasies. No, it had just been another worker who saw my predicament and thankfully decided to help. Someone had noticed me, helped me, understood my plight and didn't just carry on without a second glance, as most would have. And now that person doesn't have gloves.

I want to investigate, to abandon my station and seek out the person who had, for the first time in quite a long time, showed me kindness that I know I don't deserve. But there are hundreds of people here, and the overseer will most definitely yell at me, and one thing that makes my heart race and tears well up in my eyes is when people yell at me.

So I move back to my station slowly, head tilted downwards and gaze following the spiderweb of cracks running across the smooth, dye-stained concrete beneath my hesitant feet. The inky black surface of the water within my vat glitters as I sit on my knees before it, staring at dark outline of my face's hazy reflection. Eyes even blacker than night blink soullessly up at me, ebony lips twisted downward in a solemn frown; I am staring into the eyes of my own shadow, a reflection of my true colors, and it is staring right back.

[ooc: sorry this took so long. x3]

[*:+'.LovingSophie_D9.'+:*]

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Scarlett Lace Velour[/font][/size]

I waited in the station, still looking at the scarlet dye in the middle. It was very beautiful, very striking, bright, like hope. "Pretty right?" The overseer told me. I got startled. "Yes, it's pretty." I smiled. The overseer was carrying a small box, then he placed it in front of me. He opened the box and he made me check the inside goods. He showed me 6 bottles of black dyes. "Okay?" He asked, lifting a bottle as he shows me the obsidian colored dyes that almost stained the inner bottle. I nodded. "It's fine. It's perfect." I said in respond. The overseer suddenly turned, he looked far to the guy who had lost or doesn't have any glove earlier. The overseer nod once, the moment he saw the guy wearing gloves.

"We are very strict in every section, everyone needs to wear gloves, and some people doesn't follow instructions." The overseer said, he even sighed and shook his head. Then he looked at me. I wasn't wearing any gloves. "Where's yours?" He asked. I knit my brows. "I wasn't given any." I said in my most smooth tone, almost realistic, I hope he bites. "The security didn't give you any??" He said with disbelief. "Maybe I should really check every now and then, starting with the security guards."

Whew... that was close. "Here take mine." The overseer said, giving me his pair of gloves. I took the gloves and wear them. It perfectly fit my small and slender hands. "And oh, here." The overseer handed me the scarlet dye. "Keep it, it will suit you, especially your hair. Take it, think of it as a gift, since you've been trading here every now and then." I felt warm, it was a perfect thing to give me. The scarlet dye. The one and only scarlet dye in the middle of many different dye colors. "Thank you." I said to the overseer.

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(ooc: hi, sorry for the delay XD been busy in school)