Chapter 24.

A colorful world.

A young boy on the sidewalk looked about in all directions at the unfamiliar environment. There were countless tall buildings that fluctuated in a collage of all sorts of different changing colors from one end of the spectrum to the other. It appeared to be an abstract piece of work like someone randomly tossed paint onto a canvas that constantly changed colors on its own. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason behind the buildings' ever so frequently changing colors.

It felt like a whole other world, one of which the boy had never seen before as he marveled at the peculiar foreign scenery that had drawn him in. The boy mindlessly moved autonomously along the street towards a large intersection. There were all sorts of bizarre vehicles in an uncountable number of different shapes and forms. Some hovered slightly above the surface while others traversed along the ground, while some even flew high up in the sky.

Those traversing the ground had wheels ranging from a standard circle to a lopsided oval, while some were more extreme and had square, rectangular, or even star-shaped wheels. Any shape of wheel you could imagine could be found in the sea of vehicles in front of him. The skies were similarly filled with strange objects that defied the natural laws of physics. It ranged from figure-eight shaped contraptions that rotated about a helix-like path to helical objects moving about in random patterns that lacked in any sort of rationalistic order.

It was a world of sheer chaos, but it was one the boy was drawn to, an unknown world where laws didn't govern him. When the crosswalk light lit up indicating he could cross the street, the world of chaotic moving masses came to an abrupt halt which allowed him safe passage to the other side.

Unsuspecting of anything, the boy blindly moved forward hopeful towards seeing the other strange wonders in the world. However, halfway across the street, the colors in the world started to drain and disappear. The boy gradually aged and grew taller until the boy looked to be a youth in his teens.

The boy, now a teen, became anxious and lost with the unexpected changes that occurred both to his body and the world around him. Afraid of the undesirable changes, he turned around with the intent to return to the sidewalk only to be greeted by a pitch-black world with nothing in sight as far as the eye could see. There was nothing there, there was no way to return down the path he came and he realized he could only move forward and not back.

Against his will, the boy turned back towards the other side of the street. He took a single step forward and then another. Repeating the mindless pattern, he continued his journey to the other side as all the bizarre and peculiar sights he'd previously seen at the beginning slowly changed and morphed before his eyes.

There were no more of the dazzling shapes and bright colors everywhere like at the start of his journey. The further he proceeded the more scared he became of what lay in wait on the other side. The colors were one by one replaced by black, grey, and white. When he was one step before the end of the crosswalk, all the strange vehicles he'd previously seen were simple cars with standard circular wheels. The nonsensical ones that moved through the sky or hovered above the ground were all grounded. Either they crashed and burned or they adapted and grew wheels like all the other vehicles. They were unable to fly high up in the sky and were now pitifully shackled in chains to the earth below.

By the time the teenage boy realized it, he was already an adult. He was a man before he noticed anything about himself had changed. Deep down he also knew the moment he took that last step, he vaguely understood he would lose something important. Even so, by now, his view of the world had changed. All the interesting things that he dreamed of vanished. His childlike perspective towards the world completely disappeared without even the slightest trace remaining.

His heart had turned cold, his eyes which were once lively and full of anticipation were dark, cloudy, and listless. His heart had sunk down to rock bottom. When he finally took the last step over the boundary to the other side, he turned around to look behind him.

The black world he was expecting, now instead reflected the dreary reality of what his modern everyday was. Buildings with singular colors, bland, boring, box-shaped cars that were all grounded in single file lines. Flying far, far out of reach, too far to be clearly made out were airplanes in the distant sky. The dreamland he was once apart of was already long gone and there was truly no way to return. Those airplanes up above didn't remind him of the freedom he'd previously seen with the strange vehicles flying about freely in the sky. Somehow, even the freedom he thought would come from flying far away felt as though he would still forever be grounded to the earth.

The man returned his gaze to the front with a face that showed a complete lack of care for the world and simply walked forward without looking back again. The only thing he hoped for was for some sort of change, yet no matter how far he walked, there was no change in sight. If he had to pick up on any sort of change, it was that his side of the street, slowly but surely, became more and more desolate until there were no longer any passersby.

After an unknown time spent walking forward, the man, eventually unable to move forward, collapsed to the ground. He looked around him, but there was no one in sight to help him up. He was left completely alone on his side of the street. When he turned his head and looked at the other side of the street, he could see the crowds moving about emotionlessly, not bothering to look at the deserted sidewalk he was on.

The man called out, but no sound escaped his mouth. He hadn't realized it until now, but the bustling sounds from the surrounding world had gradually been drowned out into a dead silence from the time when he was still just a child. By the time he'd grown into adulthood, all that remained was an emotionless world, devoid of color, sound, and warmth. The man felt cold, colder than he'd ever felt before. The world wasn't the beautiful place he'd innocently looked upon as a child.

All that awaited for him in the world on the other side of the street was a despairing emptiness.

As the man lost all hope, his eyes grew heavy. In the process of closing his eyes, cracks reminiscent to that of shattered glass appeared as his eyelids, like a curtain that signaled the end, slowly descended and blocked off the fragmented pieces of the last scenery in his direct line of sight.

…