Colorless world (I)

Later that day, Elena barged into my room unannounced. After her long nap, she was bursting with energy, while I, on the other hand, was just about to finally fall asleep.

"Hey, red hair! What's your name?" She suddenly demanded while standing on top of my bed with her shoes on.

"Huh? What's happening? My name? What? Ah, my name, it's Luke!"

I was still half asleep, pushing her feet away from me so that I could turn around and rest on my belly. I just wanted to rest; I was feeling incredibly relaxed for once, and even though I didn't have any memories of the past few days, I felt like I was just recently freed of an enormous weight in my mind.

All my injuries had finished healing a long time ago. I didn't even realize it until Helena mistakenly stepped on my right side. I immediately put pressure on what I thought was a wound but felt nothing; when I removed my shirt, I realized my wounds were gone.

Wow, whatever you did surely worked fast.

"Be grateful; the heavens above have decided to grace us with hamburgers for dinner!" The girl shouted in her overly ecstatic voice while dodging my feet.

"I'm tired; can we discuss it later?" I complained as I rolled around in the bed to face the opposite direction from her.

"Get up! I want to eat hamburgers!" She threw a fit, trying to drag me out of them.

"Is that something you should say to your guest? Hasn't your father taught you that guests are sacred?" I complained as I struggled against Elena to keep my bedsheets, rolling in the bed to wrap them around my body.

"I don't care; take this, some spare clothes my dad bought for you."

After throwing the spare clothes in my face, Helena jumped off the bed and ran away before even giving me time to refuse her offer to go out.

What a headache! I'm too tired to bother with this! I just want to sleep right now… I doubt she will let me off the hook with just that excuse.

Hamburgers did sound appealing, but these were hamburgers of the Fracture. They could've easily been radioactive for all I knew. I didn't know if those hamburgers were in any way safe to eat or not.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. How bad can one screw a hamburger before it turns inedible? No, you're in this position because you didn't overthink things enough.

That's when I felt that something was wrong with me. When I tried to remember what happened to me, I couldn't recall anything. I instinctively knew it was because of a mistake I made but couldn't pinpoint exactly what I did wrong or what happened to me in the past few days.

"Are you done changing?" Shouted Helena from the other side of the wall.

Barely a minute has passed; who do you think I am, the Flash?

"No, I barely even started; just be patient."

Well, I doubt that after saving me and contacting my parents, they're going to do something as idiotic as poisoning me.

I decided to go along with their plan. I put on the dark gray shirt along with the mostly white shorts. They didn't have any shoes to give me, so I went in with some sandals and a small cap to hide my hair.

"Finally! You took an eternity to get changed; come on, let's go; it's getting late."

I barely had the time to utter a single word before she grabbed my right hand, dragged me downstairs, and escorted me towards a small garage they had.

I noticed she had changed her clothes. She was now wearing a simple, clear, long-sleeved shirt along with a skirt of roughly the same shade of gray.

Another thing I noticed while walking past the many pictures hanging on the walls was that there was no trace of Helena's mother.

"Hey, is it weird that—" 

Helena ignored my attempts at a conversation and simply dragged me towards a backdoor that led to a small garage where they were parking their car.

It looked like a generic car. Nothing seemed to stand out; it reminded me of those generic-looking cars used to crowd the streets in many video games. 

Helena's father had also changed clothes; he was now wearing a white sweater and dark jeans. He was standing right in front of the car, and when he saw us coming out of the back door, he unlocked the car.

"Are you sure you feel alright? You just recovered; if you don't feel like it, we can simply order some takeout or even cook something simple." He asked me while his daughter was dragging me towards the back seats.

As usual, he was wearing a mask to cover his disfigured face, leaving only the healthy part of his face visible.

"Hey, can I ask you… What happened to your face?"

"Ah, this? It's nothing too serious, just a small accident at work. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the scar fixed, but with this mask, the problem is fixed." He answered while fastening the seat belt.

Elena, in the meantime, had fastened both my belt and hers.

Really? Are we really going to put on the safety belt even though we're sitting in the back of the car?

The driver then turned on the radio and began singing along with his daughter for the whole trip. I, on the other hand, was looking at how the fracture looked.

Strangely enough, there were no conflicts. I expected to see a lot of violence and thieves running rampant on the streets, but none of that was happening.

As we traveled outside of the city, I saw a variety of small shops, restaurants, or other kinds of small businesses, usually located on the ground floor of an apartment complex. Most buildings in this city were built with no more than six floors.

I fell asleep in the car. When we woke up, we were in the middle of nowhere. It was dark outside, in a busy parking lot in front of a large restaurant that had a large sign of a chicken drum and some peanuts.

"Oh, you're awake. Can you wake up Helena? Also, adjust your beanie; you should hide your hair for now, just to be safe." He said that as he was parking the car.

Even Helena had fallen asleep right next to me.

I wonder what the restaurants from the Fracture look like.

So far, everything had been opposite to what I had imagined; the highway next to us was barely trafficked, the parking lot wasn't full of drug dealers, and the city didn't seem in ruin, so my poor expectations were blown away.

"W-what is this?"

I was shocked; the restaurant was a mess. The people weren't extremely loud, the floor was completely covered with peanut shells, the people were eating extremely large portions of food enough to satiate a family of five by themselves, and the waitresses were barely dressed.

On the many screens hanging on the walls were displayed many sports matches.

What the hell is this?

Helena led the way as we headed toward the second floor of the restaurant to find an empty table.

"It's fun, isn't it?" Helena asked me.

"No, it's not."

"You're boring." She pouted and turned around.

"Why is it my fault?"

The second floor wasn't much different; the only notable difference was that there were more male waiters that were also properly dressed.

"Luke, how old are you?" Helena asked while looking around.

"I'm nine; what about you?"

"I'm ten!"

As we settled on an empty table, a waiter came to hand us the menu options, and I was disappointed to see no colored image.

Each dish had an extravagant name like the Toilet Buster, a Vegan's Nightmare, the Meaty Balls, the Heartburn, the Sleepy Joe, the Turtleneck, the Greasy Six Chins, and more. Each dish has a picture on the side to show what it is along with a list of the ingredients used.

"Dad? Can I get a Slobberfest with a side of fries?"

What did she just say?

I even heard someone in the background near us choke on his drink after he heard her sentence.

She was making puppy eyes trying to convince her father while I was desperately searching to understand what she wanted to eat.

It was a large sandwich filled with pulled pork, raw onions, some cabbage, some tomatoes, and some crispy bacon sprinkled on top.

It doesn't sound that bad when you read the description, but the image is a bit… big.

The round sandwich was larger than the plates I had at home. Since the picture also showed the forks next to it, I immediately knew that serving was enough for the three of us and more.

"Come on, please, pretty please, Dad? Can we?"

"I think you should ask Luke this time around; you can't force him to eat something he doesn't like; he's our guest after all."

He put on an awkward smile as he redirected her attention back to me, and then she began clinging on to me, her large sparkling eyes begging me to agree.

I don't even know what pulled pork is. I'm sorry, I have to be safe for my first time and order something resembling a classic hamburger.

"Why don't we look for something a little more—"

"But the Slobberfest is the best item on the menu!" She immediately interrupted me and slammed her hand against the table while a waiter brought us a basket full of peanuts.

"Are you ready to order?" He asked Helena's father.

"Not yet, I'm sorry." He replied.

"Why is it the best dish?" I asked her.

"Because it has raw onions!" She replied.

But I hate onions!

Unfortunately, there were no dishes free of onions; some even had onions paired with mushrooms, the worst possible combination. My best option was the Brutalizer, a dish not too big, not too healthy, and reasonably priced.

It was a sandwich with spicy, creamy sausages, onions, melted cheese, some mortadella slices, and some porchetta dressed with a generous amount of sauce.

"How about we try the brutalizer?" I proposed.

"It sucks!" Helena didn't even bother checking the menu before replying to me, which irked me a little.

At least pretend to care about what I'm saying.

"Come on, you won't regret having a bite of the Slobberfest; you should try it!" She kept pushing and pushing, so I ultimately caved in and agreed.

"See! I knew you would come around and join the good side." She said while patting my shoulders.

 Not that I had much of a choice anyway.

She then began peeling the peanuts, removing the shell, and throwing them on the ground. It was something odd, but as I looked around, I noticed everyone seemed to be doing the same.

Isn't it filthy? Don't they hate to have all this mess on the floor? My mother would kill me if she saw even so much as a single toy left hanging on the ground.

"Is every restaurant on the Fracture like this one?" I asked Helena while pointing at the floor.

"Oh, no, absolutely not, this is just the best of the best. You can even get half your money back if you break the large glasses they serve you with." She added while passing me her large empty drinking glass; it was a large mug that was as big as her head.

It was quite heavy to lift as well.

 Glass is glass, at the end of the day. No matter how much effort you put into it, it'll eventually shatter once you put enough pressure on it. This doesn't seem all that durable.

I simply pushed the large glass mug over and was surprised to see that it didn't shatter; not even so much as a crack had formed on its surface, so I picked it up again and threw it on the ground a second time. This time I put a bit of force and quickly stepped away to avoid the shards.

 Wow! No! It's probably because of all the peanut shells; they act as some sort of cushion, and that must be it.

With my foot, I pushed away the peanut shells, creating a clean area, and then threw the glass mug with all my strength, only to fail at breaking it once more.

The people around our table were already beginning to laugh at my attempt, talking about us and snickering from their table. Ashamed, I picked up the glass mug and handed it back to Helena.

 "So? How was it?"

She had a satisfied look on her face and a smug smile stamped on her face. She enjoyed every bit of that embarrassing moment for me.

"No comment." I answered.

"Oh, come on! Tell me! Tell me! Come on, don't be mean!"

She was begging while shaking my whole body, waiting for an answer that I simply didn't want to give to her.

"Hey, I can give you nuts! You want some? With some salt, they become delicious!" She said as she handed me a handful of nuts she had peeled. I refused and simply kept my mouth shut until the food arrived shortly after.