Color, Memories and Truth

  She looks at the small, colorful fragments, and wonders to herself what kind of shape they were once in. Of course the girl had seen them complete, but that was before. She held up all that she had left in the world, each shard a fantastic shade of every color imaginable, and tried various ways to form them together in her palm. There weren't as many left as she had thought.  
   In her dreams, color surrounds her. All the many colors of her fragments and even more. They swirl around her as she rises higher into a beam of dim light cascading from an awesome eye in a dark cave; dancing, tremoring, trembling. Her limbs go numb, her arms drop and her legs spasm from the effort of swimming through the tunnel of colors to end all rainbows. A tendril light lifts her chin, travels down her troat, and rests for a moment in the place by her heart where no one but she could reach. Tears escape her weary, closed eyes at the warmth she has found with the light. The coldness of the dark does not reach her here. With this feeling, she doesn't have to remember the colors; the ones that she will never own.  
   Gasping, the light anchors somewhere in her chest, and she is pulled upward, closer to the object she knew she must reach. Dolorous for her familiar place, struggling with the colors in darkness, she begs to be released.  
   The warmth fades. The girl falls.  
 
   She wakes to find herself in the place where she spends her hours studying her shards, pondering the long-forgotten pattern they were meant to form. The familiar place. Where she knew she had to find the answer. Where everything depended on the answer. Where nothing was, except the question.  
    The girl eats only in a feeble attempt to distract her mind. Deftly taking out whatever bread she could find and beginning to nibble at its surface. There are no windows in this place; only plain, light grey walls. There is a roof, but she does not know where to look for it. There are no tables or chairs; no bed for her rest. There are shelves, one on each side of this two-sided world, for her meager food and to display her fragments. There is a circular mat in the middle of her room that has no color. She likes to follow its outer fringe to busy her mind. All the light in the room comes in a pure white glow from her colorful shards that have only a question. She was sure that if she would just get a single visitor, maybe she would find the door. In the corner, following her every move, was the mirror in the shape of his eyes.  
   There are no words now. She remembers a time when she would laugh and sing, but now she cannot talk. Better times, when her world was larger, and had more than two sides. When she heard voices and music, and when tears would come when she called them. When she was there only to serve them.  
   With a heavy breath she looks to the mirror, face haunted; forever scarred with injustice, ignorance, and longing. In her eyes is the suffering of worlds. And ache develops in her stomach, rising, and she flails in useless attempts to scream and cry. Just wanting to release the tears.  
   In the mirror she sees the face of a monster.  
 
   She remembers a chime. Gazing at her dozen shattered companions, each as lonely as the last, the sound of metal colliding enters her mind. The pure white flutters into yellow, orange, and finally into a shade of deepest scarlet as her mind dips and weaves, frantic to not lose this memory, to squeeze every drop out until her cerebrum was nothing but sore. Laying, exhausted from the memory, the girl lifts her chin, realizing that she had already almost forgotten again.  
   Chime. She heard it again. Chime. A sound. Chime. The most beautiful noise she could imagine. And then she saw it. Laying perfectly conspicuous among the fragments was a new shard. Brightest red. She held it to her eye, wanting to test the color to her familiar place. In it, instead, she saw a burgendy sunset on a broad, open beach; bright cherries hanging from a tree in a beautiful garden; scarlet of a rose; the pink accents in his hand as he rang the windchime for her, one last time.  
   She removed it from her eye and saw his face in her mind. He was beautiful. His hair was cut short and yet he still managed to keep it looking messy. An area of brown moss, attepting to right itself into the curls he was born with. His eyes were full and childish, the color of rain puddles, with what seemed to be almost an absurd amount of lashes surrounding each one. His face was full, but pointed slightly at the chin, with a round, long nose, and average lips. And he was the first one to take one of her pieces.  
   The girl gaped at this thought, and quickly counted how many she now held. Each semi-transparent shard of color now blurring under her eyes that surched franticly for one more new piece, for just a single extra memory.  
   Failing, she attempted a sigh, and leaned herself onto the circular rug with no color. Figiting with her new fragment of scarlet, she let her mind wonder, soon finding herself looking at his face once more. He had captivated her the very first time they met, althought now she could not remember the exact circumstance. It wasn't long before he has asked her to be his when they were visiting a near ocean beach. The sun blazed as it touched the horizon's edge, and fingers of deepest red reached for the full moon, hanging in the center of the sky. Instead of the yes he was hoping for, she had asked for a series of dates - a trial period. During this time, there were many occasions of slipping outdoors for a secret meeting by the rose bushes, or a stolen kiss under his grandmother's cherry tree. One memory she was most fond of, was the dull, rusty red of his mother's ancient windchime. The girl loved the noise it made, and would sit on their porch with him just to be near it in case a breeze blew by to say hello.  
   Realizing that she was finally tired, she lay back up and began to collect her fragments that had only a mystery. Carrying them to her shelf on one side of her two-sided, light grey room, she paused. There was now an extra layer to her shelf to accomodate her new guest. Shrugging it off as just one more question without an answer, the girl lowered herself to her circular rug with no color.  
 
   Her dreams flitter in to life. The colors surround her. All the colors of her fragments and even more. The girl is tired, but she reaches out a hand to her new color, the deepest red. It pulls away as the tendril of light reaches for her once more. "Not me," she barely hears behind her right eye, and the sheathe of red slips through her fingers like smoke and immediately forms to coil out of reach. She glances up, exhausted almost to the point of giving up now, to where there was a beam of dim light cascading from an awesome eye in the dark cave. She danced, she tremored, she trembled. Again the branch of light reached her before she fell, slipping down her exposed throat to rest for a moment in the place by her heart that no one but she could reach. Her eyes closed, thankful that she was supported, feeling the warmth of the light inside her chest. Her limbs hang limp and cold at her sides, and she grimmaced as the light attached itself somewhere in her body and began to pull her forward. She lets out a tear for the colors without an answer, and begins to beg to return.  
   The light fades. The girl falls.