PDA

View Full Version : (November '16) Prompt #1- "Rainbow"



Kris
11-05-2016, 09:55 AM
November's 1st prompt is "Rainbow"



If you have any questions about how to participate in this event,
please visit the The rules and Guideline (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=80942) thread or PM Naraness (http://role-player.net/forum/member.php?u=24919).

Feeling like offering us a prompt?
Do you want to see your idea featured as one of the Month's prompts?
Click here (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=80942&p=2769937&viewfull=1#post2769937) to learn more!

ArtisticVicu
11-22-2016, 03:43 AM
They said that if you saw one, your life was forfeit. I never understood what they had meant by that, never connected the dots till I was older.

I was told things had changed when I was only two. I don’t remember what had happened nor what life had been like before but I do remember the fear, and the confusion. I remember the quiet games and constant moving. I remember boarded up windows and gray skies and never being able to play outside. I never questioned it.

I remember the older kids always having issues, the adults always getting into fights. I never understood what they were going through, why they had such an issue with it all. It was just how things were.

That is, till the rainbows started to appear.

I was 16 when the first one shot across the sky. I had learned from old books about weather phenomena so I knew, scientifically, what caused a rainbow: reflected, refracted, and dispersed white light in water droplets causes the visible spectrum to become visible. To be honest, I had always wanted to see one. But, then, I had always wanted to see the stars and feel the sun against my skin, but when the first rainbow cut across the sky and we were suddenly getting news that it was not a sign of hope, I pushed my hopes of ever seeing something beyond the gray sky to the back of my mind.

They said that those that had seen the rainbow vanished. No one knows how or why or what even caused the rainbow to appear beneath the gray sky. There had been no rain, no sunlight to reflect within the water droplets, nothing. They’re also saying it wasn’t an isolated incident. With what primitive communication we have, we were getting world that a rainbow had appeared all over the planet at relatively the same time and those that had supposedly glimpsed the phenomenon vanished.

Many were speculating that those that had seen the rainbows were dead.

It wasn’t till I was 20 that I questioned this thought. We went four years without the odd rainbows appearing again. At least, in the areas we were traveling in. It seemed the rainbows followed us, though, as word reached us as areas we passed were losing populous. People were blaming the rainbows but no one was giving forth actual testament that rainbows had been appearing.

Then, one night, something happened that had me disbelieving that thought completely.

I had gone out. I couldn’t sleep and I was feeling restless. I felt we were staying in one place for too long and felt the urge to move on but I couldn’t leave my family. We were a unit made up of blood and choice. So, I snuck out. By the time you’re 7, you know sneaking out at all is a horrible idea. It’s drilled into you by the ripe age of 16 to never be out at night alone and by the time you were my age, you wouldn’t even give it a passing thought. It was just nature.

But something was urging me outside and so I slipped out. I remember the adrenaline in my chest, stealing my breath as I took in the world that was supposed to be pitch black with night. Instead, it was illuminated by plants and animals that glowed. I could see as clearly in what we called night as I could in what we called day. It was magnificent. I had no idea that the plant life we barely saw in our travels could do such things at night.

I wandered far in my awe, the need for sleep long forgotten. I eventually found myself in the top of a tree, looking towards the once gray sky. There, my eyes caught glimpses of starry night beyond brief breaks in the gray sky. It was then that the realization hit me that the gray sky we knew was only a layer of cloud. How odd that such a thing created such a gray atmosphere during the day and such a vibrant scene at night.

It was addicting.

After that point, there was hardly a night that I didn’t sneak out. I got really good at hiding my excursions. The only people that noticed the change in my demeanor because of it were my dad, my closest sister, and my best friend. My dad was the first one to notice. He noticed after the second night and cornered me. He didn’t know what I was doing but he could tell something had changed and he was worried. I assured him it was nothing more than just finally sleeping better, which wasn’t a lie. At that point, I had crashed after both outings and had, for once, slept without worry. That didn’t help my addition.

My best friend and my closest sister cornered me two weeks later. I had gone out a total of ten times at this point. My sister had caught sight of me sneaking out twice and my best friend had noticed the change about a week in. My best friend had gone to my sister first before they came to me. They wanted to make sure I was going to be ok, that I was safe. I assured them but I couldn’t tell them why I went out. While I was willing to risk my own life to catch glimpses of the stars and see the beauty of the night, I was not willing to risk either of theirs.

It had been futile to even attempt.

A month and a half after they had cornered me, my sister and best friend somehow managed to follow me out without waking anyone or me noticing till we were already a decent pace away from where the others were resting. I had tried to urge them back but they could be as stubborn as me and so I showed them the wonders I had grown addicted to.

My sister wasn’t fond of climbing the trees like my best friend and I were so there were several nights that my sister would settle in a clearing to watch the skies as my best friend and I settled in the canopy.

It was up in those branches that my best friend kissed me. It was up in those trees that my best friend became my life partner. It was out in that night that the three of us made a pact to always keep an eye out for others itching to slink from the group and get away at night. The night could be just as dangerous as the gray day. There were still creatures and deadly plants and there were several nights we came back with injuries we had to hide.

And still we heard tales of the rainbows.

When I was 22, I had a falling out from my family. It had been a massive mistake on my part but what else was I suppose to do. My partner, my sister, and I had come across a child lost in the woods. We couldn’t just leave them out there. So, at the risk of everything, we brought the child with us and explained to the group how we had come across her and why we had come across her.

We were kicked out.

The group split nearly in half at that point. My dad came with me, as did my younger siblings and some of my older. Those too steeped in the old ways went on their way. Those that were open to what we had done stayed. In the end, we went from a comfortable group of nearly 60 to a group just barely over 20. My partner’s family had disowned them but my dad was there to state that my partner was already part of our family so it didn’t matter.

We didn’t go out that night.

I can’t remember when it shifted for us but we started traveling at night. We realized that we could travel farther and longer at night. We got used to the plant and animal life. We got complacent.

My sister had taken the child in but my partner and I helped her raise the child. Malnourished and clearly abandoned, the three of us worked hard to make sure the child regained a healthy weight and proper clothing. Soon the child was playing with the others, keeping up and even surpassing them in some of their games. It was amazing.

It should have been our first warning.

It was as the night was drawing to a close five years later and my partner and I were sitting outside of our shelter as the others settled that we saw it.

I don’t know how to describe it but it was definitely very similar to how it had been to see the stars for the first time.

A magnificent rainbow arched across the sky as night turned to day. Full and vibrant, my partner and eye stared at it in awe as we clung to each other. It had been years since we had any communication with any others and yet the fear from years ago was still there. We watched it till it faded away and even then we sat there shaking, clinging to each other. But I found that I wasn’t shaking out of fear. As I looked into my partner’s eyes, I realized it was joy, just as it was in my partner’s eyes. That rainbow had filled us with a joy neither of us understood.

We found a short while later that my sister and the child had seen it as well. It was shortly thereafter that the child divulged that it had been abandoned because it had seen a rainbow just like that one before. I looked from my sister to my partner and the same resolve was in their eyes as the resolve in my heart.

I woke my dad and informed him what had happened. I told him the four of us were going to slip away while the others were asleep to see where these rainbows had come from. I could feel the urge in my bones. My dad had wrapped us all in tight hugs but somehow our commotion had woken the others. We told them what had happened and, to our immense surprise and relief, the group wanted to go with us. So, our path changed and the following night, we made our way towards the origin of the rainbows.

It wasn’t till two weeks later that I had an epiphany. They had once said that if you see a rainbow, your life is forfeit. I never understood that till I watched the 15th rainbow I had ever seen cross the morning horizon. Seeing the rainbows filled you with immense joy and peace as well as an urge to follow them. It was hard to resist and that first morning on our trek had proven my instinct correct and the rest of our party had caught their first glimpse of a rainbow as the night turned to day.

It was about three years later when we finally reached the place where the rainbows had been coming from. We had caught sight of it about a month back but now we were walking right up to the edge. I don’t know what this massive structure is, nor these people that are coming to greet us are, but I do know that, whatever those rainbows had been, they had been bringing us to a place of hope. The rainbows had brought us to a place we could settle and call home.

If anyone finds this and this massive structure is no longer here, look for the rainbows. When you see one, you are forfeiting your life. You are forfeiting your life for a better one, for a safer one; for a life out from under the gray skies of planet Earth.

m139
12-01-2016, 06:57 AM
It was wet and musty. The rain (thankfully) had gone away, but it left us with a cool mist that seemed to stick onto just about everything. In fact, I was not quite sure that this was even better: after all, the rocks now seemed even more slippery. And I was pretty sure it was not just my imagination, because Clara, who was in front of me, kept slipping more, too. Or at least, so it seemed to me.

My older sister, were she here with us, would have probably disagreed. "Krissy," she would have said, using that nickname I had borne since childhood, :"you are much to negative. It is not all that bad. After all rainbows cannot come without the rain" Then, likely, she would have hugged me, and suggested we go watch some movie or something. And then-

And then what? It was not like it could happen, anyways. My sister, if she was still living, was thousands of miles away. I had not seen her in years. And no one called me Krissy anymore. In fact, I doubt any of those I was with now even knew I had an older sister. But then again, what did I know of them?

Survivors. They were survivors, just like me. They, too, had probably lost friends and family. Perhaps they had been luckier than I had been, and even been with their families on that fateful day...

I had not. I had been in the air, on a plane. I was not even one of those who had been on the ground, frantically trying to get a phone line, or frantically trying to get out of the city...

I had been in a plane. And the only news I even knew about it, at first, was when the pilot announced that the plane was going to be diverted to this little air strip in the middle of nowhere, Canada. That landing was the worst. I remember screaming. I remember the people around me screaming. It was a medium sized plane, and we definitely scraped a couple of trees. It was only after we had landed somewhat safely that he told us the truth. The world we knew had been destroyed, for, just half an hour after we had begun our journey in the air, two very important people had pressed two very important little buttons. And, as a result, now, there was nothing.

I did not want to believe it, not at first. Nor did anyone else for that matter. I, with the others, demanded that he end this little hoax. I demanded take us back to New York, where we had been heading, despite the condition of the plane. But he had steadfastly refused, even when there were threats of death, citing not the plane, but the state of the world, as the reason why.

There were seriously people ready to murder him that night. However, those more sane among us (though likely just as angry), convinced them to hold back. After all, killing him would accomplish nothing. And only he really knew where we were.

It was a good thing they did so, for the pilot really did know where we were. And, without him, we likely would have died that first night. He showed us, that evening, a small cabin out in the woods, a hanger that was much too small for our plane (looking back on it, he was a great pilot for landing as safely as he did), a well, and, well, that was it. This was apparently some place one of his friends owned, and had invited him to, from time to time. It was well stocked, too. Lots of food tins, as it was intended as a place for the friend and his family to survive a "zombie" invasion. A joke, but a lucky one, at least for us. The pilot's friend was not there. Likely, he was unable to take off, or had lacked the fuel to come to this escape.

But this did not, at the time, seem all that plausible. Instead we saw it as suspicious. Why should we believe one who claimed the end of the world, when, at this end of the world preparation spot, we did not find the one who had prepared it? It was, to us, simply some elaborate lie.

A group of us thought to escape. We planned to leave, early the next morning, with some of the tins, and one of the guns from the lodge. I still do not know exactly how we managed to obtain these. All I know is that we slept that night, all together, in one corner of the hanger. There were lots of blankets (thankfully, Mr. Absent Friend seemed to think a hundred necessary), and so I was fairly warm, but yet I did not sleep very well. Indignation filled me. And sometimes (and far more disturbing) came flashes of self doubt. And in those instances, I saw a world where what he said was true: fire, death, skeletons of buildings. And then, the images would fade just a little, pushed out by a mind that was trying to grasp at sanity. But the images would never fade completely. I fact, they were only strengthened as time went by...

That group of us never got to New York. As a group, we never even got out of Canada. We did however, start heading south. And we did, days later, and a few less in number, make it to the road.

It was a small road, barely more than a graveled path. It was empty, too, except for a deserted sports car sitting in the center of the road. We examined it. It still had all its parts: motor, battery, and leather seats. It was locked, but we soon found the key a few feet away; it seemed to simply have been dropped on the ground.

The car started, purring, but there was no gas. Even so, it felt pretty cool to be behind the wheel of a car I could never own.

Ha- if only I had known how true that thought was then. I doubt they even make fancy cars anywhere anymore. Where is the rainbow in that, sister? There is only rain now- and the rainbows in the sky are only tricks light plays on the eyes.