The Colour Pink

They were close. So close she could almost touch it.

Elorae stood still on the cracked sidewalk, her arms loose at her sides, her gaze fixed on the apartment building like it might blink. Her eyes moved slowly up its brick face, floor by floor, window by window. She didn't know which one it was. But she knew — knew — that her idea was inside.

Her lost idea.

The idea she had crafted from desperation and brilliance, a need to push boundaries, to take risks. The one that had escaped her world through the crack, slipping between layers of reality and into this heavy, sun-lit place. The one she had poured her own longing into.

She needed it back.

Without it, her realm — already weakening — would fall to Vaelith. He would rise, and everything soft and strange and beautiful would be gone. Forever.

But the idea had taken root in a human. That much was certain now. She could feel it. The wrongness. The warmth. The pull.

She just didn't know which human.

She also had no idea how the idea would manifest in a human, in this realm. Already she had seen how her own power had become dramatically amplified since she arrived in this world, rewriting Steve's very being to be subservient to her in a way she could never had imagined back home. How would this human's life be changed by her accident? She hoped she hadn't hurt them too badly.

"What do you think it's become?" she murmured aloud, not really to Steve, but not not to him either. "My creation. In there. Inside whoever holds it. What shape does it wear now?"

Steve stood beside her like a loyal monument, broad-shouldered and soft-eyed. His hands were folded in front of him in perfect, humble repose.

"I'm sure whatever form it took, it will serve your purposes, Your Majesty," he said reverently.

She looked at him — really looked — and gave him a small smile. His devotion was an accident. He treated her like an empress. A goddess. The final word in all things.

And she couldn't lie — she was beginning to like it.

"You were a very good driver today" she said.

Steve's ears reddened at the tips. "Thank you, Your Highness. I do my best."

She looked past him as a car rolled slowly down the street. It was small and rounded and the colour of a blooming wound.

"Purple?" she guessed, pointing.

Steve followed her finger. "Close," he said gently. "Pink."

"Pink," she repeated, tasting it. The word sat differently in her mouth than the others — it was bright, round, flirtatious. She liked it.

A woman in a matching outfit was approaching down the sidewalk. Skirt. Jacket. Sunglasses. The colour — pink — pulsed around her like a spotlight.

Elorae looked down at herself.

Beige. All beige. Beige shirt. Beige pants. The same beige as everything in her world. The same soft monotony. If her idea hadn't been lost, spilled into another world, she would have thought that beige was all there was. She could never have dreamed of a world so vibrant as this.

She watched the woman pass, then reached up and touched the edge of her sleeve.

"I want clothes like that," she said softly.

"I can get them for you," Steve said at once. "I can take you anywhere you want."

She gave a little nod. Later. But not yet.

He was already at the door, trying the handle. It didn't budge. She followed him to the threshold.

"Locked," he said.

She tilted her head, considering the obstacle. A small gleaming panel was mounted on the wall beside the door. Buttons. Letters. Tiny black names printed in columns. A system of trust and gates.

"How do we get inside?" she asked.

Steve smiled, as if he'd hoped she'd ask. A chance to prove himself to her. "I could smash it, if you'd like."

Her eyes widened. "No. That could make... trouble."

"Then we wait," he said. "You press a name, someone buzzes you in. That's how these things usually work. We just need a name, Your Grace."

She didn't have a name.

She didn't know who the idea had chosen. Only that it had. Someone inside this building carried it now, wore it in their bones, spoke it without knowing.

Someone was becoming something they didn't understand.

She pressed her palm flat to the door — cool metal, resisting her.

"Someone will let us in," she said quietly.

"Of course," Steve said, and stood beside her with infinite patience.

They waited.

Soon she would be with her creation and she would find a way to make all things right.

She hoped.