A stranger in a monochromatic gray outfit as if she’s a robot approaches me. Long vines of dry blonde sprout from her head in a straight, flat manner. No patterns. No defining features. No color.

Her bird-like hands gently grip my head. Long nails separate my shiny locks, and they dull with every run of her hand. The bland strands of her hair shroud my vision. Blue vibrant walls changed to gray walls, gray furniture, and gray doors. Suddenly, the color was gone.

I saunter to the mirror with the stranger following me. I- my personality, my color- am gone. My shine to my smile was stolen from me; the deep red from my favorite shirt was washed away with the tide of the stranger, and I was left looking into my eyes. They reeked of desperation for the color to be back, for there to be something more when I looked into the mirror.

The song inside my head fought hard to grant the wishes my eyes had vocalized. But the gray stranger was in my head, too. Those bird claws were wrapped around my head once again and around my mind. The claws closing in around my caged mind cause my ever-so-brave brain to retreat. Just like that, my eyes, my song, and my mind give in. The sheen to my eyes disappears as I withdraw from the mirror, afraid to see more.

Her eyes meet mine as I turn back to what used to be a blue bedroom. Tenderly, she mutters to me her name: Pessimism. She continues on speaking, barely overriding the static buzzing in my mind. Restlessness. Routine. Boredom. Loneliness.

As if she was only a dream, she disappears, yet her words cement into my brain. They ring throughout my head and intensify with each hit against my now static brain. Unrest travels throughout my body. Someone foreign has taken control of me. Someone foreign is impersonating me. Someone foreign has become me.

Pessimism.

I fear for a monstrous day; however, I expect it. A glass of milk will be spilled. I will get a bad grade. I will not understand biology.

Restlessness.

I ache for more than an average day. I ache for the adventures I see in movies. I ache for an unrealistic expectation a stranger has manipulated with her gray claws.

Routine.

All the motions of my day blend together into a cold coffee I must take a sip of every day. The same flavors, same undertones, and the same bitterness become expected. Everything is the same, from the moment I wake up to the moment I rest my head on the same gray pillow every night.

Boredom.

Gray has infected my mind. It suffocates my laughter, daring it to show its face. Paintings have no color, clothes have no color, and my life seems to be lacking the color I once took for granted. My mind rams itself against the fortress of boredom the strange has inflicted upon me, yet it fails to bring the color, the happiness, the music back into my days.

Loneliness.

My static mind flushes out the words of others into the sewer of color. Sweet, sincere smiles that whisper color into my mind are rejected by the stranger’s curse. I’m left alone with my grey walls, grey furniture, and grey mind to live in, waiting for the color of adventure.