persona
2nd Place | Short Story
Neither I nor Me by Stephanie Gonzales
Day 1: I stared at the cream sky above me then back to my surroundings. There's no one here, only cream boxes. But someone got out of it. Wait, these cream boxes were houses? There wasn't even a single window. Just a single door. Strolling around the place, all that I ever saw was cream houses. Not even a school, church, or malls. Then it was a dead end. Darkness gathered below this cliff. I squinted my eyes because I saw a bridge from afar. They didn't do anything to connect it with this cliff? I got bored so I just sat there while staring at the darkness below. Day 2:Was it already the second day? I was just sitting there for an hour. Wait, did I sit there for an hour? But the color of the sky changed - it's now purple. It was cream yesterday. The colors changed? People here had the same faces. I suppressed my laughter. I was curious if they shared the same genes. I had a different face from them. Will they notice me? Someone did. It seems like she's talking but she's not opening her mouth. She got startled when I opened my mouth to talk to her. That's when she brought me to her house. It was still full of violets. I want to puke with all these violets. She could open her mouth! She got into this parallel dimension too! Her real name was Fridda and she told me everything that she knew. Day 3 Day 1: Am I having a memory gap? I knew that it was my third day here already but it seems like it's only three hours ago. Fridda gave me a red notebook. Everything changed again - it's now all red. I got scared for a bit. It was just violet yesterday, right? Fridda toured me around the city. Everyone had the same color of clothes - all red. The cars, buses, tall buildings, trees, plants, and even the animals - they're all red. Numbers were everywhere and letters were nowhere to be
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