"Wake up!" called a voice.

~You're going to be late!

"I know, I know," I muttered under my breath.

"And hurry!" another voice called.

~Your breakfast is going to get cold.

"Like I ever get anything warm for breakfast," I muttered again.

Slowly, I managed to lift the heavy covers of my blanket from my body. The cold morning air rushed in, sending shivers down my back. I immediately jumped out of bed, eager to change into a warmer set of clothes. My alarm clock beeped wildly a minute later. I sighed and pressed on the clock.

"What's the point of setting an alarm if you just call me up every morning?" I said to myself, half expecting an answer.

When none came, I sighed again and finished getting dressed. I quickly folded my pajamas and set them to the side, then headed to the bathroom to wash up before breakfast.

I took a quick look at myself in the mirror before brushing. My aura had grown paler these last few days, still a greenish-blue hue, but definitely less vibrant. The strings tied to it had lessened too, some turning red and disintegrating. I sighed. More relationships were beginning to break.

I finished brushing, and, with one last glance at my slowly withering aura, I headed downstairs.

My little sister greeted me halfway down the staircase. Her aura glowed light green, with hundreds of strings tied to her, fanning out into the distance. Even as I watched, more strings connected to my sister’s aura, some weaving into my own aura as well. That was to be expected though, not many relationships were broken in elementary school.

“Come on, Darius, we have to hurry,” my sister urged.

~Mom already left for work.

“Okay Ellie,” I said with a light smile. I patted my sister on the head. She smiled, and dashed down the stairs, into the kitchen. At least I could count on my little sister to be honest.

But I knew that wouldn’t last. Elementary school kids tended to be innocent and honest, and you could actually have a somewhat decent conversation with them too. Middle school kids, a lot less honest, some even learning to swear by then. High schoolers… don’t even get me started on them. The entire system is completely corrupted by discrimination, stereotyping, and vulgarity. Lies, every one of them built on a concrete foundation of lies. Adults were generally better at masking their lies, and with the surge of hormones out of their systems, their auras were much milder. But the system never changed. Not until people grew old, did the lies ever lessen. It almost made me depressed thinking about it.

I met up with my little sister again in the kitchen. Several new strings, blending my pale blue aura and my sister’s green aura, connected between us.

Breakfast passed by quickly. My sister told me all about what she was going to do today, all of her hopes and desires for the day spelled out plainly for me by the echoes in my head. I just nodded a few times and went on eating my waffles.

We bid each other farewell at the door, with our bus stops branching in different directions of the street. I walked slowly towards my bus stop, taking the time to observe the changes in scenery.

Not in a physical sense, of course. Sure, I could look at my neighbors’ yard, noting how they had replaced the bed of yellow tulips near their door with red ones. I could look at the trees, with leaves slowly drifting down from their branches in the clutch of the early autumn. I could even note the sky, clear as it was now, with black, stormy clouds gathering on the horizon. But no, I did none of these things.

Instead, I looked at the network.

It was what I had decided to call the intricate web of colored strings, perpetually connecting and disintegrating with different auras, all throughout the day and night. Several bright red strings sparked near the neighbors’ house, tied with light blue strings from house across the street. Violet strings branched out from where the two touched, spreading into the distance on every horizon. Perhaps the two families were planning a party?

Dark green strings folded in the trees, tying knots of ever-increasing complexity within their smooth bark. Slowly, as a leaf fell from a nearby tree, a part of the tree’s string network turned black and disintegrated.

A huge web of multicolored strings weaved through the sky, always changing, almost like the colors of an aurora, dancing among the deep, blue canvas above.

How could I see these things?

Probably from the time I was born, I could already see the immense network of strings around me; I could hear the voices echo in my head; I could see the colored outlining a person that comprised his or her aura. Call it a natural talent.

I had always assumed that everyone was the same; that everyone could see the aura outlines, the colored strings, hear the voice echoes. But then again, in elementary school, most kids had a neat, uniform color representing their aura, and only a blend of two colors resulting in their strings. The echoes had generally been repeats of what they had just said a moment earlier, sometimes stated with more clarity, but never different. The adults were stranger, with intricate hues mixed into their auras, but I had shrugged them off, convincing myself that they were simply alien beings, designed only to watch over us, the pure-colored ones.

Then, high school came.

The beautiful, uniformly colored auras I had never really learned to appreciate became clouded with dark, ugly hues of brown and sometimes even black. The strings that had once been simple connections between two people twisted and weaved in directions that I had never thought possible. And then, they began disintegrating, and I fainted for the first time. The echoes almost never sounded the same anymore, always a twisted reflection of what the person had said, sometimes even turning completely opposite. It made my head spin, how many lies, how much depravity those adolescents could manage, and in such a short time.

I nearly went insane.

My parents visited several doctors and psychologists, and finally came to the conclusion that I had simply been too sheltered before, and that, finally coming to light of reality, I couldn’t handle it.

They hired a counselor to work with me, and, after many months, I gradually got used to the change.

The counselor left and my parents expressed their relief. I was finally normal again. It had been a cause of celebration.

Of course, I had changed too. I could see it in my aura, once pure white, now stained with shades of blue, green, and red. To come to terms with the lies, I had been forced to take them upon myself. It disgusted me just to think about it.

A bird flew by, its light yellow aura glowing like a dim lightbulb. I watched it pass by, admiring its pure, untainted color. Plants and animals tended to be different than humans. Animals almost always had a single colored aura, although much dimmer than humans. Plants were mostly just green. A few plants, like the venus flytrap, had some red mixed in, but they were relatively simplistic overall. I preferred both to high schoolers.

I reached the bus stop in a few minutes. The bus pulled up a minute later. A multitude of auras were packed inside, colors and strings constantly shifting and blending, like an assortment of fruit packed into a blender.

I just shook my head, scowling. Then I boarded and headed off to school.