Chapter 1: dangers
At first, Luna’s parents, Clara and Thomas, were thrilled by their daughter's sudden burst of energy. Her bedroom walls were covered in brilliant, chaotic paintings of neon forests and sapphire skies. But soon, the vibrant hues on her canvases matched the stains on her fingers, her tongue, and the corners of her mouth.
Luna stopped eating her mother’s homemade dinners. If a food wasn't violently pink, electric green, or shimmering blue, she refused to touch it.
"It's just a phase," Thomas whispered one night, watching Luna meticulously separate the rainbow candies from a jar, her eyes wide and hyper-focused. "Kids love bright things."
"Look at her eyes, Tom," Clara murmured, a knot of dread tightening in her stomach. "She hasn't slept in two days. And when she isn't eating them... it's like the life drains out of her."
The breaking point came on a Tuesday. Clara, determined to break the cycle, emptied the kitchen cabinets. Every box of neon cereal, every bottle of synthetic syrup, and every jar of dyed sweets went straight into the trash outside.
When Luna walked into the kitchen and saw only brown whole-wheat toast and a glass of regular white milk on the table, the reaction was immediate and terrifying. She didn't just throw a childhood tantrum; she collapsed to the floor, clutching her head.
"It's gone," Luna sobbed, her voice trembling with a raw panic that didn't belong to a little girl. "Mommy, please, everything is turning gray. The walls are melting into ash. I can't breathe without the light!"
Clara knelt beside her, pulling her daughter into her arms, but Luna felt burning hot, her heart hammering like a trapped bird against her ribs. When Luna looked up, her pupils were completely dilated, reflecting a dull, vacant emptiness. The sweet, bright treats were no longer a preference. The chemicals had hijacked her mind, rewiring her brain to perceive the real world as a colorless, terrifying wasteland.
Clara looked up at Thomas, her face pale with absolute certainty. "We need to get her out of this city. And we need to find out exactly what they are putting into those dyes."The country house was supposed to be a sanctuary, a secluded cabin deep in the woods where the neon advertisements of the city couldn't reach them. But they couldn't leave the colors behind. They were already inside her.
By the third night of the detox, Luna’s withdrawal wasn't just psychological. It was physical.
Clara woke up at 3:00 AM to a strange, rhythmic scratching sound coming from the bathroom. Creeping down the dark hallway, she pushed the door open. Luna was standing on the stool in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection in the moonlight.
"Luna?" Clara whispered.
The little girl turned around. In the shadows, her mouth split into a wide, unnatural grin. A thick, glowing, electric-blue liquid was slowly seeping from her tear ducts, dripping down her cheeks like radioactive tears.
"I can see the colors in the dark, Mommy," Luna whispered, her voice layered with a strange, hollow echo. "They’re growing."
Clara screamed, dropping her flashlight. When the beam hit the floor, it illuminated Luna's arms. Underneath her translucent, pale skin, her veins weren't blue or red—they were pulsing with shifting, hyper-vibrant neon hues, spreading upward toward her neck like a glowing fungus. The food coloring wasn't just an addiction; it was a living, synthetic organism rewriting her anatomy.
Thomas burst into the room, grabbing Luna, but the moment he touched her skin, he burned his hand. Her body temperature was dangerously high, fueled by the chemical reaction happening in her blood.
Suddenly, the cabin's old landline phone began to ring. It shouldn't have been working—Thomas had cut the lines.
Trembling, Thomas walked into the living room and picked up the receiver. There was no dial tone, only a wet, low buzzing sound, followed by a polite, cheerful corporate voice.
"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Vance. We see that Luna’s biometric colors are peaking. Please be advised that interrupting the dye-infusion process causes... unstable mutations. Return her to the city immediately. She belongs to the palette now."
Outside the cabin windows, the pitch-black woods suddenly illuminated. Figures in sterile, white hazmat suits were standing between the trees. But their visors weren't clear—they were glowing with the exact same blinding, dripping neon light that was currently taking over their daughter's mind.
