Range

As the visits progressed, the world continued to be saturated in natural hues. The sky grew a truer blue, the asphalt got darker, and the streetlights grew brighter. But the other figures remained either white or black silhouettes. This time I was walking down the street towards the coffee shop with Good and Bad at my sides.

"So are you two ever going to tell me why the other people are still just monochromatic shadows?" I asked them, my eyes affixed on the playground on the other side of the street.

"Well," Good started, Bad laughing under his breath, "it's a bit of an odd explanation."

"Everything we tell him is odd." Bad laughed again.

"Everyone around here are the representations of people you know in real life." Good explained.

"So if I know them, why can't I see them?"

"Because when you come here, you're supposed to pay attention to us unless otherwise stated."

"Dude you sound like a lawyer right now..." Bad mocked from my right.

"No kidding." I chimed in. "But why are they monochromatic?"

"Whatever opinion you hold of that person in real life, their color represents that."

"What?" I shuddered. "White ones are the good ones and black ones are the bad ones?"

"Yes." Good stopped short. "Wait..."

"Is this just you telling me that I'm internally racist?"

Bad started laughing hysterically, almost falling on the ground.

"No!" Good screamed in retaliation. "That's just how you see Good and Bad!"

"I know; I've been like that for a while." I replied. "It's just that I'm suddenly very uncomfortable with that realization.

Good sighed, and flung his hands up into the air. The worlds shuddered. The shadowed silhouettes flickered, and faded to a deep red.

"There?" Good hissed. "Happy now?"

"Oh my God that was funny." Bad heaved, wiping his eyes and collecting his breath.

"Fuck both of you." Good grumbled. "Seriously."

"Whoa now." Bad cut in. "You're not old enough to use that kind of language."

"I know what's on your mind right now." Good glared at me. "It's been taking up a lot of your thinking as of late, hasn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I stammered, confused.

"Uh oh." Bad mumbled.

"You want to mess with me? How about I mess with you?" Good continued.

"Dude what the fuck is going on?" I leaned over in Bad's direction. But he only raised his hands up, shook his head, and backed up.

"This will be the last time that you mess with me." Good hissed once more. He held his open palm up to me, where a red light was being cradled. It flashed, and everything went dark.

*   *   *   *   *

My chest ached when I came to. Sitting up knocked the wind out of me. I was in a small room with silver, metal walls. But one wall had a window that was covered from the other side. From beyond it, I could hear a combination of laughing, and a distant cry for help. I winced as I heaved upwards, and supported myself against the window. I pounded on it a few times. Metal gears groaned below me, and the cover began to descend. It sheltered a large hallway in a rectangular shape, I was on one of the long sides. To the left, pops and flashes came from behind a metal grating. To the right, Love jumped left to right, gripping onto her shoulder. Blood seeped from between her fingers.

"Love!" I screamed, banging on the glass. She looked over at me, and stopped. She took a deep breath in, and closed her eyes. A white arrow came from behind the grate, and lodged itself into her hip. Her eyes darted open, and she screamed in pain, falling to the ground. More shots came, but they all missed. She ripped the arrow out of her hip, and continued to run around the coming munitions.

I hit the glass harder this time. I could swear that it was beginning to crack underneath my fists. I kept pounding on the glass, hoping that it would shatter so that I could escape and come to Love's aid. And while I thought that it was crumbling through my bloodied fists, it never so much as shuddered.

Who are these people. I asked myself. Why are they doing this to Love? She hasn't done anything to deserve this. The munitions rarely hit. They only seemed to strike Love when she seemed to find a pattern of evasion. And then she would be grazed in the arm, or side. And then they would keep on missing. Are they toying with her? I asked myself one more. Why? Why are they taking shots at Love?

The camber blurred away, and descended into darkness. When I opened my eyes this time, Bad was leaning over me with a confused look on my face.

"Uh." He stammered. I was sitting in his couch, in the home he shared with Good.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"Dude I have no idea." He replied.

"Where's love?"

"Probably down at her house. Why?"

"Is she okay?"

"Dude I don't know!" He shouted.

"Then why was I just watching her get shot for fun?!"

"What?"

"You heard me!" I screamed back at him. "She was getting shot at for someone’s amusement!"

"She didn't get shot with a bow and arrow did she?" He asked.

"Yes?" I answered, confused.

"Was the arrow white?"

"Yes?"

"Oh no."

"What's going on?" I pleaded, standing up and following him to the window. "What happened to Good?"

"You know, there's only one thing I'm scared of." He mumbled into the wall that he rested his head up against.

I stopped and cocked my head to one side. I looked out the window and up to the mountain where the monastery was. There was a bright white cloud that surrounded the summit.

"I'm scared of Anger." Bad finally said, looking out the window. All of the clouds turned white. "He's the only one that has ever tried to take over the wheel of this machine. And he almost did once."

"Yeah," I shuddered, "I remember."

"You know I don't do this whole 'friendly' thing that often." He told me. "But if there's one thing I don't want to happen, that's for him to be in charge."

"I don't understand. What happened to Good? Or Love?"

"It looks like Anger fucked with Good's mind. So now every positive emotion that you have is getting messed with, just because he wants to. You must not have made a good impression when you met him."

"He showed up for two seconds, pretty much said 'fuck you,' and then left." I told him, opening the door and beginning to walk down the street towards Love's house.

"Love should be fine." He called after me, running down the driveway to catch up. "If this is what I think it is, Anger is just messing with your head."

I ignored him. I started to run down the street towards her house. This isn't right. I told myself over and over again. Something isn't right. Something isn't right.

I stopped at the house with the pink garage door. A stained red bandage was wrapped around her calf and her shoulder. She sat in a wheelchair, the side of her pants stained red. Love hunched over herself, spinning a white, gold-tipped arrow in her fingers.