Chapter Text
In a room, leaning comfortably against a windowsill and typing on a laptop, sat a young adult surrounded by pillows. It was raining heavily outside, the perfect time to focus on a story they had been wanting to type up for awhile now; in fact, it was probably the last chance they’d get to type this up before spring break ended and essays became their whole life again.
But right now, in this small moment, this young adult was immersed in the plot reveal they were typing up as the main character fought against their current adversary. Thunder boomed around the author, rain pounded against the roof, but it was the strange sound of the house powering down that brought them out of their immersion.
“What? A power outage?” They wondered, looking around their messy room, “Welp, good thing I’ve been charging my laptop this whole time...oh.” They couldn’t see the keys.
The lamp was off, and the natural light of the heavily covered afternoon sun made it hard to tell what was an N or an M on the keyboard.
“Damn.” The author sighed. They had just gotten to the good part; how was the author going to remember what is supposed to happen if they can’t type it up?
The author reluctantly looked over to their phone, which sat innocently on the TV stand charging: or, well, had been charging anyway. They could use it while they waited for the power to come back, something the author had done many times before, but…
“I really don’t want to see it right now.” They muttered, thinking of their other story.
It was a project that they had been working on as a gift to their friend, before both parties had a falling out; now the author could barely look at it without getting mopey and rereading it to relive the feelings they’d had while they typed it up.
The whole thing had been made with love; every word meant to brighten a day, every character meant to reassure- A feel good story, fluffy and with lots of hurt/comfort. Now it felt like a letter from the past to themselves, and the author really didn’t care to have their own edited advice apply to them in this instance.
So they avoided it, left it to gather digital dust while they tried to move on with their life; until now.
“Pffft, it’s not a big deal; I just won’t look at it.” they reassured themselves as they got off the bed, laptop safely moved to the side. The bed protested under their shifting weight and a muffled thump came from the old cream carpet, the sounds loud in the absence of the familiar zing of electricity and obnoxious click clack of keys, but the rain prattled on and the storm still raged above.
The author hesitated for a second, anxiety screaming, but sucked it up and grabbed the phone.
“Alright. Notes, notes, notes.” They thought, clicking the folder and shuffling to the right page the app sat in. They clicked on the app and brought their thumb up to press “New Note”- but they hesitated, eyes caught on the title of that dreaded story.
“The Path to Yellow,” They read out loud, then scoffed, “Really, what was I thinking?” But they knew exactly what they’d been thinking. Yellow was their friends favorite color, and one the author associated with happy emotions; it only made sense that a story made for a friend be named with them in mind.
They missed their friend more and more everyday, and this story was probably the closest the author could get to them at this point. Would it really be so bad to read the story one more time?
Forgetting the reason they had even grabbed their phone in the first place, the author tapped the title and opened the note.
BANG!
A large flash of light filled the room, sparks flying as the old cream carpet muffled a large thump.