Hex Code

In the beginning, there was only the color...

Image: Krystian Plich via Unsplash

If chaos had a color, it would probably be something like red, or orange, maybe yellow? What I didn’t expect was a wonderful shade of periwinkle blue with violet undertones.

I stood quietly staring at the reinforced glass windows from within the safety of the security room, watching as a team of over fifty people mindlessly pounded their fists against the glass.

Their screeches and howls were mercifully muffled by the windows and the steel door, but even the dulled cacophony of their wails still made my skin crawl.

These people, some of whom I had beers with a few weekends ago, were all desperate to rip me from limb-to-limb. Not because of anything I did, mind you, but because of a color. One that had consumed the entirety of their eye sockets.

“Kind of reminds me of Very Peri,” Vanessa said, calmly chewing on a chip from the bag in her hands.

I looked over to her, still wondering how she was so calm.

“What the fuck is Very Peri?” I asked.

“It was Pantone’s color of the year back in 2022, duh! It’s like the one in their eyes. A kind of warm, bold lavender type of tone.”

I looked back at the ravenous horde. The lavender color in their eyes clashed with the streaks of blood across their cheeks and mouths.

Judging by the security footage, they preferred to eat whatever living things they could get their hands on as gruesomely as possible.

“I’m going to be honest. This is not how I was expecting the day to go,” I said.

Vanessa shrugged beside me. “We work for the government in a top-secret facility delving into secrets that I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to uncover. The way I see it, this was only a matter of time.”

I threw up my hands. “Okay, I have to ask, how are you so calm right now?”

Vanessa smiled. “I’m high as hell sister. And a little drunk. I raided the liquor cabinet in the office when shit hit the fan. If I’m dying today, it ain’t going to be sober.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

Vanessa finished the last chip in her bag and licked the tips of her fingers.

“Hey, we should probably decide how we’re going to do this,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean, I’m not too keen on getting eaten alive, so I need an exit strategy.”

“An exit strategy? Seriously?”

Vanessa shrugged. “The way I see it, we either wait for them to eat us, or we just watch the footage.”

I took a step back from her. “You’re not serious? You saw what it did to them!”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s what I always say!”

“You’ve never once said that,” I replied.

Vanessa winked. “Yeah, but I said it just now, didn’t I?”

I let out a long sigh. “Do you have any more of the stuff you took?”

Vanessa grinned and pulled out a tiny plastic bag of rainbow-colored gummies, shaking them in front of my face.

“How much do you want?” she asked.

“Enough to be as calm about this as you.”

I took the gummies, completely unsure of what was in them, and sat down beside Vanessa in a rusted metal chair.

With a few button presses, Vanessa pulled up the footage from just an hour prior. The screen remained black as someone spoke at the beginning of the recording.

“Thank you for coming. We’ve just received confirmation that the link is complete. Friends. Colleagues. We are about to be the first humans in all of history to witness what came before the Big Bang. Patching through the transmission now.”

Vanessa didn’t say anything. Neither did I. The screen lit up with the footage of the direct feed from earlier. It was just a color. That same hue of lavender with shades of red and periwinkle.

Honestly, at first glance, it was probably something I would paint on a wall, but like an accent wall or something, it’s too much for an entire roo—

NEEDLES PUSH THROUGH MY EYES…

MY MIND SHATTERS UPON THE SHORES OF REALITY…

BEFORE TIME, THERE WAS ONLY HUNGER…

BITE, TEAR, RIP ASUNDER…

FLESH CONSUMED…

I LIVE TO SERVE…

THE COLOR…

THE COLOR…

THE COLOR…