The sight of colors

The room is silent, not in the peaceful kind of way, but the sort of stillness that makes a person hyper-aware of every breath. The stone walls are pale and bare, lit faintly by a gemlight in the ceiling that pulses like a tired heart. There are no windows, no furniture, no bookshelves, no tools - only a squat wooden table and a single rock placed on top of it like a final exam.

Arthur sits on the cold floor, legs crossed, arms resting on his knees. He has been here long enough for the dull ache in his back to become familiar, like the taste of defeat. How long has he stared at this seemingly normal rock? Maybe thirty minutes, maybe an hour. He doesn’t know, and the rock doesn’t care.

Suddenly, a sharp creak interrupts the silence. Arthur turns his head just enough to see Mike standing in the doorway, one hand still on the latch. He quickly turns back the focus to the rock.

Mike raises an eyebrow, not quite frowning, but something flickers behind the usual mask of sarcasm. A wrinkle that wasn’t there a second ago, not from confusion, but something closer to unease.

Mike steps inside, the door clicking shut behind him.

His eyes linger on Arthur’s hand.

Then, like brushing dust off a coat, he clears his throat and pats Arthur on the shoulder.

“Alright, that’s enough existential bonding with a mineral. Get up and go eat something.”

“It is your challenge, isn’t it? I will not come outside of the classroom until there are some flickers,” Arthur shrugs of Mike’s hand and keeps on staring at the rock.

Mike doesn’t reply immediately. His hand lingers in the air for a breath longer than it should, before falling back to his side. He goes to a corner of the room, then settles down.

The boy doesn’t even glance at him. His eyes are fixed on the rock, as if it would whisper something if stared at long enough.

The space doesn’t change much. The light remains faint, the rock remains silent, even the dust in the corners seems reluctant to move.

After not long, Arthur loses count of how many times he shifts his weight. How often his legs fall asleep, then wake again in pins and needles. The ache in his back sharpens, then dulls, then vanishes entirely - replaced by a hollow kind of stillness.

After an hour, Arthur senses an unbearable pain in his legs, and has to broaden it.

After two hours, Arthur’s stomach growls like an earthquake.

After five hours, Arthur feels like the tiredness from his previous life has catched up to him as he now has to breathe consciously.

After six hours,...

After ten hours,...

After god knows how long, time itself lets go. There is no noise from Arthur’s stomach and the exhaustion stops completely. He feels all the air that comes in and out, like breezes that comfort the pain that has gone.

The silence wraps around him like fabric - neither warm nor cold, simply present. The room feels no longer like a box, but a void where time itself has fallen asleep. Arthur no longer feels the sting of muscle or the weight of posture, as if it has never been there.

Suddenly, he sees a shade from the rock, a color that doesn’t have a name in his memory - yet it seems to resemble a mixture of red and gray. The light is curved around the rock, continuously flowing up and down like a vertical version of the ocean currents from the books Arthur once read.

His lips part in disbelief. A breath escapes, half-laugh, half-sob. His hand trembles, suspended in the air, as if the moment might dissolve if he dares to touch it.

He tries to stand up and leap, to let his whole body echo the triumph in his chest - but the hours of stillness have drained everything from him.

So instead, Arthur collapses backward, laughing.

Not the polite kind. Not the dry chuckle of disbelief.

But something loud, breathless and bright.

Clap clap clap.

A sudden, small applause cuts through the room like a ripple in still water.

Arthur freezes, breath caught in his throat.

“How long have you been there?” He asks.

Mike is sitting just out of sight, right where Arthur never thought to look. His hands still move in slow, deliberate claps. The smirk is there, as always - but the eyes are different: softer, steadier, almost proud.

“For the past seven days,” he replies.

Arthur blinks.

“You…what?”

He cranes his neck, squinting at the man like he might be hallucinating. His limbs are too weak to stand, but his voice rises with incredulity.

“You were here the whole time? The full week?”

Mike shrugs.

“Let's just say, it’s absolute boredom for that whole period.”

Arthur groans and lets his head thump back against the floor.

“You’re insane.”

“No,” Mike says, finally standing. “You are. And I’m quite surprised that you didn’t fall unconscious.”

He crosses the room, slow, deliberate steps echoing against the stone.

“Most heroes either succeed after three hours or give up after four.”

Mike stops just beside him, leaning down.

“But you…” he gestures to the still-unchanged rock. “You are the most untalented and hard-headed there ever was.”

“Is that a compliment or a criticism?” Arthur asks, still unable to move.

Mike picks him up like a little boy.

“It means you are worth teaching. I’ve always wanted to teach a shounen protagonist for the past decades.”

They step out into the hallway. The light is so much brighter there and the air is a little warmer. Somewhere down the hall, something smells like soup attracts two hungry souls.

“Oh, and also,...” Mike says, gently. “Don’t use the phrases ‘do not’, ‘is not’, ‘are not’. Those are exclusively skalls’ in this world.”