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Black, red, and magenta.
Those are the only colors you've known.
Red is what you wear, as do your friends, and your family. It represents unity and support to your military. In emergencies with black-outs, red is easy to spot under flashlights. No one is alone when their tentacles are red. Only those selected by the DJ Shogun may change their hue, so that all can see that they have a special role above in protecting your underground society.
Black belongs only to elites with kelp in their tentacles. It speaks of their history, talent, and skill to reach a high position of power. Their choices determine where you go and what you do. Follow every order without question. Bow for they are the ones you must look up to be. To represent the absence of light that you all fight against so that one day, you will see the surface again.
Magenta is the color of life in the domes. It is the color you all share so that no one else is harmed by another. Together as one people, loyal to the great DJ Shogun.
Then it all changed when new colors that you've never seen before entered the domes.
You didn't know their names at the time, but you knew of green. Green was the shade of your siblings' eyes. Of the weapons who you helped defend. The spicy taste of wasabi that you decorated your food with. It was the staple of your nation.
This green hurt when it hit you, but it was not the green that sung to you. That changed when the pink idol came to Octo Canyon.
The pink siren sung, and you were filled with joy. There was a new hope for the domes. A light brought to your lifeblood with the stars she encouraged you to wear. Even in the absence of light, her pink glow made you want more to life than red.
Then came the green siren, a voice so serene that it hit you with a wave of calmness. There was sadness in it, but also a hope. A hope that grew with every note as the battle went on.
When they both sung together, you saw a color unimaginable.
No name left your tongue as none came to mind. The shades among it made your heart soar.
You left to the surface after that. Searching once again for that nameless vibrant hue.
Only to see it upon the day you arrived on the surface alone among fellow deserters.
There you saw it, high in the sky, a glowing ring among a bright object that burned your eyes.
Just for those few minutes, you watched as the ring disappeared but not the object. The sun welcomed you with its warmth, and you accepted this new life.
But this new life was not easy on your mind. It had overwhelmed you with the new colors it bled. When you only knew of three names, there were hundreds of shades to just one hue. Each with their own different name, meaning, and desire. It was an unspoken language of the surface, and you had to learn it.
To choose what color would speak that is you.
So you first started with a pink so hot it was luminous. It was eye-catching, and many cephalopods rushed to your side to chat after a turf match. Some made you blush with their compliments, others left you speechless with their own appearances. You wished you knew the words to describe how you felt, to tell your new friend of how his smile made your insides shake around like a Squee-G when it’s found ink to clean up. But the attention your new color brought eventually became too much, your energy for the days drained. So you switched your hue to red, hoping people wouldn't assume you to be extroverted.
Red was familiar; it represented home. New octolings from the domes wore it, and squids seemed to catch on, thinking it was a trend. You didn't have the heart to tell your new friends that it meant more than just a stylish fad. When in reality, red was at the core of all of your life. In the domes, society was revolving around the hue. Even on the surface it still did among the weird squid-shaped berries you had for breakfast at the farmer's market. So much fulfilling food that you never could have imagined tasting back at home.
But then you found yourself in a stump. You left that home to find a new life. Red was your hue then, and now you were wearing it again with a frown on your face. The past was then, and as much as you missed the comfort of it, you were motivated to find something new.
So you chose a new color that you took during a turf match. A color named orange, a mix of red and yellow, as sweet and sour as the fruit, and truly a shade of healing. When you first sprained your leg after tripping on your roller, it was the orange goldfish who provided you comfort as she placed ice among your injury. Orange was the color of the frozen mango drink that soothed your sore throat. It was the color of the candles that gave off a citrus-sweet scent as you cried to your therapist about how you missed everyone you knew back in the domes. Wishing you could share in all these experiences with them.
But you found yourself unable to wear orange longer than a few days. In your head, you didn't deserve to wear a color of healers. So you let go of the red in your ink and changed your hue to yellow.
With yellow, you felt like the day could never end! For you would match the sunlight and be a light for others when their days were dark. Giving talks to other octarians moving onto the surface. Smiling at your neighbors as you planted a new row of yellow hyacinths in your pots. As long as you were around, no one had to worry about being sad because you would cheer up their day!
Yet, you could not wear the yellow hue forever just as the smile on your face eventually pained you. You told your therapist you wanted to always be happy and shine just like the sun which welcomed you with its golden glow. So positive that you learned it was possible to be too positive from your therapist. That you needed to let yourself be sad too.
So you decide to let a little blue into your ink, making the color green.
Green wasn't a bad hue, but it reminded you of the moss growing in the domes. The first real sense of nature you got that wasn't some artificial grass that hurt if you lied down on it the wrong way. It was nature's connection reaching down into the earth so that you all would know you're not alone.
Now on the surface, you know you're not as you walk along the trails of Mt. Nantai's forest. Listening to the birds chirp as the wind weaves through leaves. Green was everywhere, for it was nature, and you felt you could blend right in. That if you laid down upon bushes and roots, you too would match right along. Yet, there was just that lack of connection that made you change your hue once you were gifted a paint set.
Turquoise was what your best friend wore, and so you matched him as you painted the vibrant blue seas. He dazzled you with the magic of making his pet pigeons appear out from a hat, and you showed your paintings of the ocean in return. Your tentacles curled with glee as art became your hobby, but you did not find yourself enjoying just keeping to the light blue any longer. So you let your ink darken as the sun descended into another night.
Indigo was the color of the night sky. The serenity of knowing that there would be no artificial panels falling down due to another power outage. These stars would shine bright and never change for they would outlast even your lifespan. The night held stability that you learned for, but your indigo tentacles seemed to make others think you did not want to talk. It lasts a week before a change happens without you knowing.
You don't know why, but you wake up one day to see your hue has shifted to violet. A bright purple hue compared to indigo, but not as red as the magenta pools at the bottom of Octo Canyon. You're able to change it, but find yourself coming back to it every so often as your mood goes sour when someone asks who you are.
Most of the surface world talks with hues, but you can't. None of the hues you wear fit you just as the others around.
Today, you don't know how to explain it to the eyes staring at you. They're your friends, you trust them, but you're afraid to speak up. You lost the conversation long ago when they talked about visiting a parade, but when their attention came upon you, you panicked.
So you run.
You run as fast as you can, down streets and alleyways. Your coiled tentacles a stark white, absent of any hue as the air leaves your throat.
Why couldn't you be like the others? They could pick a color that perfectly spoke who they are. And yet you just could not. Just wearing one for too long evoked a visceral sense of wrongness.
Who are you?
The lost dome octopus, who can't even stand to wear red because it brought forth too many memories? Who couldn't wear yellow on a rainy day because that's not how you felt? An octoling with jet black tentacles in the mirror that caused you to flinch and hide in fear that the military was going to come back for a deserter to wear a color such honor in disgrace?
Maybe, you aren't someone?
Just a nobody who could never be someone.
You're alone in this world of color because you don't belong-
“Hey!”
You look up to meet eyes with pupils of stars.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Your head shakes. White tentacles coil at the edge of your vision.
She crouches down to your level, “What's the matter?
Words leave your throat before you can properly think of an excuse to make the inkling leave you be. “I think… I'm lost.”
A hand reaches out, “No worries! I can help you find your way.”
Eyes blinking, you take her hand.
“...Can you help me find a parade? My friends are there.”
The stranger smiles and helps you to your feet. “That's perfect, ‘cause I'm going to a parade too! I got a cousin to meet, but she's always late to stuff, so I'm not worried.”
You tilt your head in confusion. She giggles in response.
“Sorry! It's just that you remind me a lot of my girlfriends. They do the same gesture when they're curious about what I said,” she explains, leading you out from the alleyway.
You're speechless as you keep pace with her. Her tentacles sparkle from faint sunlight hitting the glitter on them.
But that's not what got your attention.
No, it's the color of her tentacles that make you stare. You've never seen someone wear colors like this before.
Pink, yellow, and blue, with little dots of the three all together.
In turf war, you've seen people with two hues, but this was different. This was outside of battles in the heart of the city.
You open your mouth to ask the inkling a question, but feel the words die at the back of your throat as you both step out onto a scene of color.
Flags were raised high in the area as sea life of all types danced around to music that shakes your hearts. A pair of DJs play together on a booth on top of a float. One wears a hat with yellow, white, purple, and black bands wrapped around it. The other has long tentacles pulsing to the beats with a cyan, pink, and white.
On another float, a duo of cephalopods threw a manta ray decorated with blue, red, and black stripes into the air. In fact, both cephalopods wore the same stripes on their outfits, but their tentacles were a whole different set of colors. Instead of just three, the inkling was wearing four stripes being; black, gray, white, and purple with yellow rings. Then there was the octoling with; pink, white, purple, and blue with white rings. An entire set of five that just blended right together seamlessly.
It was astonishing!
“Looks like we're in the right place!”
You turn to look at her as she lets go of your hand. She gives a small wave, you return it.
“Good luck finding your friends! See ya!”
And off she goes into the crowd of sea life, following after the float with a trio. Gone amongst a sea of colors, but not in your mind.
You look around some more amongst the parade and see it on top, a float covered with flags of the shades you have seen.
Shining with beauty, glory, and all the warmth that you remember that came with it was the nameless color.
No, that wasn't right.
You know the word now.
A rainbow.
Not a single color, but a spectrum. Never truly being just one, instead a flow with no stop.
You feel a shift of ink around your tentacles as your mind gathers mixtures of hues to form a rainbow amongst them. Moving fluidly from one end to another with no one color sticking in place.
This is what you are.
You are not one hue.
Your life does not have to resolve of a specific shade or an absence of any color. To fit into a box made by others, staying forever just for the safety in numbers.
No, you're a hue ever-changing, vivid, and full of life.
In the end, you're you.
