Happy Holi! Holi is a Hindu festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil and the arrival of spring, typically celebrated with large, colorful gatherings and people throwing colored die on each other. Use color imagery to symbolize change, whether in time, setting, or anything in between! Since today is also National Hobbit Hole Day, try setting your daily in your hobbit hole for an extra wink from the daily team ;D 500 words for 300 points, with 100 points for proof!

03/25 ✲ March 25th ✲ 626 words

The wind blew cold in Helen’s ears.
The lamp flickered in the corner, a warm dull yellow. The streets were a sweeping gray-brown, the light rain shimmering blue and teal with every passing second.
Helen shivered, her eyes leaking like a tap faucet. She was done.
She let out an ugly breath and kicked at the dreary brown newspaper on the floor. It was the same color as the dirty floor. She watched it fly away.
She was done with the expectations, the weight of burdens on her shoulders. She was done with the crushing responsibilities that she was expected to take.
The world swam a hundred different shades of teal and blue as her eyes continued to rain. Her navy blue cloak was high over her head, covering her happy peach dress. It both contrasted and matched the middle-shade of the world around her.
She didn’t know where she was walking. Her dainty slippers made her feet ache, but she’d had nowhere to change - like she had anything more comfortable to change into. She fell into the rhythm of her soft footfalls, like the music that played out of her radio. It was that music that led herself into the glittering cave in front of her, her eyes on the ground, struggling not to leak more like a broken faucet.

Aimee pulled off her helmet sharply. The blinding white lights of her bedroom startled her, which made her both angry and upset. She threw the stup1d helmet on the bed. It ricocheted off the bed and onto the floor.
She hid her angry red scream underneath her tongue. Everything was unfair and complicated. There were secret criteria, it seemed, to please people. Criteria she never fit in.
The flashing lights glowed off the glasses on her table, glasses she was always told not to wear despite the blurring white dots surrounding her.
Her foot was sore from kicking that ball. She h@ted that ball with every fiber of her heart and soul. Her brothers could do it, maybe, but that didn’t mean her. She disappointed her parents and friends with every kick and throw. She didn’t want this ball to be the symbol of her life.
Aimee’s face was angry red as she rose up from her chair and began to run. She ran out of her room, with her laptop still glowing, the helmet still on the floor, and ran out of her living room. Out the door.
She didn’t know where she was going, or what she was doing, really. Everything was red and orange in her vision.
She took a sharp turn into some kind of cave. Her common sense had dissipated into the air, because if she weren’t feeling like this, she’d stay away from an unfamiliar place like this.
She stopped inside and slid down into a curled ball.

Helen saw the girl arrive only moments after she had. She blinked, her tears still turning the room shades of purple and blue. But now she could sense red and orange radiating from this girl. She was shaking. Her rhythmic shakes made her unleash a sob and collapse on the floor, into somewhat the same position.
The girl looked at her. Her face was angry, layered with sadness. She tilted it, watching Helen. She was wearing shorts and a shirt, something very unusual for Helen. Helen watched her, her face still streaming rain. The girl’s eyes softened. She reached her arm out to Helen.
Helen reached out and touched the unfamiliar girl’s hand.
They were two who had never met. Two from different worlds.
Their hands touched, and Helen’s tears began to whisper to a stop. The other girl’s shaking slowed.
They looked at each other again.
They’d be okay.