So Beautiful Tonight

But Lucy was not helping her. Instead, she grabbed her arm and pulled her back off balance, nearly causing the two of them to tumble down the stairs and into the basement proper. The door swung wide open.

The roommates stood there, smiling from ear to ear. Their eyes were completely taken by the Colour, that same intense radiance. Marta knew that it was over. The two in front grabbed her and pulled her up the stairs. Lucy pushed from behind. Marta screamed and thrashed as she went up, but only succeeded in delaying them momentarily.

They moved closer and closer to the front door, and Marta allowed herself to relax. Fighting would do no good at this point.

"You'll understand soon," said Lucy. "You'll see it," she said, gazing deeply into Marta. She could already feel it, and the feeling was growing more intense by the second. Heat was starting to radiate outwards from her eyes into the rest of her head, more and more, hotter and hotter. She felt her eyes watering.

"Why does it hurt so much?" she said between tears streaming down her face. "It's just a Colour... it's just a goddamn Colour, but it burns. I can feel it inside me, Lucy."

"Shhh," she said, then placed a kiss on her lips. There was nothing left of those deep, rich brown eyes she'd fallen in love with. There was just the Colour now, staring back at her, smiling so incredibly wide.

The door opened. The Colour spilled in from the night sky, and Marta gasped. They knew there was no need to restrain her any longer. Marta stood upright and stared, completely transfixed.

The Sky was filled with it, in every direction. They were right. They were all right. All of the people that had been trying to tell her this whole time. The Sky is so beautiful tonight. The words echoed through her mind, over and over again. The immensity of it, the magnificence, the beauty of it was something that she felt in her innermost self.

She basked in the Colour, that blissful, perfect Colour. It was a shade that no human eye could perceive, but it refused to be ignored. It burned its way inside, changing everything it touched. Lucy had only caught the tiniest trace of it, but it was enough to take root inside her, to blossom and in turn plant its seeds in Marta. She could still feel it changing her now, burning its way through the rest of her body, making her more like the things that it knew. It was so beautiful, and very soon she would be too. She opened herself up as wide as possible, welcoming it, embracing it. Her new mission in life was clear. She would share it with everybody she knew, everybody she loved, everybody she could find.

Marta was going to need her phone. She smiled, wider than she ever had before.