Spectra

When I wake up, the first thing I notice is that my bedroom is completely dark. It’s nighttime.

This isn’t entirely unusual for me. Thanks to working erratic hours lately, my sleep schedule has been reduced to ‘Get it while I can’. For another minute, I lie in bed, warm and comfortable, and not especially looking forward to checking the time on my phone and seeing how long I have until my alarm goes off.

Eventually, I force myself upright, and reach over blindly until my fingers bump against my phone. I unlock my screen and squint at the bright light. There’s something wrong with my phone’s background. The picture is grayscale, when it definitely shouldn’t be. I force myself to ignore that and glance at the time, then reset my alarm so that I can doze for another fifteen minutes, and then I borrow back underneath my blankets.

When I don’t have any more time before I absolutely have to move, I sit up and turn on the lamp next to my bed. And that’s when I notice that it isn’t my phone’s screen that’s the problem.

Everything is grayscale, like in an older black and white movie. My curtains, which should be a deep blue, look almost black. My walls are a light gray, my floor, everything.

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Can you trust your own perceptions? What would you do if you suddenly couldn't?

A chilling short tale about how sometimes reality isn't as stable as it seems. About the difference between what's true and what's real. Are you sure that you want to look into the abyss? Maybe something will stare back.

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Want to find out what happens next? Read the rest of this short story, now edited, here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DVFV1P8.