Waseem Rehmani

THE CHROMATIC THIEF - SYNOPSIS In a world with no color, an artist named Kael has lost his good name. To survive, he must steal strong feelings from other people. These feelings are like liquid colors, and he need them just to feel something. Every time he steal, it leaves a "Stain" on his mind. This stain change him and make him more like a hunter. His hard life become a secret war when he find out his enemy is Julian Vance. Vance is powerful critic who destroyed Kael's life before. Kael learn that Vance is also a master thief, but he is not stealing for survive. Vance is collecting all the emotions for a big ritual, to make himself a god and change the world. After a big final duel where they fight with weapons made from pure feelings, Kael win. But his victory show him a terrible truth: the emotions are the real blood of the city. The city is a giant, sleeping living thing, and they were killing it. Now Kael has all the stolen power. He must make a choice that is impossible. It is not a choice about his own soul anymore, but a choice about the fate of his dying world. Total Word Count = 8,000 Words DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY To whom it may concern, I, Waseem A Rehmani, declare that the attached short story, THE CHROMATIC THIEF, is my sole original creation. I warrant that this work was not produced with the use of artificial intelligence and has not been previously published, whether in print, online, or in any other medium. Waseem A Rehmani Date: 18 June 2025 Page 1 of 20 Chapter 1: The Gray and the Spark The world was dead and only gray color was left. Kael was like its lonely ghost. He lived inside the big, quiet clock tower. This place was like a tomb for Time itself. All around him, the giant metal gears were frozen, covered in soft dust. Big iron pendulums, they used to swing with power, but now they just hang there. Dust was everywhere, like a sheet covering a dead thing. From his high room, Kael had a good view of the city. He would stand for many hours at the big, dirty glass window. A long time ago, it replaced the north clock face. Down below, the city spread out like a big, gray drawing. The roofs looked like the scales on some dead snake. The streets were like veins with no blood. Everything, from top to bottom, was covered in the same soul-sucking ash. It was the gray of old pictures and of sky with no sun. This gray quiet, it was his safe place and also his jail. It was the color of his world, and the color of his feelings. Food had no taste. The wind on his skin had no feeling. The city noise was just one boring sound. His hands, they were long and thin, rested on a wood table. His hands remembered the feeling of paint and the touch of a good brush. Next to them was his old tools. Brushes hard like old bones, and dried tubes of paint. There was also a big, empty canvas. Its bright white color was always yelling at him. He was a painter once. A famous one. People called him Kael the Myth-Weaver. He did not just paint old stories; he would cut them open and show their feelings with shocking, bright colors. His paintings had angry reds, sad blues, proud golds, and deep fearful greens. His best painting was called Leda’s Lament. It was a storm of color. The swan’s feathers were not just white, they shined with many colors. You did not just see that painting; you feel it. Then Julian Vance came. The memory is a room in his mind he must enter again and again. The gallery was hot. The people whispered. And Vance stood before his painting. Vance was the city’s best critic. He was a man who liked cold ideas, not hot feelings. “Good skill,” Vance began, his voice was calm and loud, “is for people with no ideas.” The room went quiet. “This painting is about a bad thing, a violation. But I see no violation. I see paint arranged in a careful way. I see a good hand and a smart mind. What I don’t see… is a soul.” He let the word hang in the air. Soulless. Page 2 of 20 “This is not a feeling,” Vance said, and he wave his hand at the painting. “It is a picture of a feeling. It is a hollow shell, so perfect you almost think something is inside. It is, in one word, empty.” The people in the crowd, they changed. First they doubt, then they understood. Their whispers were now like knives. His rich customer looked at the floor. The gallery owner looked away. In that moment, the colors in his own painting started to fade. The purple turned to gray, the white turned dull. It took many weeks for the world to lose all its color, but it started with the words of Julian Vance. Getting evicted was the last bad thing. His landlord, a greedy man named Hess, stood in his messy studio. “It is a business, Mr. Kael,” Hess said. “Nobody is buying these sad things now. You are bad investment.” As Hess talked, happy with himself, a strange anger sparked in Kael. For the first time in long time, he saw a color. A dirty, mustard-yellow fog was around the landlord. It pulsed when he spoke. It was the color of Greed. He did not know why, but Kael reached out. Not with his hands, but with his mind. He focused on that yellow color and he pulled. The feeling was a big shock. The yellow streamed from Hess and into him. It was a warm feeling, both sick and good. Hess stopped talking. He look confused. He looked at the paper in his hand and then walked away, his energy gone. Kael looked at his own palm. A shining drop of Greed was swirling there. He felt a little bit of life. He found a new way to paint. He found a new way to live. Now, living was a hunt. His emptiness was a real hunger. Only a splash of stolen color made him feel better. There. It came fast. A bright red flash in a window, four floors down. It wasn't a warm red. It was the deep red of pure Rage. A beautiful, terrible color. Kael moved like a hunter. He put on a long coat and went down the iron stairs. Every step made an echo. He walked into the street, into the river of gray people. He was a real man in a world of ghosts. Nobody saw him. He didn't need address; he could feel the emotion pulling him. It led him to a building where he could hear lovers fight. “You think I’m a fool, Marco?” a man’s voice yelled, full of the red color Kael followed. Page 3 of 20 “It is not what you think!” a woman’s voice cried, full of a pale blue Fear. Kael hid in the shadows across the street. He closed his eyes. He did not listen to the words, only the feeling. The rage in the man’s chest was hot and pure. He reached out with his mind, with invisible threads of his power. They went across the street, through the wall, and grabbed the man’s fiery emotion. Marco stopped yelling. He felt suddenly dizzy. “I… I…” Kael pulled. It was hard work, a fight with the man’s mind. Then it broke. The Crimson Rage flooded out of the man and poured into Kael. The world exploded in red. His sight was full of scarlet and ruby. The boring building across the street was now a beautiful picture of deep reds. The air tasted like metal. He felt on fire. In his pocket, a small ball of liquid color pulsed, warm on his skin. Inside the apartment, the shouting stopped. “What…?” Marco whispered. “What we were fighting about?” The woman cried with relief. Their storm was gone. He had stole its energy. Kael turned and walked away. The city was new. The gray buildings had sharp, mean edges. The people were not ghosts anymore; they were fools in his way. This was the price for color. The Emotional Stain. The feeling he stole became his own feeling. Back in the tower, he worked in the light of one bulb. He took a small bottle. He tipped his hand, and the red drop of Rage fell into the glass. He put it on a shelf with the others—a bottle of dark Indigo Sorrow, some Electric-Blue Joy, and the yellow Greed from the start. It was a sad little collection, but it was his. He stood by the window. The Rage was a fire inside him. He looked at the city. It was not a gray prison, but a place full of fools. The Stain made him feel powerful. But then he look at his big, empty canvas. He knew the feeling was a lie. He was not a creator. He was a thief, stealing the colors he can't make for himself. Page 4 of 20 Chapter 2: A Rival Echo The red Rage was a bad fuel, and Kael felt sick from it. For three days, the city from his tower was a sharp, angry place. The Rage put a mean filter on his eyes. It made sharp corners look like weapons and shadows look like traps. It was a ugly color, with no soft parts. With this feeling, his artist hands felt stupid. He tried to draw with charcoal, but only ugly, angry lines came out. The Rage was energy, not food, and it was starting to poison him. Sleep was not possible, and being still was a pain. He was starving for different taste. The Rage was a loud scream, and he wanted a whisper. He need a color that was not a quick, crazy feeling, but a slow, quiet fire that could feed him and let him think. He stood at the big glass window and looked on the city’s feelings. He let the normal yellows of worry and the boring browns of tired workers pass him by. He ignore the little green sparks of envy from the office buildings. They were like weeds, with no value. He was a hunter for the rare feelings. He let his mind drift, looking for something more rich. And then he find it. It was not a spark. It was a presence. Far away, at the edge of the city, was the old cemetery. A color started to bloom there in his mind. It was an Indigo color, so deep it was almost black. It was like the sky at night when the sun is gone. It was not the sharp pain of a new sadness, but the big, deep sorrow of a loss someone has lived with for their whole life. It had a slow, beautiful rhythm. He could almost taste it—like cold air, and dust, and memory. It was perfect. The walk to cemetery was like a trip away from the angry noise of the Rage. When he left the city center, the loud sounds got softer. The gray buildings changed to the older, sadder gray of old stone. When he got to the iron gates of the cemetery, it was very quiet. Only the wind made a sound in the skinny trees. The last of the red color left him. He felt empty, and hungry. The Indigo color pulled him forward. He walked on the small paths, past old gravestones. He found the source of the feeling. An old man sat on a stone bench. In front of him was a stone with one name: Eleonora. The man was old, with a clean but worn-out coat. His old hands rested on a wood cane. He wasn't crying. He was totally still, like statue. And the deep Indigo Sorrow came from him in slow, amazing waves. It was the color of a love that was older than death. It was a sadness so old it was now a quiet friend. I will be doing him a mercy, Kael told himself. I will take his heavy feeling, and he will be free. Page 5 of 20 Kael hide behind a big statue of an angel. The stone was cold on his back. He closed his eyes and get ready. He focused his mind and reached out to grab the feeling. His mind touched it. And it broke. He never felt this before. It was like throwing a fishing hook into a deep lake, but the hook hits hard glass right under the water. A sharp pain hit his mind and his eyes fly open. That was not possible. He could still see the Indigo color around the man, but it was getting weaker, like a smell that is fading away. It was a trick. He tried again, with more power. He pushed his mind forward like a weapon. This time, he broke the glass. He pushed through the fake color and he found… a void. An empty space. Perfect and terrifying. The feeling was not just gone; it was cleaned out, like someone had scrubbed the man’s soul. The beautiful Indigo he traveled for was just an echo, the shadow of a song that had just stopped playing. He was at a crime scene. And the body was still warm. Someone was here first. A cold fear, a new feeling, touched Kael’s skin. He stepped out from behind the statue. He was not a hunter anymore. He felt weak. He walked to the old man. "Sir?" Kael said. His voice was quiet. The old man did not answer. He just stared at the gravestone. His eyes were open but they were empty, like glass. This wasn't the confused feeling Kael usually left behind. This was different. This was a light that someone had turned off forever. He had to know. Kael reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. The second his fingers touched the coat, a shock shot up his arm. It was a psychic echo of the thief who did this. It told him everything. His own way of stealing was messy, like tearing bread. It was a fight. This… was different. The echo in the old man’s body felt like a doctor’s work. It was a clean cut, with a very sharp knife. It removed the man’s soul with no mess. And the thief felt nothing. No hunger, no happiness. Just cold. The thief was like a perfect, clean machine for killing souls. Page 6 of 20 Kael pulled his hand back like he touched fire. He stumbled back, his heart beating fast with panic. He looked around the graveyard. The quiet was not peaceful now. It was dangerous. He ran. He ran from the cemetery, from the empty man on the bench, from the cold echo of a real monster. He didn’t stop until he was back in his tower. He locked the heavy door, but he knew it was useless. He fell on the floor, breathing hard. The hunger was gone. A new feeling was growing inside him, made from his terror. It was not a warm color. It was a cold, shiny color. A liquid Silver Paranoia. He stood up and made himself look at the city. It had changed again. The city was not a hunting ground anymore. It was a game board, and he was a piece in a game he did not understand. The cars, the lights in the buildings—they were not random. They were part of a secret plan. Every shadow was a hiding place. His rival was not just stronger; he was smarter, and he was playing this game for long time. His safe tower high above the world now felt like a cage made of glass. He was like a small boy playing with fire, who looks up and see a dragon watching him from the smoke. He was not alone. And his world was now a much more dangerous place. Page 7 of 20 Chapter 3: The Critic's Shadow The Silver Paranoia was a slow poison. It did not burn. It dripped into the corners of Kael’s mind and made him see suspicion everywhere. His safe place in the clock tower was now a war room. The giant, quiet gears were not dead gods anymore. Now they were listening devices. The dust in the air felt like tiny spies. He was a king in a castle made of glass, and he was sure the world was watch him. His days had a new, nervous rhythm. He spent hours at the dirty clock window, with his spyglass to his eye. He wasn't looking for bright colors now. He was making a map of the empty spaces. On a big map he stole, he marked places with black pins. Here, a flash of Golden Optimism at the university just disappeared. There, a deep feeling of family love in a neighborhood went dry in one night. He was mapping the hunger of his rival. The echo he felt at the cemetery, it haunted him. He kept thinking about it. The clean, perfect way the thief worked. The cold, empty feeling behind it. This was not a hungry person like him, who needed to feel something. This was something else. A collector? A scientist? A thing with a very strong and disciplined mind, who moved through world with the silence of a shark. The Paranoia whispered to him. A creature with so much power would not leave a mess. It whispered that Kael, a weak and messy thief, was a mistake that the creature would have to fix one day. The fear of this idea was a cold rock in his stomach. It drive him from his tower. To stay still was to be a target. He must understand the pattern. He must see the face of this ghost. He started to work with the black pins on his map. He went to libraries, his face hidden in his coat, and looked at old newspapers. He searched for stories of people who just collapsed for no reason. A famous architect, known for his living, beautiful buildings, who suddenly retired. He said he felt a “deep and sudden emptiness.” Kael found the architect’s old office; the feeling there was the same cold, perfect void. Another pin led him to story of a political activist. A woman whose speeches were like fire. Her last speech was a disaster. She stood on stage, looked at all the people who loved her, and gave a boring speech with no feeling. Her movement broke apart after that. The pattern was clear. The victims were not random. They were the city’s heart and soul: its artists, its thinkers, its leaders. The Warden, that was Kael's name for Page 8 of 20 his rival, wasn't just feeding. He was collecting. He was stealing the very souls that gave the gray world its only hidden colors. The trail of broken souls led him to the city’s rich cultural people. It led him to a fancy party at the Municipal Art Museum. The irony tasted like acid in his mouth. This was the same place that threw him out because of Vance’s words. The party was for a new art show: "The Sterile Eye: Form Over Feeling." It was the Warden’s idea made into art. Kael knew, with the certainty of a paranoid man, his enemy would be there. He snuck in through a service door. He was a ghost of gray and black in a room of white shirts and shiny jewels. The air was full of fake laughs and the sound of champagne glasses. For Kael, with his paranoia, the room was a battlefield. The polite laughing sound like secret codes. The art—big empty canvases of one color, and shapes with no meaning—was a church for the soulless world his rival loved. And then he feeled it. It was not a color; it was its absence. In the center of the room was a space of nothing. An emotional black hole. It pulled all the weak, pale feelings of the party into it and ate them. Kael’s eyes followed the feeling to its source. A man stood there. He was an island of perfect calm in a sea of nervous people. His face was a mask of smart, quiet distance. When the man turned a little, the light hit the silver hair at his side. The air left Kael’s lungs. The cold snake of Paranoia in his stomach turned to ice. It was Julian Vance. Time broke. Kael was not a ghost at a party anymore. He was a young, shamed artist, watching this same man take apart his soul with calm words. Vance was older, but his eyes were the same—cold, smart, and dismissive of messy human feelings. People called him the Gray Warden of the city's art. Kael now knew that name was real in a horrible way. Vance walked to a small podium to give a speech. “We have a choice,” he began, his voice that same cold knife. “Between the messy, emotional art of the past, and the clean, smart beauty of the future. Emotion is a primitive thing. It is loud. It is messy. True beauty is in the clean idea, in the elegant silence.” As Vance spoke, Kael understood the monster hypocrisy of it all. It was like a very fat man telling everyone that being hungry is good. This man, who spoke against passion, was the biggest eater of it. He was a dragon on a mountain of stolen gold, telling the villages that gold was a vulgar thing. Page 9 of 20 The memory of his shame returned, but now it was a proof. “A hollow shell…” Vance’s voice from the past echoed. It was not an insult; it was a professional opinion. One predator seeing the talent in another. “Soulless…” It was not a judgment; it was a wish. A wish to make everything as empty as he was. The shame, Kael realized with a hot rush of rage, was not criticism. It was a planned attack. Vance had sensed Kael’s power—to not just paint feelings, but to channel them—and saw a threat to his collection. He didn’t just ruin Kael’s career. He tried to steal his power, to make his world gray so he could have all the colors for himself. The Silver Paranoia caught fire. It burned away, and the cold fear turned into something hard and hot. Fear was useless now. He need a weapon. His eyes, now burning with this new fire, searched the crowd. He found her in a corner. A young artist. Her painting was an explosion of chaotic color, a rebellion against the theme of the show. She was full of defiance and a desperate need to be seen. Kael could feel her emotion, a hot, shining core of Vicious Determination. It was the feeling of someone who would burn the world to make their dream real. It was what he needed now. He moved like a shadow. He walked past her, his shoulder touched hers. For a second, she looked in his eyes and saw a man with a fire just like hers. He did not smile. He focused his mind, he reached out, and he pulled. This was a different kind of theft. It was not for survival. It was a soldier taking a weapon for fight. He took her Determination in a clean, fast move that copied the Warden's own brutal style. The fire in the woman’s eyes became a small, confused spark. She looked at her own angry, living painting and frowned, like she did not know why she made something so loud. Kael was already walking away. The new Stain, Determination, was a hot fire in his soul. It burned away his fear and hardened it into resolve. He stopped in the dark hallway and looked back. Julian Vance stood there, a king in his court of fools. The ghost Vance had made years ago was back from the grave. And he was not afraid. The game was set. The enemy had a face. This was not a hunt for color anymore. It was a war for the city’s soul, and Kael, with a stolen fire inside him, was finally ready to fight. Page 10 of 20 Chapter 4: The Arsenal of Feeling The Vicious Determination Kael took from the artist was a cold fire. It was not like the messy burn of Rage. This was a clean, focused feeling, with no warmness, but with an edge so sharp it could cut glass. It settled in his mind, and its cold light burned away the last of the Silver Paranoia. Fear, it told him, was a waste of energy. Regret was a heavy rock. Only one thing was important now: Julian Vance. He stood in front of his sad little palette. The small bottles on the shelf looked like a kid’s chemistry set. The red Rage was a stupid, heavy club. The blue Sorrow was a soft feeling he could not afford now. The Electric-Blue Joy was a memory of some foolish dream. This was a collection for a hungry man, just to survive. It was not an arsenal. To fight the Warden—a man who spent his life hoarding the best emotions, a dragon on a mountain of feeling—Kael needed better weapons. He needed to hunt with a purpose, to collect the main colors of the human soul. His new Determination, his cold mind, it guided him. It studied the enemy. Vance’s power was control. To beat him, Kael must use the messy, raw art that Vance hate. He needed to build a palette for war. First, he needed Courage. Not the loud, fake courage of a drunk man, but the real thing. The will to walk toward a bigger enemy and not look away. The strategist lead him to the city’s bus station, a place of hellos and goodbyes. There, in the middle of the gray crowd, he found it. A soldier, young and with a straight back, stood with his family. He was going back to a war. The feeling coming from him was a bright, solid-gold light. He was not without fear—Kael could see the fear in the soldier’s jaw when he looked at his little sister—but his courage was stronger. It was a choice to be brave for his family. The old Kael, the artist ghost, felt a deep guilt. This was a noble, beautiful color. To steal it feeled wrong. But the Vicious Determination was a cruel master. It is needed, it whispered in his mind. Your feeling is a weakness he will use. Kael moved through the crowd like a shadow. He passed the sad family just as the soldier hugged his sister for last time. In that second of pure, selfless strength, Kael reached out with his mind. The theft was fast and with no mercy. The Gilded Courage flowed into him, a wave of warm and certain feeling. The soldier pulled back from the hug. A confused look came to his face. His sister feeled the change. "Mikey?" she asked. He just shook his head. The golden light was gone, and only the pale fear was left. "Is nothing," he lied. "I must go." He get on the bus without looking back, a boy without his armor. Page 11 of 20 Kael was already gone, the Courage was a sun exploding in his chest. The Stain was fast and strong. The gray city was now a place of great chance. The tall buildings were challenges. He return to the tower not like a thief, but like a conqueror. He walked to the edge of the open clock face. The long drop down did not scare him. He stepped onto the thin stone ledge, the wind pulled at his coat, and he feeled only a great, thrilling power. He was invincible. He walked around the whole ledge. After a moment, the cold strategist inside him forced him back inside. He carefully bottled the Gilded Courage. It was a great weapon, but it was too reckless. He needed something to balance it. His new mind, now free from fear, knew he needed a shield. What was the opposite of Courage? The best shield was Despair. The feeling that nothing can be done, that trying is useless. An emotion that can take any hit because it expect to be destroyed. To find it was too easy. He went to a quiet, forgotten street and a small, broken house. Inside, an old woman sat in a chair. Around her were pictures of a life that was over—a husband, children, all gone. The feeling from her was a black hole. A color so dark it ate the light. It was Obsidian Despair. This hunt felt different. It felt like a sin. The artist ghost inside him screamed. To steal a woman’s grief, her last monument to her love, was the worst thing he could do. The Vicious Determination did not care. His weapons are many, it reasoned. You need a shield that can stop anything. This is it. He stood outside her window. The act of reaching out his mind felt like putting his hands in cold, thick tar. The Despair was heavy and slow. It did not fight, it just gave up with a soul-crushing weight. When he finally pulled it free, it left the woman not better, but just… blank. She was like a library where all the books have been burned to ash. The Stain hit Kael like a punch. The Gilded Courage inside him was destroyed. The feeling of being invincible was gone. A heavy, suffocating weight made his knees weak. The clock tower was not his home anymore. It was his prison. His plan to beat Vance was a stupid dream. What was point? He fell to the floor, holding the bottle of Courage in one hand. The Despair in his soul made him feel so heavy. It took all of his Vicious Determination to fight it. He crawled to his table. Every move was a battle. To bottle this black color was an act of war against the very feeling that now owned him. His hands shake as he poured the light-eating blackness into a bottle. When it was sealed, he felt a little relief, but the Stain was still there, a thick oil on his soul. Page 12 of 20 He couldn’t fight like this. He couldn’t face the Warden covered in hopelessness. He need an antidote. He needed one more color. He needed Hope. Not a gentle hope. Vance would kill that in a second. He needed a stronger, crazy, burning hope. He found it in the basement of a church. A small prayer group was there. They prayed for a sick child. Their hope was not a quiet thing. It was a desperate fire against the dark. A bright, shining, almost-white light. A Feverish Hope. It was perfect. He entered the room. They did not see the gray shadow in the door. He felt their hope like a warm shield against the Despair still on him. He did not wait. He put his will into the center of their prayer and stole the heart of their belief. A soft gasp went through the room as their hope vanished. The prayer leader stopped, his words gone. The warm room turned cold. For Kael, it was like lightning. The Obsidian Despair broke into million pieces. The heavy weight was gone, replaced by a bright, happy light. A crazy good feeling filled him. Of course he could beat Vance! It was his destiny! He would win, and his victory would be a masterpiece that would repaint the whole city. He stumbled back to his tower, drunk from this new, dangerous Stain. He put his arsenal on the table. Crimson Rage. Gilded Courage. Obsidian Despair. Feverish Hope. It was a palette of emotional bombs. He looked at his face in the dark glass. He was thin, and his eyes burned with a crazy light. He had armed himself. But the price was very high. He had feeled invincible, hopeless, and now crazy with hope, all in one day. Each theft carved something from him, left him with scars. He had become a monster to fight a god. He was ready for the fight, but as the Feverish Hope sang in his blood, a small, cold part of him—the last piece of the artist he once was—wondered if he had already lost himself. Page 13 of 20 Chapter 5: The Chromatic Duel The Feverish Hope was a strong and dangerous guide. With its crazy, bright feeling, Kael’s trip to the art museum was not a sad walk. It was a happy march to a victory he knew was coming. The gray city, it did not feel so heavy now. It seemed like a big empty canvas, waiting for him to paint on it. He felt like the city was holding its breath. He go in through a side door he remembered. The air inside was cold and still. It smelled like dust and chemicals. Moonlight came through the high, dirty windows and made pale gray lines on the marble floor. It shined on covered statues that look like waiting ghosts. He walk past rooms full of the dead, sterile art that Vance liked. They were tombs for feelings, and he was here to rob the graves. His steps made echo when he entered the museum's heart: the grand central gallery. It was a very big, two-floor room. On the far wall was where his painting, Leda’s Lament, used to hang. Now the space was empty. It was a clear insult. It was arena, and his opponent was waiting. Julian Vance stood in middle of the room. A single stick of moonlight shined down on him. He was not a monster in the dark. He was a calm, perfect professor. He wore a simple dark suit, and he looked at Kael with a tired disappointment, like Kael was a bad student who failed a simple test again. "Kael," Vance said, his calm voice filled the big room. "I must say, I am surprised. After my… critique… I thought you would disappear. I see now I did not understand how strong your simple feelings were. It has grown into this." He pointed at Kael, like he was a dirty spot on the floor. "You didn't critique my work, Vance," Kael said back. His voice was strong from the Hope burning in him. "You tried to kill my soul before it could be a threat to your business." A little bit of real surprise was on Vance’s face, but he hide it fast. "So, the little bug understands. A small step for your mind. You think this is a war, a little fight over things." He shook his head like he felt pity. "This is not about a monopoly, you stupid boy. This is about being better. I have spent my life collecting the messy, painful trash of human hearts. I have cleaned it. Soon, I will absorb all of it. I will leave this body of pain and become a thing of pure, ordered thought. I will fix the palette of reality. I will wash away the ugly, pointless pain of feeling and bring a time of quiet, beautiful logic. I am not a thief. I am a savior." Page 14 of 20 "You're a collector," Kael spat, and took a step. "You put feelings in jars like dead butterflys. You study them, but you don't understand them. I am an artist. And I am here for my masterpiece." Vance sighed. A sound of a very bored man. "Okay. Now, lesson begins." He raised a hand. The duel started not with a loud noise, but with a big quiet. A wave of pure Gray Apathy rushed from him. It was a real force that made the air heavy and the moonlight weak. It pressed on Kael with the weight of pointlessness. Why fight? Why try? It was easier to just lie down. It was the color of give up. Kael almost fell. The Feverish Hope inside him almost died from the pressure. But he was ready for this. He reached for his arsenal, for the bottle of pure black, and he opened his shield. A wall of Obsidian Despair exploded in front of him. The Apathy wave hit it and broke. It could not make Despair give up, because Despair already believed in failure. The two bad feelings met and destroyed each other. Vance’s eyes got a little smaller. He flicked his wrist. The air around Kael filled with shining, sharp pieces of pure Yellow Contempt. They sting and cut, and whispered to Kael about how he was a failure, how his power was stolen and sad. Kael roared, and answered with his own raw power. He opened the bottle of Crimson Rage. It exploded from him in a messy, wild blast. It was like a shotgun, and it shattered the sharp, stinging pieces of Contempt into dust. "Messy," Vance said, not impressed. "So barbaric." He changed his attack. He started to weave his colors, but like a scientist, not an artist. He made a cage of green Ordered Frustration around Kael. He shoot sharp needles of Distilled Spite, each one aimed at a secret fear. It was not a wild attack; it was a slow, careful plan to take Kael apart. Kael was hurt. He used his Rage to block the needles, but it was clumsy. He feeled the green cage closing around him. Vance had too many weapons. The Feverish Hope, which felt so strong before, was getting weak. Kael was like a street fighter against a chess master. He couldn't win this way. He was going to be bleed dry. He was pushed back and back, until his shoulders hit the cold, empty wall where his painting once hung. He looked at the big empty space, and in that moment of desperation, the artist inside him finally wake up. Vance was a critic. A collector. He understood feelings alone, in their pure form. But he never made anything. He never understood how colors mix together, how black can make yellow deeper, how blue and red can make a new purple. Kael saw Page 15 of 20 his mistake. He was fighting with tubes of paint. He should have been painting a picture. The air of the room will be his canvas. A new feeling, calm and clear, came to him. He stopped going back. He let the cage of Frustration close. Instead of fighting it, he reached for his shield of Obsidian Despair. But this time, he did not use it pure. He mixed it with a ghost of the Indigo Sorrow he once loved. The black color was now filled with lines of deep, beautiful sadness. It was not just the feeling of loss; it was the sad beauty of remembering what you lost. The shield changed. It absorbed the sterile Frustration and turned its energy into a sad hum that filled the whole room. Vance jumped back, surprised. It was a feeling he had never seen before. "What is this?" he asked. His calm was broken for the first time. "It's called art, Julian," Kael said. His voice now quiet and full of confidence. He went to attack, but not with the clumsy anger from before. He took the Gilded Courage from the soldier. But he did not use it as a wild wave. He sharpened it with the hot fire of his Crimson Rage. The two colors mixed. The gold gave the red a reason, and the red gave the gold a terrible, sharp heat. The new color was a bright spear of Righteous Wrath. He threw it not at Vance, but at the empty space on the wall. It hit the wall and exploded with a silent echo of defiance. Vance was shook. His smart mind could not understand these mixed, living feelings. He put up a quick wall of cynical logic, but it was too simple. Now, for the last paint stroke. Kael reached for his last color: the Feverish Hope. He pulled it out, a light so bright it was almost white. But he did not use it as a simple blast. He began to weave. Into the Hope, he braided the gold thread of the soldier’s Courage. He twisted in the sharp memory of his own shame, the memory of Vance's Yellow Contempt. He layered it with the deep, sad hum of his new Despair. He was making his masterpiece. It was not one feeling, but a story of feelings, one after other. The story of his fall. The story of a gray world. The story of a stolen spark in the dark. The story of courage when all is hopeless. It was all of it, a symphony of feeling that was ugly and beautiful, sad and strong. He unleashed it. Page 16 of 20 The wave of living, complex emotion washed over the room. It was not an attack Vance could study. He had defenses for Rage, for Fear, for Joy. He had no defense against a story. The masterpiece of feeling hit him, and his clean, ordered mind broke into pieces. His control was gone. The giant collection of emotions he had hoarded for his whole life, the feelings of a thousand stolen souls, they erupted from him. They burst out in a wild, beautiful storm of pure color. The air filled with shining golds, deep blues, angry reds, and a thousand other colors Kael had never seen. Julian Vance fell to his knees. His face was a mask of total shock. He was not the Gray Warden anymore. He was just a man, drowning in a lifetime of stolen feelings. Kael stood, breathing hard, in the center of the storm. He had won. Not with power, but with art. And all around him, swirling like new stars, was the prize: a terrifying, beautiful arsenal of all the color in the world. Page 17 of 20 Chapter 6: The Crimson Debt The duel was finish. The masterpiece was painted, and it shattered the collector. Julian Vance, the Gray Warden, was on his knees on the cold marble floor. He was like a broken cup, and a lifetime of stolen feelings poured out from him. The free emotions did not disappear. They made a giant, beautiful, and scary storm of color in the middle of the room. It was a silent hurricane of pure feeling. Kael stood in the eye of the storm. The wind pulled at his coat, but he was not touched. It was a living galaxy of feeling. Shining golds of victory twisted around deep blues of peace. Angry reds of rage chased happy violets of joy. There were colors Kael never saw before, feelings with no names. The sweet and sad orange of a sacrifice made for love. The cool, silver-green of a new idea. The warm, heavy brown of loyalty. The air hummed with the sound of million silent voices—laughing, crying, shouting, praying. It was the lifeblood of a thousand souls, and it was calling to him. The feeling, the temptation, it was a pain. It pulled on his soul. The storm promised an end to his hunger, an end to the gray world. It was the best palette, the source of everything. With this power, he could repaint the world. He could erase the years of shame. He could become a god of feeling, a real creator. He look at the man on his feet. Vance was crying, but they were weak tears, like he did not know how to cry. He was shaking, his hands on his head like he was trying to hold his broken skull together. He was not a monster or a king now. He was just a sad, broken old man. Kael thought about his choices. He could drain Vance and become the monster he wanted to be. He could show mercy, walk away, and go back to a normal gray life. Both choices feel like not complete ideas. To destroy Vance was to become Vance. To forgive him made the whole fight, the pain, feel like nothing. There was only one true path. He had won the best paint in the universe. Now, he would use it. He would not be a collector like Vance, who hide color in jars. He would be its master. He would be the Successor, not a king, but the artist he was always meant to be. "You wanted to be a savior, Vance," Kael whispered. His voice had a new power now. "But you were just a collector. You must be an artist." He closed his eyes and opened his soul. He reached out with his mind, not like a thief, but with open hands. He invited the hurricane inside him. Page 18 of 20 The power came. It was a happy, huge flood. He feel the soldier's brave goodbye, the old woman’s heavy grief, the lovers’ angry fight. A thousand lives, a thousand feelings, rushed into him. It was so much power, it almost destroyed his own mind. This was victory. But the power bring something he did not expect. It was not memory. It was not feeling. It was knowledge. A terrible, deep knowledge about the magic he used. As the storm poured into him, it showed him the truth. And the truth was a deep, dark hole. His world shattered. He was not a man in a museum anymore. He was flying high over the city, but he didn't see buildings. He saw a body. A giant, sleeping body. The city itself was alive. The big buildings were its bones, the power lines its nerves, the subways its veins. And the people… the people were its skin, its nerve endings that feeled the world. And the emotions… the colors… they were its blood. The knowledge hit him like a punch. The colors that came from people were not just feelings. They were the real psychic lifeblood of the giant, sleeping city. And the city was bleeding. He saw Vance’s true story. He was a mad doctor. Long ago, Vance found this same truth. He saw the city was slowly bleeding to death from the small wounds of human passion. His cold ideas were not just about art; it was a crazy medical plan. He thought if he could stop the bleeding, if he could collect all the spilled blood— the colors—he could do one big transfusion. His plan for Ascension was not to become a god for himself. It was a crazy try to put the lifeblood back into the heart of the sleeping city. He hoped to wake it up and become its mind. In that terrible moment, Kael saw what he had done. He was not a noble artist. He was a flea, a leech. He was part of the sickness. Every time he stole an emotion for himself, he made another wound. He was draining the blood from the very being he lived inside. His gray world, the apathy—it wasn't a punishment from Vance. It was a sickness. The city was dying, and he was feeling it. It was like psychic anemia. He and the Warden were two different kinds of parasite, slowly killing their host. The last of the storm poured into him. The power settled in his soul like a heavy rock. He was full, but he did not feel like a winner. He only feeled the heavy weight of the truth. He could feel it now, a low hum under his feet. The weak heartbeat of a dying god. Page 19 of 20 He opened his eyes. The gallery was quiet. He was a man again, but a new man. He was not hungry. He was a reservoir. He was a blood bank. A dry, weak sound came from the floor. Kael looked down. Julian Vance was looking up at him. His eyes were not in pain now. They had a crazy, desperate hope. "Do you see it now, artist?" Vance whispered. Blood was on his lips. "All my life… I tried to get it. To control it. But I am just a critic. I could only collect. I could not… make the cure." He coughed. "It's dying, Kael. And you… you hold the blood. All of it." Vance’s head fell down. "The ritual… is not finished," he whispered. "You have to… you have to finish it…" Kael stood there, frozen. The thousand stolen lives were a screaming choir in his mind. The old choice—to destroy, to forgive—was a child’s story. The real choice was now in front of him, and it was impossible. Did he follow the mad doctor’s plan and try the transfusion? He could become a puppet of a waking god, or worse, its new evil mind. Did he release the emotions and let the city die in peace, a final gray death? Or was there a third path? An artist's path. Could he use this universe of color, this ocean of lifeblood, not to command or to heal, but to paint? Could he make a masterpiece so strong, a story so powerful, that it could teach a dying city how to live again? His personal war was over. He had beat his enemy. But a much bigger, more scary fight had just begun. He was no longer a thief. He was the city’s last, most tortured doctor. He held the fate of a world in his artist's hands. And he had no idea what to do next. Page 20 of 20