The Albino Citadel

The silence was heavy. It pressed against Leo’s eardrums like deep water.

He gasped, sitting up violently. He expected broken bones. He expected the sterile smell of a hospital or the metallic taste of blood.

Instead, he tasted... dust? No, chalk.

Leo blinked. The world was white.

Not the white of a blank page, which held potential. This was the white of a dead bone. The ground was smooth, seamless white marble. The buildings that towered around him were carved from pale limestone and steel that had been bleached of all luster. The sky wasn't blue, or black, or gray. It was a flat, static sheet of nothingness, like a television tuned to a dead channel.

"Ohio got an upgrade," Leo wheezed, standing up. His backpack was still strapped to him.

He was in an alleyway, but it was too clean. No trash. No rats. No graffiti.

He walked out into a main thoroughfare. People were moving, but they made no sound. They wore robes of ash and linen. Their skin was the color of skim milk. They walked in perfect, rhythmic unison, eyes fixed forward, expressions vacuous.

"Hey!" Leo shouted. "Excuse me! Where is this?"

A woman nearby stopped. She turned her head slowly, like a rusted automaton. She looked at Leo—at his muddy jeans, his black hoodie, his olive skin. Her eyes widened. Not in curiosity, but in horror.

She pointed a trembling finger at him and opened her mouth. No scream came out. She just exhaled, a sound of pure despair.

"Okay," Leo backed away. "Weird cult town. Got it."

He looked at a pristine white wall to his left. It was agonizing. It was perfect, and it was wrong. It begged to be defiled.

It was an instinct. A reflex honed by years of hating blank spaces.

Leo swung his backpack around. He pulled out a can. *Magenta Madness.*

"Just a test," he whispered. "Just to see if I'm dreaming."

He shook the can.

The sound—*clack-clack-clack*—echoed like a gunshot in a library. The people on the street froze. They covered their ears, wincing.

Leo pressed the cap.

The paint didn't just spray. It roared.

A jet of hot, neon pink liquid slammed into the white wall. But it didn't dry. It hissed, bubbling and eating into the stone. The color pulsed with a rhythmic light, vibrating. Heat radiated from the line he drew—a simple, jagged tag.

The air around the paint shimmered. The pink wasn't just pigment; it was energy. It was raw, condensed emotion.

"What the hell?" Leo touched the wall. It burned his fingertip.

"Halt!"

The voice was like a cracking whip.

Leo spun around.

At the end of the street, a figure stood clad in armor made of polished silver. A helmet obscured the face, but the stance was unmistakable. A warrior. A cop.

The figure drew a sword. The blade was transparent, made of glass or diamond.

"You manifest Chaos," the figure stated. The voice was female, cold, and utterly devoid of inflection. "You bleed the Wound. Surrender to the Pale."

Leo looked at the knight. He looked at the bubbling, radioactive pink graffiti on the wall. He looked at the terrified citizens.

"Color is magic here," he realized. A grin, sharp and terrified, split his face. "And I'm packing a nuclear arsenal."

He grabbed a can of "Safety Yellow."

"Catch me if you can, Tin Man!"