Day 255

They were always a pale shade of blue and he still didn't know why.
1 in 100 people can see this, not that they are always aware.
Doctors generally put it down to stress, or deteriorating vision.

Doesn't explain why whenever he sees someone blue, they die within minutes.
It certainly doesn't explain how nobody notices this or how they get up afterwards.
He's never spoken to them after they've come back, it isn't always safe to.

They look so much more alive when they come back.
So alive that they made the people around them look... grey... pallid...

He never wondered if he was alive - why would he?
Besides his ability to see the Blue Death (as the public had dubbed it), everything
else in his life was standard and uneventful.

And then his uncle came back from the Shetland Isles.
He'd always been fond of uncle Artie, the man was full of the most amazing
scientific sounding stories.
His recent return was no different.

This time uncle Max had information regarding the Blue Death and especially
relating to his visually gifted nephew.
"The thing," he said "about the Blue Death is that everyone is vulnerable... Even you."
He went on to say that the theories behind the sudden uprising on the presumed
hallucinations was that we were all soulless and the Blue Death was actually a new
soul entering us and giving us new life.

The more into his speech he got, the bluer uncle Max became.
Spit was flying from his mouth as his voice grew louder and louder until he was screeching
his message to the ceiling, eyes bulging out of their sockets.

As he thought things couldn't get worse, as uncle Max's voice began to break he saw it.
That faint glimmer, almost missable were it not hovering above his raving relative.

The Blue Death had come for uncle Max.
He'd never seen it this close before, too busy studying the way it gradually settles to notice
how uncle Max had stopped talking.
How his features were drooping and relaxed as his eyes rolled back.
His entire body slumped as the blue aura engulfed him.

He tried talking to his uncle, maybe he could still hear him?
He could.
His voice sounded metallic and far away, like talking into a tin can phone.
"It doesn't hurt," he muttered, sounding surprised, "I thought it would hurt but it feels... Warm."

After what seemed like forever, the blue glow sunk into him and faded to nothing.
Max lifted his head, squinted at his nephew and smiled too widely.
His teeth were pitch black.

"Look up, boy."

The ceiling was blue.