Witches can be cruel, their nature evolving around cursing those who commit simple crimes like mine. It was only in Mist’s best nature to curse me at such a young age. I used to blame her for my stature, but slowly, things have sorted themselves out. Now, I understand the true notions of a witch. Their powers are meant to heal, to regenerate. Cursing requires their soul and meaning. A witch can only curse once. As far as I know, Mist is unable to curse another being again. They’re like bees, really. They sting once in defence and then… die?

No, maybe they aren’t exactly like a bee.

When I was cursed, my first few nights were filled with dreams of who I had become. It’s common knowledge, for me to understand the various curses which can be cast. Mist’s curse, to make me smaller and weaker was an accident. A witch has seven different colours to choose from though, with enough training. Each colour represents a curse’s effects and this my friends, in turn is where rainbows come from.

Red symbolises a heart dedicated to blood. Anyone who is trapped under that curse will fall ill to their own and others’ source of oxygen running through their veins. In other words, they’d be vampires.

Orange is for those with a heart too ego-filled to capacitate such a small body. Anyone cursed as orange would grow as large as necessary, for that ego to be catered for. They’d be giants.

Yellow, like me, is for those small on the inside and vice versa with orange, you’ve got yourself a physique small enough to properly fit their body.

Green is for those who don’t deserve the right to bring physical and emotional pain to others. Witches strip them of their self control over their own pain, and from that day onwards, whenever encountered with pain both mental and physical, they’ll shrink, just like a yellow, to four inches tall. I’ve never really been able to get my head around the anatomy of a green’s life. Unable to feel pain; particularly for a nazaree, that’s pretty hard.

Blue is for ice. The person is frozen in time, unable to age or speak at all. They are mute and immortal, until their curse is broken.

Indigo symbolises a starless night. That type of curse is usually handed to the ‘party people’, those who go around picking fights and lounging in the local strip club after dark. Witches punish them into a life of eternal black, blind and haunted with nightmares.

Purple is for those too caught up in themselves to care about others. It strips them of the right to own a body. Every morning, their soul is wiped from the body of another, only to be rehomed in someone else’s.

So yeah, they’re the curses. I’ve learnt them all off by heart, naturally, being a ‘yellow’ myself. It’s why I’ve got yellow eyes. Anyone trapped under a curse has eyes the colour of the guilt they bear.

It’s what makes us Nazarees.

Before you say something like: ‘I’ve got blue eyes! I’m cursed?!’, then hear me out. Being a Nazaree is nothing to be proud of. It isn’t something which makes us better than a human. Being Nazaree is a fate, often worse than death. Nazaree comes from the word ‘Nazar’, which means: Evil Eye. Being the way I am means that I’m destined to remain this way till death.

Why?

Because no one has ever broken a witch’s curse before.

There is only one way to break a curse, and that is to get someone to love you. And with the prejudice and perfection of society today, no one can succeed. We have five years to make an attempt. Once that time has expired, we are Nazaree for life. We don’t get a second chance. It’s why breaking my curse means the world to me. It’s why I don’t give up, despite the screaming and despite the travelling. If I could break my curse and become normal again…

“That’s the point.” I tell Emily with a small sigh. “No one knows what happens when a curse is lifted, because it’s never happened before.”

Emily sits up straighter in bed. Her mattress springs creak underneath her. I smile to myself. When was the last time I was heavy enough to have that happen…? “So you’d return to normal then?” Emily asks before I can reminisce about my past life any further. “You wouldn’t be a Nazaree anymore?”  

I shake my head, sitting on edge of my own bed, my legs hanging over the side of the course blanket. It feels strange, not to have Andrew Jr. concealing me from view. I mean… you need an exterior to have an interior, right? What’s more, without my exterior, I feel the way I am, being a yellow: Small. Through my eyes, Emily is a giant. Over a hundred storeys tall with hands and feet the size of cars. The bag of fluids suspended from the IV pole beside her could serve as my mattress. I could fit in her mouth.

“Why are you telling me this?” Emily asks quietly, swallowing back a yawn. “You’ve never told anyone else, right?”

I shrug my shoulders. “You were willing to listen.” I say, without looking up at her. I glance across the bed at Andrew Jr.’s severed form. It beckons me inside like a drug. As uncomfortable as living in the head of a giant robot can seem, it’s better than sitting and chatting to a girl with a constant feeling of weakness. Unable to resist, I stand up and cross the width of the mattress to my exterior.

Emily lets out another yawn. “Are you going to… you know, go in there?”

I raise my hand and rest it on a button at the side of Andrew Jr.’s neck. “Yeah.” I say with a smile. “I’m tired.”

“Is that like your own personal hotel or something?” She asks.

“No.” I answer, mashing my palm down on the button. Andrew Jr.’s body hisses gently, the neck beginning to slide back towards the shoulders at a painfully slow rate. A faint white light brightens the room.

“Are you real, Andrew? Or just some dream?” Emily asks, as I’m about to step inside the closing gap to the control room of my exterior. I pause, my foot wavering just above the platform inside Andrew Jr.’s neck and turn back around to face her.

“Whatever you choose to think.” I say.

And then I step back inside and the world beyond my exterior disappears, replaced by the familiar darkness of Andrew Jr.’s cockpit. It’s then that my stomach growls. I walk, tired and brain-dead to the controller’s seat and shut my eyes.

I can have something to eat in the morning…

When Emily’s not around.