[ WP ] All math has stopped working .

It took a while for anyone to figure out just what the hell actually happened. 
 
 Looking back it seemed like a typical Thursday night. Parents trying to put their kids to bed, bars starting to fill with the weekly regulars, and all the countless mundane goings-on came to a calming pause when the power went out. Nothing we had n't seen before, you know that brief freeze everyone falls under when things shut off. 
 
 Yea, that lasted about ten seconds. 
 
 Brilliant flashes of every color seemed to rip out of people, shattering glass and throwing furniture back. Some might shift the hair from a friends shoulder, others flattened bodies against walls and created a chain of bursts from those nearby. 
 
 Nothing made sense, nothing followed all the norms we hold dear but take very much for granted. 
 
 Driving out of town? We made the coast in what seemed like minutes. Want to pickup that light weight box? It may as well be fused to the earth for all it moved. No amount of engineers or scientists had an answer, and people were dying. 
 
 I was one of the first Controls, one of the early few who started seeing the colors for what they were. Math and logic died, what was left filled the gaps. 
 
 All those sickly orange flashes in the beginning? The ones that spread from one person to the next, that was Fear. Sharp and fast, it shredded what it hit more than anything, it was cold and hard. 
 
 Controls started popping up everywhere, most of us were older. We had been through more and seen to much to care. 
 
 Anger could be shaped to melt and burn, a smoldering undercurrent easily lit but quick to fade. To many let it turn to Hate, that's a mistake you can only make once. We lost two factories just this month to Controls losing it. 
 
 It's been many years since we started teaching, since the schools opened and word got around about how to make sense of it all, how to focus what you felt. But we're still dying, we're still losing ground to moments of Passion, Rage, Jealousy, or Fear. Every morning sees a loved one killed by a nightmare or a stubbed toe crushing a house. Despair... truly the blackest black, is starting to bleed over the colony, you'd never think a shadow could glow until you saw the two side by side. 
 
 `` Jason!'' 
 
 His creased hands softly closed the journal, leathered skin almost matching the cover. 
 
 `` I'm in here, Clara. What is it?'' 
 
 `` Kyle's brought back a child, he says she can test for Control.'' 
 
 Jason's daughter always maintained a even demeanor, by her father's example, but a fervor shone in her eyes he'd never seen. 
 
 `` Calm yourself girl, feed her and see her to Mr. Goles with the rest of them. She can ready herself for the trials with the other children.'' Halfway through his dismissal Jason turned back to his work, but a soft hand on his shoulder stayed him. A soft hand brushed with a wave of Green. 
 
 Eyes slightly wider, the greying leader spun to see what could cause such a rare thing. Joy. He'd almost forgotten. 
 
 `` Clara what has gotten in..'' 
 
 `` You need to see her.'' Her tone matched the urgency in her steps as she nearly drug Jason by the arm outside. A dusty flap pushed aside revealed nearly their entire village gathered in a ring, soft murmuring and pensive glances covered the group. A normally respectful, almost reverent, people gave barely a glance as their leader pushed through. 
 
 She stood no more than waist high, a girl of early youth to be sure, clothed in tattered rags and clutching what may have been a doll at one point. Frayed, mousey brown hair brushed malnourished shoulders, scabbed elbows pressed against the wagon's seat, and timid blue eyes darted about in a mix of fear and shyness. 
 
 Truth be told, if you were to ask any of the throng of people pressed about her to describe anything, anything at all, about this waif of a child you'd not receive a single different answer. No mention of the holes in her legging, not a word about the dying adult at her side, or even a memory of those piercing blue eyes. 
 
 You'd only be told of the the glow. 
 
 That pure, soft white light that seemed to bleed into everything around her. It laid gently on the people next to her, and held firm in passing shadows. Of all the Color, of all the things Jason had seen and brought forth these many years, he'd not seen this before. 
 
 Hope is alive, and it's spreading.
