The Rainbow Paradox (or Grayscale) was a short story I wrote in late 2018. It follows the story of two kids who have a slightly-thought-out disease and venture to an abandoned mall on impulse only to accidentally find the cure for the disease and contaminate the water reservoir of their town with it. I wish I could tell you about the disease but past me didn't have any idea either! The only things I wrote about it were that it increases symptoms of depression and decreases self-esteem and has some kind of link to the physical color of a body (when a person is about to die from the disease, all of the color will fade from their body).

If I find any drawings of the characters from when the story was in progress I'll post them. I guess :/

TRP was interesting because there were multiple instances with slightly different content. Most of my older stories have multiple instances because I didn't really care to track what little information I had in any document, but TRP had multiple instances of the story itself. There were some early drafts within notebooks, two in Google Docs, and one stored locally. It was all very confusing.

This story actually got finished, albeit many months later, which is a milestone for me! There were many plot holes and at least one deus ex machina. At this point in time I think I was still completely removed from the technical ideas of writing (as any 10yrold would be lol) and had the most fun designing characters. Speaking of, here are my protagonists:

2024 rendition

"What?! are you INSANE? we're going to DIE!"

Freya Carlson
Freya is a victim of bullying at her school and probably has depression because of this. She has the Rainbow Disease (you can tell by her hair, but I don't know why Carlos doesn't have the rainbow streak - maybe I just misremembered his designs) which exponentially increases her depressive symptoms, and she participated in the experimental Rainbow Disease treatment tests.
She finds confrontation difficult and prefers to flee instead of fight. Her anger manifests coldly and sharply and only when she doesn't have the opportunity to run away from it. Freya is kind but months of depression and bullying have made her wary and worn and she tends to act coldly to strangers.
She is described as being a little taller than Carlos, with forest green eyes, brown skin, and a soft smile.

2024 rendition

“Maybe it’s a push door.”

Carlos McGuire
Carlos goes unnoticed at his school and mostly cares about staring at the girl he knows he'll never have. He has the Rainbow Disease but is better at managing his internal depressive thoughts. His symptoms seem to manifest as dissociation and apathy as opposed to depression. He participated in the experimental Rainbow Disease tests.
Despite his seeming lack of care for most things, Carlos doesn't like his contributions going uncredited and tends to act impulsively. He trusts easily and his main motivation for most actions seems to be thrill-seeking. He thinks quickly in tense situations. He is kind and responsible (when he's not being impulsive).