Azalea

## Appearance

Azalea is a purpley-pink stick figure. His eyes are strangely colored: His left eye is red fading into orange, then to yellow. His right eye is green fading into blue into purple. He wears rectangular glasses and a T-shirt.

## Personality

Azalea is empathetic and reassuring. He shows empathy for almost anyone when he sees something bad happen, and just generally is trying to make the world a better place, step by step. He's the type of person to look after someone when they're hurt or sick and not leave their side until he knows they're alright. Other then that, he's shy-ish and only talks to people if they come up to him first. Azalea may be over-protective of his friends. He adores reading and knowing everything about everything.

## Trivia

* He has a crush on Olive.
* He once had a dream of tap dancing in a play and now dreams of doing that for a career.
* Azalea has leukophobia, fear of the color white.

## Backstory

### Chapter 1

I was dreaming. Somehow I knew that, but at the same time, I was still walking through the dream-halls of the laboratory. I went to straighten my glasses only to realize they were missing. *Oh..* I remember, *I didn't have my glasses when I lived at the lab.* Veronica is passing by in the halls. "Hi.." I start, but it ignores me. Veronica did that a lot after a certain point in time. Actually, it started a few days after that kid Celestine went missing.

I still wonder if Veronica had something to do with that. Veronica stops and turns to me, but the dream melts like wet paper before I could hear their response. I'm about to snap something, when I realize the person gently poking me awake is Olive. A fondness that I'm still getting used to washes over me at the sight of their face. "Morning.." I say, sitting up.

"Morning, Z." says Juniper from behind Olive. "Good morning.." Olive says quietly. I hop out of bed and notice that both of them are still in their pajamas, and it looks pretty dark outside. "What time is it?" I ask. Olive looks ashamed. "We shouldn't have woken you up so early.. I'm sorry.." I look at Olive from the window. "You don't have to be sorry. You two got me up for something, right?" Olive nodded. Juniper kicked on her roller-skates, waiting to leave. "Tell me on the way there.." I said.

*Five minutes later*

So the three of us are walking down the hall, and Olive is quietly explaining why they woke me up at 4 in the morning. All I was paying attention too was how soft their voice was, and how much I cared about them. Honestly, I'm starting to think something is wrong with me. I've had friends before, but none of them have ever given me feelings like *this.* Feelings like wanting to protect Olive from everything horrible in the world, feelings like being by their side every minute of the day.

For a while, I'm thinking about Olive so much that I can't hear Juniper explaining everything because Olive went silent after a couple of minutes. "Are you even paying attention?" Juniper asks. I respond with a, "W-what? Oh yeah, I am." Which is more than self-explanatory. The tone of my voice clearly said I wasn't. Juniper raises a suspicious eyebrow. "I'm... going to go back to bed. I'm still tired and I was up late last night." Olive nods and I slowly walk back to my bed, remembering the times I was in the lab. *Why... why did they have to do that?* I think bitterly, turning to the wall. *I just... can't... forget...*

### Chapter 2

Before I know it, the dull walls of the orphanage dissolve slowly into the bright white hallways of the lab. I feel the deja vu. Walking inside for the first time. The workers take me to a room. A bright flash of light. I don't remember what happens there. They must have put me to sleep... but I remember them ordering me to a specific room... and I just *did it.* Why didn't I at least ask questions? I must have been too groggy to question it...

I guess I fell back asleep. By the time I wake up on my own, it's very bright outside. It must be at least noon by now, which means I've missed breakfast. I open my eyes groggily and yawn, sitting up. I reach for my glasses and put them on my face. "Is he awake yetttt." groans someone from the floor. I look down and Juniper and Olive were there, waiting for me to get up I guess.

"I'm awake." I say, looking down at them. "Don't you guys bunk a hallway down?" I raise an eyebrow. "Yes, we tried to tell you why we were here at 4 in the morning. You were pretty out of it, said you were tired and then passed out." says Juniper. "Passed out?" I echo. That isn't normal. I've never passed out before, not even after the electric shocks at the lab.

"Yeah, and Olive made such a *fuss* about it." Juniper says. She's not usually this grumpy. I wonder what's wrong. "I can't blame them." I answer, "I mean, it's not every day a kid passes out here." Juniper turns. "It's different, Olive was fussing more than that. They really adore you, you know." Juniper says. "Stop.." murmurs Olive. "*What?* You do really adore him."

"I'm not worth *really adoring."* I say. "You totally are." says Juniper, at the same time Olive says something. Juniper was talking over them, so I couldn't hear. "What was that?" I ask genuinely, "I couldn't hear you because *someone* was talking too loud." I give Juniper a teasing glare. Juniper huffs and turns away, and Olive just says, "It was nothing.."

"You sure?" I ask, and Olive nods.

### Chapter 3

I zoned out during lunch, which wasn't long after my conversation with Olive and Juniper. I kept a bit of distance from the two. The memories were too vivid today for me to interact. I'm sure they'd understand. Right?

I think of what it was like back in the lab. The shocks felt like lightning at first, but after a while they felt almost massage-like. I had sat in a room with other... "experiments". I shiver at the word. It gave me goosebumps thinking of how that was an adjective for real live sticks. I keep daydreaming, and the memories are clear as the present.

I tried hard not to remember the feeling of being shocked. It only happened once or twice, but it was traumatizing. I remember the jerking and convulsing and how much pain there was.. pain everywhere. My arms were sore just thinking about it. But I'm not in the lab, I'm in the orphanage now, and this is a much better place.

Someone whacked me on the side of the head. "HELLO?" Orchid asks, which wasn't who I'd been expecting. "What was that for?" I ask. "You weren't paying attention and Juniper told me to come break you out of whatever memory lane you're going down today because Olive's worried about you." I try to imagine Juniper saying something like that. It doesn't work.

"Juniper said that?.." I ask. "That's what you're concerned about?" Orchid counters. "Fine." I murmur. "I'm coming in a minute, I just need to think about something." I say. Orchid nods and then walks off, probably to find whoever she'd entrusted with her little brother for the three minutes it took to come find me.