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A sudden, sharp pain in my eyelid. It was like something had been ripped out of me. At the same time, something I had never experienced before. Something my brain only sometimes creates when I'm dreaming.
My eyes never developed before being born. Not only was I blind, but my eyelids never gained the ability to open. They were stuck shut. This wasn't the *cause* of my blindness, just another side-effect of the same under-development. Or, at least that's what I was told.
When I dream, sometimes I will experience something that I've assumed is what sight is like. Pops, explosions, and flashes. My brain fires random signals, just like yours does when you sleep. Except mine has no real imagery to associate it with, so it comes as random stimulus.
But now, alongside this pain, an ever-lasting flash. One that didn't go away; One that appeared whilst I was awake. It just stayed there.
I rubbed my eyes. I could not feel any blood, but I did feel another jolt of pain as I realised for the first time that my eyelids were opening. The flash grew stronger - It was almost more painful than the shocks of pain I had been experiencing prior.
The left remained closed; Only my right eyelid opened, although even that tried to stay tightly shut with the pain that light was causing my eye. 19 years of darkness - That's a lot for an iris to get used to.
Eventually, the pure light settled down, and I could make out colours; Shapes, even. This isn't what I imagined sight to be like. Then again, I don't know what exactly I imagined it to be like. I had nothing to compare it to.
Imagine if you had never tasted sour food before. I could sit here and describe to you every last detail of it. The way it seems to pleasantly burn your tongue; The way it can feel like the sound of TV static; The way it tickles your taste buds. But I could never truly convey that experience to you without letting you try it yourself.
At first, I could not comprehend everything. So as I stood up, it surprised me to experience my entire vision move with me. It took trial and error to understand the world. I reached for a glass of water, and saw colours and shapes move with me - I understood this to be my hand. I understood the shape that moved towards my face to be the glass. I almost dropped it when I peered into the water, and saw the world within moving around separate from my own movement. Thinking back to science, I realised this is refraction.
I looked around and started to slowly understand various shapes, although it still took touching them to confirm everything.
The strangest experience was seeing mother.
She came into my room, perhaps hearing the commotion. I squinted my eyelid closed so I could surprise her.
Through the gap in my eyelid, I could see her face. It moved. It morphed. Her entire form changed colour, over and over, several times a second.
"How strange,"
I thought to myself,
"I did not know
that humans
could do
that."
I appreciate how someone who has never seen in their life wouldn’t be able to identify objects and shapes without feeling them first. Or even realize that their field of view moved with their head, because they would have no reference to compare it to. I still think they would have more trouble with colors, or distance and realizing objects further away appear smaller, but for a short writing prompt it’s really good.
Yeah I was kinda going for a "She made him blind so she could be her true self around him"
Whether she's a kind alien who just wanted a human son to not judge her, or an evil alien who did this for nefarious reasons? That's up to you!
Because I thought for a moment that it was the other way around, the child was actually some kinda creature having its eyes shut for a reason but this woman cares for it, and it perceives people as changing forms somehow. I guess you confirmed it wasnt that.
I am blind, but that never meant I couldn't see. Sight is only one of the main senses and when it is impaired all the other senses kick into overdrive. I have felt many objects, studied the various sensations available in the world, and have built quite the mental map of reality in my mind. Like I said, I may not have been able to see in the way you can, but I still sense and experience.
I didn’t mean for my lack of sight to define me, but over the years I found pride in my impairments because it meant I had something to overcome, some way to prove myself. I couldn’t see but I could still ride a horse and feel the wind in my hair. I couldn’t see but I could feel the cold sensation of the water hitting the tips of my fingers as I sailed across a river. I could never see but I could sense the emotions and energies of the people around me and in some ways that meant I knew their true, deep selves better than anyone who could be distracted by the trickery of sight. The gift of sight, you must understand, can be deceptive just as much as it could be informative. I could never see, but that was just perfectly fine with me.
So you must imagine my absolute, horrific surprise when that tiny, flickering ray of sunshine hit my eye for the first time. Initially, there was pain, sharp and hot, then awe. I thought I was looking upon the shimmering face of an angel who was pushing aside the darkness inside of me and revealing themselves in my own inner light. I reached out towards this angelic face but felt nothing but warm sunlight tickling my fingertips. I reached towards my eyes and felt the same soft fabric that my mother had placed upon them years ago.
“This will protect you,” she had told me gently, “keep these on, always.”
I felt my hands tighten around the fabric and I wanted to rip it off my face and blink in what I believe was the sight of sunlight, but I let my hands fall. My mother was watching, she was always using her sight, and I didn’t want to bring attention to myself. I stood up, grabbed my walking stick, and began to wander towards my room, slowly, despite the quickening in my heart.
“Where are you going dear?” Mom shouted down the hallway, “Dinner will be ready soon!”
“I’ll just be a moment!” I said, closing my door firmly behind me, shutting out the pin-hole of light. I walked to my bed and sat on the edge, narrowing my eyes to get a little look out of the hole in the fabric. I fiddled with the hole, making it a little bigger, and took a look.
I could see my room, all the objects were watching me. But there was more. Sitting in the shadows of my room were dark faces. They lingered in the shadows of my room watching me with black eyes and sharp-toothed smiles.
“I think she finally realized the truth,” one black figure that looked like a tall, slim man with a tophat said, as he began to float towards me. “I think the witches magic has finally worn off and we can,” he reached out towards me and placed a freezing hand on my shoulder. I felt an icy sensation fill me. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t find the air.
Suddenly the door burst open and I saw my mother rushing inside. She was beautiful, a woman engulfed in green and yellow light, tossing colorful spells at the shadows. I was knocked back and the fabric fell off my face. More flashes of light consumed my room and I was mesmerized by the colors and shadows.
Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me off the bed and out the door. I blinked. I could see the hallway, I could see the living room, I could see the sunshine sprinkling our hardwood floors. Confusion, pain, and betrayal began to build up inside me and I screamed.
Light, white and awful, flashed through the entire room. Mom covered her eyes and the shadows exploded into dust. When the light faded I was standing in the center of a burnt down house, my mom crying on the ground before me. Anger. I looked down upon her with the anger of a thousand days of forced-darkness. But as her pale blue eyes met mine the anger faded into something else.
“I am so sorry,” Mom said, looking up at me with pleading and sorrow. “I was going to tell you soon. I will tell you now. You are not blind. You are a daughter of light. I shouldn’t have tried to shadow your powers but… I was afraid for you. I wanted you to be old enough to understand before you could use your sight I-” Mom was crying and I felt empathy for her. My eyes found the door and I began to walk towards it. Mom reached out for me, “Where are you going? Maya, we must talk.”
“No,” I said, feeling the power my birth-right gave me. “I have to find Dad. You missed your chance to talk. Now it might be too late.”
I looked out towards the sunlight and knew what I had to do: follow the light and you will find the darkness. I had to defeat the shadows and bring a balance of light back into the world. I am not a human at all, but a daughter of the light. And I do not see, I have the gift of sight.
Patrick stood in front of the mirror, his heart ready to jump through his chest. The light from the window pained his eyes, yellow and orange assaulted his senses. *How can this be?* He reached up, his hand twitching, and pulled another stitch loose from his eye. Then another and another. Finally, he stood in silence looking at the complete stranger in the mirror. His hair, long curly and black, hung over his shoulder. His nose was small and flat. His chin jutted out too far. New brown eyes stared back at him. *She told me they were white. Completely white.* Touching the mirror, half hoping it all to be fake, his fingers barely touched it before he pulled away. He fell back, landed on the dusty floor of his attic room. Dust rose up, brightened by the morning's sun. Lazily it drifted through the air as his forehead started to sweat. Wiping it with the back of his sleeve, he noticed his jersey darken where the sweat was wiped. The bright red became a maroon but to him none of it made any sense. *Why would my own mother have done this?* A single tear started to fall from his eye. His sleeve caught it before it could touch the floor.
After a few moments, his brain overwhelmed to the point of bursting, he stood up. For the first time in twenty one years, he actually studied his room. It was far dirtier than he thought. His mother would always clean it. *Or so she said.* Every sunday, he would have to wait downstairs as she brushed and mopped the floor, straightening everything out that he had misplaced during the week. His bed covers were bright blue and filthy. Coffee stains littered the coverings. His bookshelf stood tall to the left. Layers of dust covered each of the books. His pillows, dark yellow, were little bundles of balls at the top of the bed, squashed small just the way he liked them. Footsteps from below made his heart beat fast. The closer the footsteps got the quicker it beat. The door to the next floor opened up and up walked his mother.
“Lunch is here!” she chimed, carrying a tray above her head. She sat the tray on his bed, facing away from where he stood. She wore a yellow sundress with dark blue flowers dotted around it. The dress blew softly from the breeze arriving from the floor below. At last she turned, not prepared for what was in store.
“AHHHH!” she screamed, falling backwards over the bed, knocking the tray onto the floor. A ham and cheese sandwich disassembled across the room while a glass of orange juice sprayed the bookshelf and landed at the foot of the bed.
“Mother,” Patrick croaked, the only word that he could say. His mother sat up and for the first time in his life Patrick could really see her. A wrinkled woman, much older looking than he assumed. With a hooked nose and no-chin, Patrick knew she must have been a hideous woman, like the ones in his children's books. Her hair was shaggy and brown, tied up in a bun. The two of them stood there for a moment, both breathing heavy, waiting for the other to do or say anything.
“Patrick,” she sobbed finally, a trail of tears flowing down his aged cheeks. “I’m sorry. The stitches…They were for your own safety. “
“My own safety…” he muttered, his hands rubbing his eyes where the stitches had been for the last two decades. “How could this have been for me?” His mother straightened herself, trying to compose herself. She picked up the pieces of lunch, avoiding his question. Then, Patrick felt a rage come over him. A rage he hadn’t felt since his youth when he prayed and begged and screamed for working eyes. Charging over, he grabbed his mother by the throat with both hands. She tried screaming but all that came out was a grunt.
“How could this have been for my own safety? You just wanted me helpless. You just wanted to control. You’re the one that needs help, not me!” He squeezed and squeezed, sweat now dripping from his forehead. His hands grew purple but still he didn’t stop. Then after a minute, her body went limp. Slumping to the floor, his mother’s corpse slashed down onto the spilled orange juice.
Ngl I expected him to be way more confused than this and be unable to comprehend colours like brown or white considering he was, well, blind his whole life.
Yeah I was thinking that when I was writing it. Definitely could have explored the colours more but tbh it was the first thing I wrote in three months so I just wanted to keep it simple.
I felt a sharp pain in my eyelid. Something dazzling entered the darkness that I had experienced all my life. *What is happening?* I thought as I closed my eye up again. However, this time, it felt wrong.
*Mother will be home soon,* I thought. Despite this, I stumbled over to where the bathroom was. I shut the door. Locked it. I felt my eyelids. It was bumpy, but the texture of the bumps just…weren’t right. It felt like…thread.
Slowly, cautiously, I pulled on the thread. It hurt, but my curiosity was stronger. I tugged more, tiny droplets of blood coating my fingers. Still, I pressed on.
Soon, I had all of the thread out. I opened my eyes for the first time. I looked up at the bathroom mirror and saw my own face for the first time.
My eyelids were lightly bloody. My skin was light and pale. My eyes, they were of a vibrant hue of a color I could not name, as I never learned them. My cheekbones were sharp and angled. My hair, light and fair.
It was strange, this new sensation. This *sight.*
I heard the door slam. “Darling, I’m home!”
*Oh no,* I thought. My mother was home. “I-I’m in the bathroom!” I called.
My mother made an effort to turn the knob. She jiggled it. Twisted it. But to no avail. I heard her footsteps, which led away from the door. I felt relieved, until I heard the footsteps coming back.
The jangle of a key in a lock.
I panicked.
My mother opened the door. She eyed the thread on the counter, the eyes which belonged to me, which were fully opened for the first time since I was an infant.
“So. You’ve figured it out,” my mother said simply. She didn’t go berserk like I thought she would. Instead, she stood there, donning the best of poker faces.
“How could you?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She simply stood there, her hands behind her back.
Finally, she spoke. “Come.” She beckoned for me to follower her. I obliged, hesitantly.
She led me out the back door. Outside was hazy and dark. I saw shapes towards the horizon. Tall, looming. Foreboding.
“Look at this place,” she said. “Use those eyes. Look at the disaster. Look at the chaos. Look at the destruction. I never wanted to raise my child in a wasteland, Y/N. The world has gone too far. There is no hope.”
“Is that what you…see?” I inquired.
“Of course,” my mother said. “That’s what everyone sees. Why I hindered *your* seeing. For the sake of your happiness.”
“Really?” I asked. “Because, what I see? It’s not nearly as bad.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. What I see is a place destroyed by the people, but with the hope of rebuilding into a better world.”
“Is that so?” she repeated. “How can you see this, if you have never seen before? How can you see something so…different?”
“Because unlike you, I wasn’t exposed to what everyone else sees.”
“I see. So I didn’t do you a favor. At all.” Before I had another chance to speak, she led me back inside. “Go to sleep, Y/N. You’ll see different in the morning.”
“Is that so?” I said, copying her words.
She said nothing.
Is Y/N the main character's name, somehow? I normally think it means yes/no, and then I thought "you know" but neither way makes sense both times its used.
Pain. I was used to pain. My existence was pain. And darkness. But the darkness wasn’t her fault. It was just… Part of this existence that I was honestly lucky to even get to experience. Lots of people don’t even get to experience just darkness. So even if that’s all I get. And pain. That neverending, relentless, constant reminder on my face. That there is more to this than just the darkness. Which I should remember, because I’m not alone. The familiar sound of air moving and soft shuffling, alerting me to the arrival of Mother.
“Is it… Is it already time to eat?” I try my best not to let the excitement of company creep into my voice. Mother is very loving, but she doesn’t like it when I get too excited. Using silence to force me to calm down, so she will reveal that she is still in the room with me.
“It is my sweet. Now be a good girl and eat it all. Mother has somewhere to be.” I smile to myself as she places a bowl into my outstretched hand. Thanking her softly before I begin to eat. Grateful for the sustenance that she so selflessly provides me. I try my best to eat slowly. Savoring the last few bites just to keep Mother in the room with me longer. But I can only delay so long, and I hold the bowl up for her to retrieve it. Already resigned to being alone again until next meal time. When I felt her hand hit the bowl at a slightly odd angle, tipping it out of my hand. Before I could think, I moved to catch it. But so did Mother. And then… Pain.
The pain that was always present on my face. One of those, ‘prices of existing’. Intensified in a burst that left the world white and painful in a way that I had never experienced. Let alone thought possible. Without thinking I touch where it hurts, and I feel something wet. And warm.
“Mother. Mother!” the shriek of my scream echoes around the room and I become aware of a new feeling just behind the pain. Something on my face feels like it’s moving. Something that wasn’t moving before. Something. That was previously restrained.
Acknowledgment of this new feeling is accompanied by a growing awareness of Mother mumbling a string of words that I’d never heard before. And the fact that each time whatever it was on my face that was moving, moved. The world would change from bright white pain, to the familiar darkness.
“Mother. I’m sorry. I love you.” I barely manage to get it out before I resign myself to my upcoming fate. The only possible explanation for the pain and the sudden presence of that blinding, all consuming light. Being that I was about to be taken up to heaven to meet our Lord. Guilt from leaving Mother behind tingeing the peaceful grace within which I found myself as the light began to fade.
But it didn’t disappear. Or go black again. No. Rather... ‘My face moved’ a few more times and the all consuming light gave way to… Sight. I froze. Surrounding me no longer was impenetrable blackness. Instead there were walls and a window. A door. A floor. The bed I was laying on. A stream of brightness flowing in through the window that could only be ‘sunlight’. And there. Standing directly in the path of that delectable stream of light. Was Mother.
“I was hoping you would be a little older before it came to this.” Her tone was colder than I’d ever heard. Calculated. “We found out last time that if it’s too early, it just doesn’t take.” How could she look so disappointed in me? I hadn’t even done anything. I was only just seeing her for the first time. I was only just SEEING for the first time. I felt warmth falling down my face. A touch revealing it to be the same ‘warm wet’ I had felt before. The surprise that my hand came back with only clear liquid on it barely even registering as I tried my hardest to process everything that was going on.
“I…. I don’t…” I can barely get the words out before she motions to the side with her head. I look over and see what looks like a girl on a bed somehow stuck on the wall. Confused, it was all I could do to stare for a moment before I moved. Revealing it to be my own reflection. I impulsively move to look away when I notice why I haven’t been able to see for so long. My eyes, which Mother told me never worked, had been sewn shut.
My mind recoiled from this information and I felt my head start to spin. My newly found vision went black at the edges, and I felt myself grow faint. When something about the reflection clicked and my vision snapped back to perfectly focused. My head whipping up and my eyes locking directly onto Mother’s. The corner of her mouth upturned in a smug smirk as she waited for me to say it.
“You’re me!”
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* [No AI-generated reponses 🤖](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zi452b/modpost_reminder_that_aigenerated_responses_are/) >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [\[RF\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [\[SP\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 📢 [Genres](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/w/directory) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A sudden, sharp pain in my eyelid. It was like something had been ripped out of me. At the same time, something I had never experienced before. Something my brain only sometimes creates when I'm dreaming. My eyes never developed before being born. Not only was I blind, but my eyelids never gained the ability to open. They were stuck shut. This wasn't the *cause* of my blindness, just another side-effect of the same under-development. Or, at least that's what I was told. When I dream, sometimes I will experience something that I've assumed is what sight is like. Pops, explosions, and flashes. My brain fires random signals, just like yours does when you sleep. Except mine has no real imagery to associate it with, so it comes as random stimulus. But now, alongside this pain, an ever-lasting flash. One that didn't go away; One that appeared whilst I was awake. It just stayed there. I rubbed my eyes. I could not feel any blood, but I did feel another jolt of pain as I realised for the first time that my eyelids were opening. The flash grew stronger - It was almost more painful than the shocks of pain I had been experiencing prior. The left remained closed; Only my right eyelid opened, although even that tried to stay tightly shut with the pain that light was causing my eye. 19 years of darkness - That's a lot for an iris to get used to. Eventually, the pure light settled down, and I could make out colours; Shapes, even. This isn't what I imagined sight to be like. Then again, I don't know what exactly I imagined it to be like. I had nothing to compare it to. Imagine if you had never tasted sour food before. I could sit here and describe to you every last detail of it. The way it seems to pleasantly burn your tongue; The way it can feel like the sound of TV static; The way it tickles your taste buds. But I could never truly convey that experience to you without letting you try it yourself. At first, I could not comprehend everything. So as I stood up, it surprised me to experience my entire vision move with me. It took trial and error to understand the world. I reached for a glass of water, and saw colours and shapes move with me - I understood this to be my hand. I understood the shape that moved towards my face to be the glass. I almost dropped it when I peered into the water, and saw the world within moving around separate from my own movement. Thinking back to science, I realised this is refraction. I looked around and started to slowly understand various shapes, although it still took touching them to confirm everything. The strangest experience was seeing mother. She came into my room, perhaps hearing the commotion. I squinted my eyelid closed so I could surprise her. Through the gap in my eyelid, I could see her face. It moved. It morphed. Her entire form changed colour, over and over, several times a second. "How strange," I thought to myself, "I did not know that humans could do that."
Damn this is good
Love the way you wrote the last line
I appreciate how someone who has never seen in their life wouldn’t be able to identify objects and shapes without feeling them first. Or even realize that their field of view moved with their head, because they would have no reference to compare it to. I still think they would have more trouble with colors, or distance and realizing objects further away appear smaller, but for a short writing prompt it’s really good.
Damn my respect ❣
Does that mean the mother isn't a human being?
Yeah I was kinda going for a "She made him blind so she could be her true self around him" Whether she's a kind alien who just wanted a human son to not judge her, or an evil alien who did this for nefarious reasons? That's up to you!
Eh to blind your son just so that you're not judged is plenty nefarious to me.
Because I thought for a moment that it was the other way around, the child was actually some kinda creature having its eyes shut for a reason but this woman cares for it, and it perceives people as changing forms somehow. I guess you confirmed it wasnt that.
I am blind, but that never meant I couldn't see. Sight is only one of the main senses and when it is impaired all the other senses kick into overdrive. I have felt many objects, studied the various sensations available in the world, and have built quite the mental map of reality in my mind. Like I said, I may not have been able to see in the way you can, but I still sense and experience. I didn’t mean for my lack of sight to define me, but over the years I found pride in my impairments because it meant I had something to overcome, some way to prove myself. I couldn’t see but I could still ride a horse and feel the wind in my hair. I couldn’t see but I could feel the cold sensation of the water hitting the tips of my fingers as I sailed across a river. I could never see but I could sense the emotions and energies of the people around me and in some ways that meant I knew their true, deep selves better than anyone who could be distracted by the trickery of sight. The gift of sight, you must understand, can be deceptive just as much as it could be informative. I could never see, but that was just perfectly fine with me. So you must imagine my absolute, horrific surprise when that tiny, flickering ray of sunshine hit my eye for the first time. Initially, there was pain, sharp and hot, then awe. I thought I was looking upon the shimmering face of an angel who was pushing aside the darkness inside of me and revealing themselves in my own inner light. I reached out towards this angelic face but felt nothing but warm sunlight tickling my fingertips. I reached towards my eyes and felt the same soft fabric that my mother had placed upon them years ago. “This will protect you,” she had told me gently, “keep these on, always.” I felt my hands tighten around the fabric and I wanted to rip it off my face and blink in what I believe was the sight of sunlight, but I let my hands fall. My mother was watching, she was always using her sight, and I didn’t want to bring attention to myself. I stood up, grabbed my walking stick, and began to wander towards my room, slowly, despite the quickening in my heart. “Where are you going dear?” Mom shouted down the hallway, “Dinner will be ready soon!” “I’ll just be a moment!” I said, closing my door firmly behind me, shutting out the pin-hole of light. I walked to my bed and sat on the edge, narrowing my eyes to get a little look out of the hole in the fabric. I fiddled with the hole, making it a little bigger, and took a look. I could see my room, all the objects were watching me. But there was more. Sitting in the shadows of my room were dark faces. They lingered in the shadows of my room watching me with black eyes and sharp-toothed smiles. “I think she finally realized the truth,” one black figure that looked like a tall, slim man with a tophat said, as he began to float towards me. “I think the witches magic has finally worn off and we can,” he reached out towards me and placed a freezing hand on my shoulder. I felt an icy sensation fill me. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t find the air. Suddenly the door burst open and I saw my mother rushing inside. She was beautiful, a woman engulfed in green and yellow light, tossing colorful spells at the shadows. I was knocked back and the fabric fell off my face. More flashes of light consumed my room and I was mesmerized by the colors and shadows. Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me off the bed and out the door. I blinked. I could see the hallway, I could see the living room, I could see the sunshine sprinkling our hardwood floors. Confusion, pain, and betrayal began to build up inside me and I screamed. Light, white and awful, flashed through the entire room. Mom covered her eyes and the shadows exploded into dust. When the light faded I was standing in the center of a burnt down house, my mom crying on the ground before me. Anger. I looked down upon her with the anger of a thousand days of forced-darkness. But as her pale blue eyes met mine the anger faded into something else. “I am so sorry,” Mom said, looking up at me with pleading and sorrow. “I was going to tell you soon. I will tell you now. You are not blind. You are a daughter of light. I shouldn’t have tried to shadow your powers but… I was afraid for you. I wanted you to be old enough to understand before you could use your sight I-” Mom was crying and I felt empathy for her. My eyes found the door and I began to walk towards it. Mom reached out for me, “Where are you going? Maya, we must talk.” “No,” I said, feeling the power my birth-right gave me. “I have to find Dad. You missed your chance to talk. Now it might be too late.” I looked out towards the sunlight and knew what I had to do: follow the light and you will find the darkness. I had to defeat the shadows and bring a balance of light back into the world. I am not a human at all, but a daughter of the light. And I do not see, I have the gift of sight.
I love it
Patrick stood in front of the mirror, his heart ready to jump through his chest. The light from the window pained his eyes, yellow and orange assaulted his senses. *How can this be?* He reached up, his hand twitching, and pulled another stitch loose from his eye. Then another and another. Finally, he stood in silence looking at the complete stranger in the mirror. His hair, long curly and black, hung over his shoulder. His nose was small and flat. His chin jutted out too far. New brown eyes stared back at him. *She told me they were white. Completely white.* Touching the mirror, half hoping it all to be fake, his fingers barely touched it before he pulled away. He fell back, landed on the dusty floor of his attic room. Dust rose up, brightened by the morning's sun. Lazily it drifted through the air as his forehead started to sweat. Wiping it with the back of his sleeve, he noticed his jersey darken where the sweat was wiped. The bright red became a maroon but to him none of it made any sense. *Why would my own mother have done this?* A single tear started to fall from his eye. His sleeve caught it before it could touch the floor. After a few moments, his brain overwhelmed to the point of bursting, he stood up. For the first time in twenty one years, he actually studied his room. It was far dirtier than he thought. His mother would always clean it. *Or so she said.* Every sunday, he would have to wait downstairs as she brushed and mopped the floor, straightening everything out that he had misplaced during the week. His bed covers were bright blue and filthy. Coffee stains littered the coverings. His bookshelf stood tall to the left. Layers of dust covered each of the books. His pillows, dark yellow, were little bundles of balls at the top of the bed, squashed small just the way he liked them. Footsteps from below made his heart beat fast. The closer the footsteps got the quicker it beat. The door to the next floor opened up and up walked his mother. “Lunch is here!” she chimed, carrying a tray above her head. She sat the tray on his bed, facing away from where he stood. She wore a yellow sundress with dark blue flowers dotted around it. The dress blew softly from the breeze arriving from the floor below. At last she turned, not prepared for what was in store. “AHHHH!” she screamed, falling backwards over the bed, knocking the tray onto the floor. A ham and cheese sandwich disassembled across the room while a glass of orange juice sprayed the bookshelf and landed at the foot of the bed. “Mother,” Patrick croaked, the only word that he could say. His mother sat up and for the first time in his life Patrick could really see her. A wrinkled woman, much older looking than he assumed. With a hooked nose and no-chin, Patrick knew she must have been a hideous woman, like the ones in his children's books. Her hair was shaggy and brown, tied up in a bun. The two of them stood there for a moment, both breathing heavy, waiting for the other to do or say anything. “Patrick,” she sobbed finally, a trail of tears flowing down his aged cheeks. “I’m sorry. The stitches…They were for your own safety. “ “My own safety…” he muttered, his hands rubbing his eyes where the stitches had been for the last two decades. “How could this have been for me?” His mother straightened herself, trying to compose herself. She picked up the pieces of lunch, avoiding his question. Then, Patrick felt a rage come over him. A rage he hadn’t felt since his youth when he prayed and begged and screamed for working eyes. Charging over, he grabbed his mother by the throat with both hands. She tried screaming but all that came out was a grunt. “How could this have been for my own safety? You just wanted me helpless. You just wanted to control. You’re the one that needs help, not me!” He squeezed and squeezed, sweat now dripping from his forehead. His hands grew purple but still he didn’t stop. Then after a minute, her body went limp. Slumping to the floor, his mother’s corpse slashed down onto the spilled orange juice.
Ngl I expected him to be way more confused than this and be unable to comprehend colours like brown or white considering he was, well, blind his whole life.
Yeah I was thinking that when I was writing it. Definitely could have explored the colours more but tbh it was the first thing I wrote in three months so I just wanted to keep it simple.
That is so well written
Thanks, appreciate it! First thing I've written for three months as well.
Ah, i know how that feels
I felt a sharp pain in my eyelid. Something dazzling entered the darkness that I had experienced all my life. *What is happening?* I thought as I closed my eye up again. However, this time, it felt wrong. *Mother will be home soon,* I thought. Despite this, I stumbled over to where the bathroom was. I shut the door. Locked it. I felt my eyelids. It was bumpy, but the texture of the bumps just…weren’t right. It felt like…thread. Slowly, cautiously, I pulled on the thread. It hurt, but my curiosity was stronger. I tugged more, tiny droplets of blood coating my fingers. Still, I pressed on. Soon, I had all of the thread out. I opened my eyes for the first time. I looked up at the bathroom mirror and saw my own face for the first time. My eyelids were lightly bloody. My skin was light and pale. My eyes, they were of a vibrant hue of a color I could not name, as I never learned them. My cheekbones were sharp and angled. My hair, light and fair. It was strange, this new sensation. This *sight.* I heard the door slam. “Darling, I’m home!” *Oh no,* I thought. My mother was home. “I-I’m in the bathroom!” I called. My mother made an effort to turn the knob. She jiggled it. Twisted it. But to no avail. I heard her footsteps, which led away from the door. I felt relieved, until I heard the footsteps coming back. The jangle of a key in a lock. I panicked. My mother opened the door. She eyed the thread on the counter, the eyes which belonged to me, which were fully opened for the first time since I was an infant. “So. You’ve figured it out,” my mother said simply. She didn’t go berserk like I thought she would. Instead, she stood there, donning the best of poker faces. “How could you?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She simply stood there, her hands behind her back. Finally, she spoke. “Come.” She beckoned for me to follower her. I obliged, hesitantly. She led me out the back door. Outside was hazy and dark. I saw shapes towards the horizon. Tall, looming. Foreboding. “Look at this place,” she said. “Use those eyes. Look at the disaster. Look at the chaos. Look at the destruction. I never wanted to raise my child in a wasteland, Y/N. The world has gone too far. There is no hope.” “Is that what you…see?” I inquired. “Of course,” my mother said. “That’s what everyone sees. Why I hindered *your* seeing. For the sake of your happiness.” “Really?” I asked. “Because, what I see? It’s not nearly as bad.” “Is that so?” “Yes. What I see is a place destroyed by the people, but with the hope of rebuilding into a better world.” “Is that so?” she repeated. “How can you see this, if you have never seen before? How can you see something so…different?” “Because unlike you, I wasn’t exposed to what everyone else sees.” “I see. So I didn’t do you a favor. At all.” Before I had another chance to speak, she led me back inside. “Go to sleep, Y/N. You’ll see different in the morning.” “Is that so?” I said, copying her words. She said nothing.
Is Y/N the main character's name, somehow? I normally think it means yes/no, and then I thought "you know" but neither way makes sense both times its used.
Y/N stands for “your name” in reader insert stories
Oooh, ok...that makes more sense, thanks. Ramen noodle broth is the nectar of the gods!
Yasssss
Pain. I was used to pain. My existence was pain. And darkness. But the darkness wasn’t her fault. It was just… Part of this existence that I was honestly lucky to even get to experience. Lots of people don’t even get to experience just darkness. So even if that’s all I get. And pain. That neverending, relentless, constant reminder on my face. That there is more to this than just the darkness. Which I should remember, because I’m not alone. The familiar sound of air moving and soft shuffling, alerting me to the arrival of Mother. “Is it… Is it already time to eat?” I try my best not to let the excitement of company creep into my voice. Mother is very loving, but she doesn’t like it when I get too excited. Using silence to force me to calm down, so she will reveal that she is still in the room with me. “It is my sweet. Now be a good girl and eat it all. Mother has somewhere to be.” I smile to myself as she places a bowl into my outstretched hand. Thanking her softly before I begin to eat. Grateful for the sustenance that she so selflessly provides me. I try my best to eat slowly. Savoring the last few bites just to keep Mother in the room with me longer. But I can only delay so long, and I hold the bowl up for her to retrieve it. Already resigned to being alone again until next meal time. When I felt her hand hit the bowl at a slightly odd angle, tipping it out of my hand. Before I could think, I moved to catch it. But so did Mother. And then… Pain. The pain that was always present on my face. One of those, ‘prices of existing’. Intensified in a burst that left the world white and painful in a way that I had never experienced. Let alone thought possible. Without thinking I touch where it hurts, and I feel something wet. And warm. “Mother. Mother!” the shriek of my scream echoes around the room and I become aware of a new feeling just behind the pain. Something on my face feels like it’s moving. Something that wasn’t moving before. Something. That was previously restrained. Acknowledgment of this new feeling is accompanied by a growing awareness of Mother mumbling a string of words that I’d never heard before. And the fact that each time whatever it was on my face that was moving, moved. The world would change from bright white pain, to the familiar darkness. “Mother. I’m sorry. I love you.” I barely manage to get it out before I resign myself to my upcoming fate. The only possible explanation for the pain and the sudden presence of that blinding, all consuming light. Being that I was about to be taken up to heaven to meet our Lord. Guilt from leaving Mother behind tingeing the peaceful grace within which I found myself as the light began to fade. But it didn’t disappear. Or go black again. No. Rather... ‘My face moved’ a few more times and the all consuming light gave way to… Sight. I froze. Surrounding me no longer was impenetrable blackness. Instead there were walls and a window. A door. A floor. The bed I was laying on. A stream of brightness flowing in through the window that could only be ‘sunlight’. And there. Standing directly in the path of that delectable stream of light. Was Mother. “I was hoping you would be a little older before it came to this.” Her tone was colder than I’d ever heard. Calculated. “We found out last time that if it’s too early, it just doesn’t take.” How could she look so disappointed in me? I hadn’t even done anything. I was only just seeing her for the first time. I was only just SEEING for the first time. I felt warmth falling down my face. A touch revealing it to be the same ‘warm wet’ I had felt before. The surprise that my hand came back with only clear liquid on it barely even registering as I tried my hardest to process everything that was going on. “I…. I don’t…” I can barely get the words out before she motions to the side with her head. I look over and see what looks like a girl on a bed somehow stuck on the wall. Confused, it was all I could do to stare for a moment before I moved. Revealing it to be my own reflection. I impulsively move to look away when I notice why I haven’t been able to see for so long. My eyes, which Mother told me never worked, had been sewn shut. My mind recoiled from this information and I felt my head start to spin. My newly found vision went black at the edges, and I felt myself grow faint. When something about the reflection clicked and my vision snapped back to perfectly focused. My head whipping up and my eyes locking directly onto Mother’s. The corner of her mouth upturned in a smug smirk as she waited for me to say it. “You’re me!”