Hayel can hear a faint noise. It's distant and muted.
He feels warm and uncomfortable. It feels like he is laying on something hard.
An excruciating pain forces it's way inside his head. He thinks he screamed, but he is not sure. Something sticky is on his cheek and it smells like blood. There's a metalic taste in his mouth too.
And after who knows how long, the pain in his head slowly disappears but he continues to lay there unmoving.
Finally, Hayel opens his eyes slowly.
Or at least he thinks he does.
It's pitch black around him and the memories of last night start flooding in.
He starts shaking, fear overtaking him.
He cannot breathe.
He heaves and starts grabbing his chest with his hands.
'I need to calm down… Fuck!'
His heartbeat is uncomfortably fast.
'I am fine… I am fine… I'm alive…'
He opens his eyes oncemore, but he sees nothing. His hearing slowly starts to pick up on the noises around him.
He seems to still be in the forest.
'But why can't I see anything..?'
After contemplating a bit, he realizes that the smell and the sticky thing on his face is the blood he threw up last night, the warm feeling is the sun shining on him. He passed out last night after seeing that thing for the second time.
And he has gone completly blind.
But something is weird to him. Very weird.
He knows that to his right is a huge tree, he also knows that on every other side there is nothing around except from grass, at least in short distance. He cannot feel beyond a meter around him.
But feel with what exactly? What exactly is that 'feeling'?
It's disorienting and bizzare. Just focusing on it makes Hayel feel even dizzier.
He tries to get up, his body feels weak and everything hurts. He supports himself with the tree that's next to him, guessing that the graveyard is in front of him.
He doesn't wish to die and since he is lucky he didn't yet, he makes up his mind and starts barely walking around the tree. His thoughts racing about what happened last night, he searches for an answer about what that was. He doesn't know and it gives him goosbumps. He quickly stops himself from thinking about it. As long as he can get back to his house, he is fine with never finding out.
Weirdly enough, he knows every rock, every grass, every dip in the dirt that's surrounding him in a distance of one meter. His hearing seems a bit sharper then usual too.
'Did I gain… an ability?'
But his parents didn't have abilities, so it's unusual for children of non-ability parents to ever gain ones. It's not unheard of, just very rare.
He is, however, 15 years old. Most people gain their abilities around that age too. It's just that most abilities are straightforward, like fire, water, healing or maybe even speed. How powerful your ability is depends on your "level". But what the hell is an ability that makes you sense things around you? How do you call that?
'Second eyes maybe? Wait…No way, will I be blind forever? No, no, no let's not think about that. Let's just find a way back home first. But where in hell am I? And what in the world is that graveyard?'
After walking again for who knows how long and almost falling multiple times because his legs sometimes refused to listen to him properly, he notices he is not in the forest anymore.
But it's too early to celebrate, he is still blind, thererfore he doesn't know if it's the village that's in front of him or just a random place without trees.
As he gets closer, he realizes that what he is hearing are human voices. His body gives out and he sits on the grass only now noticing how tense he was the entire time. Relief washes over him and he starts to laugh weakly.
The events from before he passed out are something he will unwillingly think about for the next few months probably, but at least he survived. Something, however, doesn't make sense to him.
'I have never heard of anything making someone blind after just looking at it. Such power and yet when I passed out it didn't kill me…. Just what is going on?'
He gets up, choosing to think about everything once he gets some rest. He is absolutely exhausted and mentally drained.
He starts walking, planning to walk straight in as fast as possible but then he stops.
His face in still covered in blood he puked up before passing out straight in it. He wonders if he would have to answer questions from a passerby about where he was.
And if he would scare a few people too.
He resumes on walking straight towards the village.
No one will ask him anything, probably. Except Layla, but there's a chance she won't even see him. His reputation is not that good so he doesn't have many friends. And scaring people? That won't happen either, it's not like no one has ever returned injured. Some even had missing limbs or a disfigured face.
He notices a few people stop speaking as he passes by, but he doesn't pay them much attention. He is too focused on trying to figure out where exactly in the village he is. So after walking some more and a stall owner suprisingly asking him about what happened to him, to which he answers that he had a little accident, and tries to pretend that he has not gone blind, he figures out where he is and quicky makes his way back to his old house.
Or more of a hut really.
He comes in, washes his face and changes his clothes.
Having an ability means he should go register it in The Blue City, and test his level too. He doesn't know much about these so called levels, so he should probably pay a visit to the owner of the library. Marco Kinnel is his name. After all, that's the only person he knows that will be able to explain in to him quite well. He doubts that Layla knows much about this topic. However, Hayel doesn't like the idea of having to ask Marco about this. Marco is quiet greedy and Hayel is sure he will cut at least one coin from his salary.
But anyway, Hayel is actually excited about having an ability. He never thought he would, so this was a pleasent suprise. However, he stil doesn't know if that's it from his ability or if it has connection with something else.
'The fact that I got an ability is the only good thing that happened to me in days. I mean.. before everything happened with that…thing… What happened exectly? Right, I fell in a ditch full of garbage…and broke my favorite plate…I guess all the luck had to be drained from me so that I would get an ability. How funny, now I'm traumatized for life.'
After questioning his life choices, he decides to just go to sleep and think about everything tommorow. After all, he is too exhausted to stay up even for five more minutes. And he is hungry, but that matters less. He will eat tommorow.
He makes his way to his bed and quickly falls asleep. Silence fills the house, only occasional chirping of birds can be heard.
Inside his dream, he is in an old hall talking to someone. He seems to know that person. But he cannot see the persons face. Hayel's eyes wander to the big window behind the person in front of him.
And there…
He sees that being again, tall and lanky, staring through the window with those eerie eyes.
Something changes in the demeanor of the person in front of Hayel. He seems terrified but refuses to turn around towards the window.
Hayel's heart starts beating faster and faster, and that feeling normally nightmares have washes over him. He quickly closes his eyes, realising that he is dreaming and tries to wake himself up.
But it's not working.
He opens them again and takes a look at the window. Normally, after going blind because he looked at it, he would not even think about looking at it again, but this is a dream and he felt nothing while he looked at it this time. But the thing is gone, however, not the feeling of dread that comes along with nightmares.
After a moment of silence, he feels something cold on his neck. Stiffly, Hayel tries turning his head.
But then he abruptly wakes up as a loud bang resounds in his house. His eyes open as he notices that his vision has slightly returned. But he doesn't even have a moment to feel joy about it as something cold grabs his leg and pulls him hard.
He falls off the bed, completely disoriented as he hears loud but small and quick footsteps.
Or are they footsteps? They seem to be coming from above him.
As if someone has poured cold water on him, the feeling of fear starts growing in his heart.
He gets up, runs to the small kitchen and grabs the first knife he sees with his shaking hands. He quickly turns around, his eyes circeling the kitchen, the dining table and the door of his bedroom. Unfortunetly, he still can't see much, and the fact that it's night out doesn't make it better.
The candles on the table are too far away for him to bravely get them and light them up. Running out of the house is also not an option, the events of that night still haunt him, the walls barely making him a bit calmer.
So he continues to stand there, petrified, until the sun started rising. Absolutly nothing happend throughout those hours. Only when he noticed that the inside of the house is much brighter then before did he gather the courage to take a look inside his bedroom and around his house.
But he finds nothing, no signs of anything ever coming in or out.