Damon ran. The sounds of the creatures behind him were getting louder and louder with each step he took. He couldn’t see where he was going in the dark corridors, slamming haphazardly into corners before, pushing himself off. He could feel bruises accumulating on his arms and shoulders from the many impacts, but he kept going. If he stopped for more than a moment he was definitely going to die.

His footsteps echoed loudly on the hard floor, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He imagined he could smell the foul breath of his pursuers. The feeling of warm air on the back his neck made his hair stand on end. His own breathing came out in short ragged bursts, fear disrupting the usual steady rhythm.

Run! A voice whispered inside Damon’s head and he tried to push himself harder. Forcing his legs to pound harder on the floor and give him the power he needed to escape from this place. He couldn’t hear any sounds behind him, but he knew they were following him. He couldn’t fight them, not here, in their home of death and darkness. All he could do was run.

It was silly to believe he could face them. To challenge them so brazenly. He needed to get out now or he’d be consumed and forfeit his life. He couldn’t let that happen, it would betray those he protected, leave loved ones helpless to defend themselves. He wouldn’t let that happen. And so, Damon pushed. He pushed and pushed until his legs were screaming at him to stop. To allow them to rest and catch their breath, to let his heart take a break from the hammering it had started on the anvil of his chest.

But he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t rest. They were after him, and if he stopped now, he would feel pain beyond his imagining. They would show him the destruction of those he’d come to trust. The torture of his loved ones and the death of his family. Damon wept as he sprinted for all he was worth. The images of dead broken bodies were already filling his mind. A foreign Laughter ran through his head, like a softly faded drum.

If Damon stopped now, he realised, nothing would save his kingdom.

Quite some time before…

Damon was tired. The day had been long and as he pressed his hand to the scanner by his front door, he sadly remembered how bleak his life was.

There are some fundamental problems with being blind, the biggest one being the fact that you can’t see. At least, Damon can’t. Some who are blind can, in fact, see many things. Spots of light; shadows of objects; even actual physical objects. The term blind covers a huge range of sight problems and many become confused just trying to categorise and understand all the different types. To Damon this doesn’t matter. He is blind. Complete and total sight ineptitude. His eyes simply don’t accept light – his retina (the part of the eye that translates light into neural impulses to the brain) is completely detached. Now I’m not going to bore you with the details and I’m certainly no doctor but simply know he can’t see. This is a very important point and you should probably write it down so you won’t forget.

Ok, I feel we should clarify so you completely understand what being blind does to your perception of the world. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you are sat at a desk reading this and there’s a table, chair and window behind you. Now, without turning your head; looking at a reflection or shifting at all, look at those objects. No don’t move, you must look straight through the back of your head.

Hard isn’t it.

Are you wearing shoes? Look at your toes, can you see them through your shoe? It’s impossible isn’t it. Neither the back of your head, nor your toes can perceive light at all. There’s no sight organs, light sensing, nothing.

Welcome to the life of Damon.

Now, this short, dark haired, brawny young man isn’t quite what you might call a social butterfly. As with most social problems, Damon’s started at school. Being completely and totally blind actually doesn’t sit so well with other blind kids and, despite going to what is publicly known as a “Blind School”, Damon could never fit in. Small tricks and pranks thrown Damon’s way, along with less than understanding teachers led to a very quiet, isolated individual. He ghosted his way through school with little attention to time or friends. The only good thing to come out of such teasing was that that he learnt what he looked like. Many taunts were thrown his way about his size, or anything that might make him stand out. All Damon could do was throw himself into whatever release he could which mostly turned out to be books and music. Braille was easy to him. He devoured book after book, quickly moving from the school library to more public ones - reading anything from factual books on plants and survival, to the most wonderous stories of dragons and demons. Let’s face it, he became quite the bookworm and could always be seen, in his younger years, curled up on a comfy sofa, with some blaring headphones in, reading a very long and abstract book on the woes of something or other. Not that Damon would know what that looked like – on account of him being blind… Sorry, I think you get it now.

Unfortunately for Damon, being blind wasn’t the only drawback in his life. His mother had died giving birth to him and his father, despite being kind hearted and generous to Damon, collapsed soon after Damon’s 20th birthday. Fate clearly held a grudge from Damon’s past life. With no family and no real lasting friends, Damon trundled through the next year, working any odd job he could to make enough money to support himself after his father’s inheritance began to run dry. Damon honestly doesn’t spend a lot of money; his family simply didn’t have much to begin with. Sad, I know, but what can you do?

It seemed the best way to fund his life was, surprisingly to most, construction and planning work. Having to constantly visualise and mentally build the world around him, was ideal as Damon had essentially trained for that exact purpose his whole life. It was tough work and mentally draining to the point where Damon would come home to his simple first floor flat, on a small idyllic street in the outskirts of the city, and collapse onto his sofa. Letting the local house drone whirl its way to him and deposit a plate of steaming food onto his lap. As usual, he’d switch on the radio with a click (he has no need for lights so had asked the installation team if they could tweak the house so the radio would turn on instead) and relaxed listening to the docile and sweet voice of the news presenter as she waltz her way through the evening news.

“…And finally, the latest big news story is the announcement of Neurogenics Corporation’s new Reality Transcendence Helmet or RTH as its quickly becoming known as. The company has developed this revolutionary technology to allow for everyone to experience fully immersive virtual reality and will even be releasing a game to go along with it: King’s Wrath. An official statement from Neuro Corp says “The RTH will allow for everyone, including those with life changing conditions, to experience the wonders of virtual reality and King’s Wrath will allow them to fully utilise what virtual reality can offer. We will finish production of King’s Wrath within the next couple of months and will be opening it up to the public as the true frontrunner of games, soon after completion”. Speculations about what the game will be about and how effective this new fully immersive virtual reality will be, have already gone viral with many excited to see what Neuro Corp have in store for us…”

Damon tuned out the radio then, vaguely wondering what fully immersive virtual reality would be like before dismissing the idea and tucking in to his, now warm, dinner.

Damon never practically learnt how to cook. He knows the theory, having read many a cook book that his father would leave out while making food for them both. His father had made sure that every book in the house would have a braille translation so that Damon would never be unable to follow what was happening around him and never run out of things to read. He understood how much Damon depended on books and accommodated wholly to his son. Damon was still reflecting on this fact, a look of sadness present on his hardened face, when he heard a faint knock on his front door.

Sighing, Damon stood up, his tired and aching muscles submitting complaints and telling him they would sue him for the overwork. He grunted but showed little other reaction, when you're blind it’s difficult to show emotion as you don’t really have any idea what it’s meant to look like.

“Who is it?” Damon asked walking over to the door. His way was clear, straight to the front door. Damon’s flat was sparsely furnished and he made sure everything was clean and orderly so he wouldn’t have to worry about unknown hazards.

“It’s Alex.” Came a soft feminine reply. “I saw you get back and wondered if you wanted to try my latest baking experiment?”

Damon instantly forgot about his aches and pains and quickly opened the door to allow this angel bearing gifts to enter his small living room.

Alex, or Alexandra as she first introduced herself as, was Damon’s neighbour and was probably the only real friend Damon had. Having moved in less than a year ago, Damon had been surprised when Alex had come over with welcoming cookies and had found she was quite pleasant company. She would natter on about anything from current events to her latest boyfriend, while Damon would sit there and enjoy whatever heavenly food Alex had provided. In his opinion there could not possibly be a better baker. Which was probably a good thing considering she ran the homely bakery that sat next to Damon’s little flat.

Today, Alex had baked what smelled like Apple Turnovers, Damon could already feel his mouth watering and, despite not being able to see them, stared directly at the plate covered by a cloth, a look of pure want on his face. Alex chuckled at the sight of him and quickly placed the plate on the kitchen counter top that stood as the marker between the living room and kitchen. With a flourish, that was more for her dramatic side than for Damon, Alex removed the cloth allowing the full scent of warm, tanned pastry to waft over to Damon.

Immediately Damon grabbed one of the pastries and retreated to his sofa and began to devour the succulent food. Delicious as always, he thought to himself. With a small smile, Alex joined him on the sofa, another pastry in hand and they both sat there for a moment in silence; enjoying the treat.

“Have you heard about this new virtual reality stuff on the news?” Alex, who’d just managed to spill crumbs all over Damon’s sofa, asked trying to silently wipe them onto the floor.

“Yeah, I was listening about it on the radio before you knocked. Not sure I really care about it to be honest, it’s bound to be really expensive.” Replied Damon, licking stray pastry from his lips.

“Well you know my boyfriend Charles…” Alex waits for a nod from Damon. “He works in the Resource and Development Department of Neuro Corp.” Alex waits again, clearly expecting something from Damon but he just continues eating, a look of contentment on his face.

Alex sighs, “And, he told me something really interesting that I think you might like.”

“Oh? what might that be?” Asks Damon, finally turning to her.

“Apparently, they're looking for beta testers for their new game and they’re trying to make their testers as diverse as possible. Specifically, those who have disabilities such as those who have missing limbs, mobility problems and more importantly for you, sight problems. There are other categories as well but I think we might be able to get you in.” Alex sounded excited now as she also shifted on the sofa to face Damon, who was had just finished his pastry and was looking puzzled.

“Wait, what do you mean? I can’t even see, how am I meant to play a video game?”

“You see that’s the thing. This new VR helmet they keep talking about takes signals straight from the brain to interpret what you want to and sends signals back to your brain to show the results. It’s just like a new limb, one connected to a whole new world granted, but the principles remain the same.” Alex says clearly proud of herself for the explanation.

“Ok but what does that have to do with me?” Damon asks, still confused.

“It means that you’ll be able to see.” Replies Alex triumphantly.

Damon stares at her for a long time, unable to think of an appropriate response.