My eyes are seared by the blinding flash of light, pain seeming to pass through every nerve of my body as I'm thrown back against the wall. For a moment there was nothing in my mind but suffering. Then all was black.... How long was I out? As I attempted to move my body protested fiercely, forcing me to hold still. When I tried to look around, I realized that I still had my eyes closed. Another thing I realized was that I couldn't open my eyes. Slowly, ignoring the next flare of pain, I moved my hand to my face. What I touched didn't feel like skin. Something was covering my eyes. It felt like...cotton? After a bit more exploration, I came to the conclusion that I was in a bed. How did I get here? The last thing I remembered was... I felt my face scrunch up as a different pain went through my head, like someone was driving a pick through my skull. It happened every time I attempted to think of what had happened before. So I just relaxed for a moment and tried to get my bearings. I began to notice my surroundings...at least the sounds. To my right I could hear a rhythmic beeping and ahead of me, maybe to the left, I could hear people talking. I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying though. I was already forming an idea of where I was, but the antiseptic smell is what really clinched it. I was in a hospital. That was my best guess anyway. A soft rustling to my left caught my attention and I looked to the left, smiling wryly as I made a note to remember that I still couldn't see with the gauze over my eyes. "Alex?" the voice was familiar, though the person sounded surprised. "Mom?" I asked. The fact that she was here told me a little bit more about my situation. My parents lived across the country, but I still had to ask "What happened? How long have I been out?" I didn't get a response as I heard her get up and quickly leave "Jack! He's awake!" ah, she was calling my father. I'd much rather just have my questions answered, but I could understand if her priorities were different. The sound of multiple people coming into the room brought my out of my thoughts. Someone touched my hand and I flinched as it brought me a small spark of pain. "Sorry son" my father's deep voice filled my ears "I forgot that you are sensitive" I looked towards his voice and smiled before a third, new voice appeared "Mr. Sorin, I was wondering if you remembered what happened to you?" a man, his voice wasn't as deep as my father's though. Probably a doctor. "Not really," I said softly "I get a pain in my head when I try to think about it" "That is normal" the man said "You suffered some mild trauma, both in your mind and body" "What exactly happened?" I asked frowning. Considering the pain in my body, mild trauma was short selling it. A little test and I could feel things attached to me, I'm sure they had me on some pain medication, and I still felt this bad. "We are not entirely sure. From what the police could gather, there was an explosion of some sort in your apartment, most likely a gas explosion..." the man paused before going on "Your skin alone suffered mild burns, however that was the least of the damage. The shock wave tossed you into a wall, causing a few of your ribs to be cracked" "My eyes?" I asked touching the gauze once more, ignoring the dull pain in my side that was suddenly more apparent "I don't think these are for decoration" "Yes, that seems to be where the extent of the damage occurred. While the eye as a whole is undamaged, the retina were severely damaged" the doctor sighed softly "I'm afraid the damage is permanent" "He's blind?" my mother's voice broke slightly. "Unfortunately, yes" the doctor said as I fiddled with the gauze in an attempt to remove it "Ah, please don't remove the gauze, though you cannot see, your eyes are still sensitive to light right now. The damaged retina will attempt to process the light and cause you severe pain" I stopped at that "How long until I can remove them?" I asked. "At the least, a couple more days" I frowned at his words before sighing and nodding. Then my head snapped up "Max!" My head instantly began to hurt but I ignored it "What happened to Max and the girls?" No one replied immediately, making my heart sink. It dropped even lower when I heard my mother stifle a sob and run out of the room. "Son...the explosion was large...what the police told us.." even my father sounded like he was about to cry "Your brother and your friends were at the center of the explosion. While it just knocked you away...they couldn't find any remains" I sat there, my head throbbing as I tried to force myself to remember what happened. I remembered some things...the flash of light mostly...but... I grit my teeth before it felt like something popped just behind my eyes. Then, the sounds around me faded away, and I thought I heard someone calling my name. Suddenly, I was in my apartment, sitting on my couch looking at my brother. My twin. He had longer hair than me, tied into a ponytail, but looking at those green eyes was always like looking into a mirror. Leaning slightly to the left, I could see the three girls as they followed him into the room. They'd playfully been called Max's harem back in school. I was the only one who knew it was purely platonic between them. Alice, with her blond hair and blue eyes was as pretty as always. From her clothing, it looked like she was into soccer this week. Mary, her long brown hair hiding her equally brown eyes from my view. She was pretty as well. I could also see that she was hiding a rather large book behind her back, though I couldn't see what it was about. Rein bounced out from around the others and stood in front of me "Sup Alex, gonna come with us?" Go with them...? Where? Oh...wait...there was some kind of festival or something. Max wanted me to go with them. I appreciated the thought but he knew I didn't like dealing with large groups of people. "Ah...not really, I have a book I want to..finish..." I felt my words come to a stop as I began to wonder why this all seemed like it had already happened. Then a light began to shine, coming from the floor. It was silvery and gentle. What was strange was that it appeared right below Max. The light quickly spread until it was under the three girls as well. Time seemed to slow down as I looked at the light. It was strange, I could almost see that there were symbols within the light, forming a large circle around them. Even though I knew it was a mistake, I reached forward anyway, attempting to reach into the circle and pull someone to me. [REJECTED!] The silvery light flooded towards my eyes, forming one large word. For a second, I saw lines of weird symbols pour towards me, then there was a bright flash. With a gasp, I sat up in the hospital bed. The dream had felt so real and for a second that is all I thought it was. But it was a memory. What the hell was it of though? That didn't look like a gas explosion to me. I felt a twitch in my stomach and looked down, again forgetting that I could see. At least I thought so. Near the lower portion of what felt like my stomach, I could 'see' something. In the blackness of my non vision, I could see a floating yellow wisp. It was barely the size of the tip of my pinky nail. Was I still dreaming? As I stared at this little bit of yellow, it began to get bigger and bigger. It took me a second to realize that it wasn't getting bigger, my vision was getting closer. It didn't have a form, just flowed and twisted like smoke. I suddenly saw a small flash of blue before it vanished among the yellow. My mouth dipped even further into a frown as I watched this. The blue appeared in a steady rhythm. It took me a few seconds that the blue would appear each time I took a breath. What the hell? There wasn't much else I could do but watch this yellow wisp dance around. After checking I felt that the gauze was still on my eyes. Was this some kind of hallucination? I'd seen spots of light before, when I rubbed my eyes too hard, but this wasn't like that. I stopped observing the wisp and turned my attention towards the sounds in the room. It was quieter than before, I couldn't hear any talking, just the soft beeping of the heart monitor to my right. I must have passed out for quite some time, it was probably late. Well...it was a bad idea but I had to find out if I was really blind. It wasn't that I didn't trust the doctor, but some things had to be proven before you could accept it. "Gently now" I said softly as I reached up and touched the gauze, gently pulling the fabric away from my eyes. My skin was still sensitive, but it was like a bad sunburn at this point. It still took me a few minutes to remove the gauze completely. It took me about the same time to get up the courage to begin opening my eyes. Slowly, my eyelids lifted. A slight stinging sensation came from the back of my eyes but it wasn't as bad as I thought. They might have turned the lights off or something. With my eyes fully open, I frowned. I was definitely blind. Open or close, everything was just black to my eyes. I blinked a few more times just to make sure before sighing "Well, it was worth a shot" I said looking down at my stomach. The yellow wisp was still there "At least I can see you...whatever you are" It was definitely inside of me as well. I tried to touch it with my hand and felt my skin stop my finger. With a sigh, I laid back and shut my eyes. For some reason, I felt tired. I'd slept for a long time, but I was still exhausted. When I awoke once more, the gauze had been placed back over my eyes. It didn't matter much to me, I couldn't see either way, other than the yellow wisp of course. My parents visited me again. They told me that they'd been busy planning the funeral. Despite hearing this, I didn't mention my dream from before. I felt that it would sound crazy. I didn't even understand it. The funeral would be held shortly after I got out of the hospital. Afterwards, the conversation turned to where I was going to live. Mom wanted me to go back with them and live with them for a while. Dad didn't say anything about it, but he said he'd help with whatever I decided. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. I probably couldn't do my job, I needed my eye sight to use a computer and my place was currently destroyed so I didn't have somewhere to sleep either. The only option was to live with my parents until I got used to being blind. It wasn't until several days later, comprised of many tests, that I was finally discharged. It was...weird not being able to see. I stumbled more often than not, mostly at ledges. Luckily, my parents were there to either catch me or warn me. "Um...do you mind if we go to my apartment?" I asked them as I sat in the back of their car "I'd like to check it out" I wouldn't be able to see it, but I still wanted to go there. There was a slight silence where I imagined my parents looking at each other before my dad agreed "Yeah son, we'll take a look" I dozed for what felt like a moment and we were there. Stepping out of the car, I looked in the direction of my building and frowned. I could see...something. A light blue color stood out in the blackness of my vision. With the help of my parents we headed in and took the elevator up. I was looking towards the blue light as it seemed to be getting brighter as we got closer to my floor. The closer and closer we got to my apartment, the brighter and brighter it became. When the door was opened, it was like staring into the sun for a moment. It was weird, I could see the light through walls, but without anything in the way, it was at it's brightest. I stepped into the apartment and sighed "So, how bad does it look?" I asked. It wasn't the biggest apartment, my bedroom was also the living room. I had a fold up bed for when I went to sleep. From the front door, you could head left into the kitchen and passed the living room was the bathroom. I actually had the money to live somewhere bigger, but I'd never seen the point. "Well...there is a hole in the floor of your living room. Looks like the cops roped it off" his father said as we walked forwards a bit. I nodded, focusing on the large wisp of blue light ahead of me. I waved my hand through it "About here dad?" "Yeah, the rest of the room is kind of...destroyed. Looks like the blast through a lot of stuff around" I could hear him as he walked around towards where the couch had been "Looks like here is where you hit the wall, there is an imprint" he chuckled softly. I nodded "Hurt like hell too" I said grinning along with him. It was better to joke than the alternative. I looked towards the large smoky blue light. It was very similar to the yellow wisp inside of me, just bigger than me and blue. Suddenly, the little yellow wisp inside of my began to move. I actually felt it begin to move. That feeling was familiar. It was the same feeling I used to get when I was nervous about talking to a girl or felt like I was going to get in trouble. Butterflies in my stomach. My breath caught slightly forcing me to take in a deep breath. To my surprise, this single breath was the deepest breath I'd ever taken. At the same time, the blue wisp had a piece of it stretch and become a funnel as it flowed into my mouth and nose. I could actually see the blue fill my lugs, see their shape. Then I let the breath out and the blue funnel broke off, replaced by a blue fog that I spewed out. Looking towards my body, I saw that a very small amount of the blue wisp was still inside of me. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to come out. At the same time, it seemed as though my action just now had disturbed the big blue wisp. It began to break apart and dissipate into the air. It vanished quickly until I was left without any light at all. "I guess it is time to go" I said softly, trying to process what had just happened. "Of course son" my dad said taking my arm and leading me back to the door. We stayed in a hotel that night and then went home the next day. Across the country in a plane. I suddenly felt sad, resting my head against the window. It was funny, what made me sad was the fact that I could never see the clouds and land from a plane window again. That rolled into the sadness of losing my brother and friends. Then I saw it. The blue wisp that had been left in my body was gone, however the yellow wisp had grown in size, to about the size of my entire finger nail instead of just the tip. I looked up from my body and almost gasped. I could see other wisps, all little yellow ones just like my own. They were floating around me in neat little rows. It took me a few moments to realize that they were the other passengers. Looking back to my own, I focused on it more, bringing my vision closer like before. I noticed a few changes to the last time. Little thin lines flowed off the wisp, going in different directions. I followed one line and it lead across my arm and to my palm where it broke up and formed into five smaller lines. When I flexed my fingers, the lines moved too. Of course, they disappeared from my vision when I stopped focusing on them. These lines went to various points across my body but there was one line that was peculiar. It flowed straight up, following my spine. Near the center of my body and then where my heart was, were small yellow wisps as well, though these were as small as grains of sand. If I hadn't been following the line, I would have never found them. This reminded me of something I saw online once...what was it? It took me a moment of thought, but I was able to recall something about Chakras, points along the body that were said to hold energy. That blue wisp from before...it did something to the wisp inside of me. Made it bigger...like feeding it. At the same time, when it got stronger my ability to see them also became stronger. I rested my head against the window once more, thinking of what this meant. I'd have to get help reading more about this chakra stuff. I knew it had something to do with meditation and stuff, but I wasn't sure what it implied. Then I actually did gasp at what I saw out of the window. Well, it was the only thing I could see. Blue. Unlike the apartment, this wasn't a single big wisp. It was an ocean, or maybe a fog. As I focused more on the blue and looked around me, I found that it was also in the plane with us. There was so much of it that it blocked out the yellow wisps from the other passengers. With a little experimentation, I could sort of dim the blue fog, allowing the yellow wisps to be visible once again. As I watched, I could occasionally see the blue fog flow down to the yellow wisps and then back out, matching the breathing of the passengers. I was beginning to understand...at least a little bit. The blue fog fed the yellow wisps, but from what I could tell, the wisps never got any bigger, nor did the blue fog remain in the people for very long. Maybe there was a trick to it? There was so much I didn't know and I had a lot more to find out. It was also a good distraction from everything that had happened.