Anger. It flowed through me unlike any emotion ever had or ever would. I guess it had become as much a part of me as my hands, feet, and hair. I remember a time before the anger, when I was happy and everything was fine, but when the news came, my world shattered.
I tried my best not to let it overcome me and to keep it sealed inside. I didn't want my parents to know just how much all of this was hurting me because I knew it was hurting them, too. After we found out, the descending spiral never ended and the anger was always present. Anger that I couldn't control the way my own body developed, anger at my genes for making me the way I was, and anger at the world and whatever higher being may exist because of who I was becoming.
Yes, from the moment that I found out that not only was my hearing a lost cause but that my vision was going as well, the anger held inside bubbled over and began to erupt into the outside world.
I was never an emotional person, but the anger was one thing with which I felt I could connect. I hated life, I hated myself, but most of all, I hated the adults and scientists of this world. How was it that this far in the future, they still couldn't cure blindness or deafness? Why were the select few cursed to spend the rest of their lives in the deafening silence and endless dark?
In the early twentieth century, they believed that by the year two thousand, we'd all be flying on hover boards and living in sophisticated, futuristic cities. There was no disease; the world was a perfect utopia. But it's 2022 and the disease-less utopia seems as far off now as it did to the citizens of 1904 because we still have a never-ending deluge of problems—people with AIDs, orphaned children, crime, the flu, people who are deaf, people who are blind—my people—and a plethora of other problems.
Either way, it didn't matter. The main problem was that I was going blind and was already pretty much deaf. I understood that I could be worse off—I could have an immunodeficiency virus or I could have cancer or something more life threatening than deaf-blindness, right. Nevertheless, when I found out about all of this back when I was ten, there was nothing more horrifying than the world of color and sound that I had become so endeared to eventually drifting away into a never-ending silence and a sea of black.
I withdrew. It was a hard time for my family as well as me. My parents had to go through the thought of their youngest daughter losing her vision and her hearing. When their friends commented on my anger, they defended me with explanations and the rebuttal of "If you were a child losing your vision how would you feel?" but even with all of their support, I drifted away from them and into my own world.
I wasn't insane, not by a longshot, but I wanted to experience the world and thing things I wouldn't be able to do later on while I still could. I spent countless hours on the internet looking at pictures and playing online games. MMORPG games were the best, and I enjoyed them while I still could. I had no interest in touring the world and all that, so I stayed home, studied, and played.
I eventually culminated from primary school at the top of my class and went on to my years of junior high. I made friends and kept up the cheerful façade while the anger and loneliness boiled inside. I never told my friends about my inevitable future; I was too scared of what they would say and think. I judged their reactions and determined that even if I said something, the matter would be of such little importance that we'd all forget. I felt that if I let go, I would lose myself in the world and forget my goals.
I didn't hang out with my school friends, and, soon enough, I only ever told things to my older sister. She was my best friend and the thought of losing her in any way made my stomach twist in knots and do any number of metaphorical backflips. We were incredibly close.
I turned fourteen in September of 2022, which was my first year of high school. My parents knew that I was a huge fan of gaming and decided to preorder me a copy of the game coming out that November called Sword Art Online and all the hardware needed. I was extremely excited and the news that I was going to be able to play a VRMMORPG was the best birthday gift my parents could have given me.
In my excitement, I decided that there was no way I wanted to go on my journey through the first virtual reality game alone and spent the money I had saved up from a summer job and the money I got for my birthday on a set of hardware and a copy of SAO for my sister. Even if she was two years older than I was, we were closer than most sets of identical twins; it made my parents happy to see that we were so close.
By this time, four years after the news that I was going blind, my vision was such utter crap that I could hardly see a thing, even with my glasses on and a new prescription in effect. I wanted to begin playing Sword Art Online as soon as possible, before the lights went out, so I could experience it before it was too late. I could only imagine what it would be like to experience the world the way normal people do. I was sick of the never-ending silence and the blurred figures that were now constant in my life. I wanted to live.
Even though I'd been credited with high intelligence, I never imagined the affect the Nerve Gear's power would have on me.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online. All rights go to Reki Kawahara, A-1 Studios, and Aniplex USA. No Copyright infringement is intended.
On a side note, I hope you all like the beginning. This is just the prologue, so expect the rest to have more to it than this. Please read, and leave a review if you feel like it and have time. This is my first story so constructive criticism is welcome! If anyone wants to beta PM me or leave a review! Also, if anyone want to draw cover art for this, feel free to! I'll give the artist credit! I'll try not to make other author's notes so long, but no promises! Till next time!