Yo, this is going to be a completely new story for the "The Wind Also Cries." BTW I hated the original after rereading it. It really sucked. Anyways, I've been reading Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Vonnegut and I've decided to try out some of their writing style. It's pretty interesting actually, barebones descriptions that delve into the essence of the work without detracting from anything. Basically, the complete opposite of what I've been doing.

I won't be doing it to such an extreme degree, but I'll be trying it out somewhat.

I'm also planning on being way less edgy. I think I've gotten over that phase. And no more first person. Like, what was I thinking? I swear I'm mentally insane sometimes.

Tell me what you think. Happy reading!

(Also, I figure that this is a prime time to get ALL the views, since everyone is on hiatus rn prob because of AP testing and stuff. Also, KnightEstoc just finished book 2 of Nightblade IV, so he won't be posting for a while. MWAHAHAHAHA! Lol jk, I'm writing this as an experiment)

"... Qg7 checkmate."

Lyra stared at the chessboard for a long moment before glancing at her brother lying on the bed and gave a rueful grin. "How do you do it?" she asked, half incredulously. "We've been playing for years, and I think that I've won a grand total of six games." She paused. "And you don't look at a chessboard when you play."

Selim smirked. "I guess when you don't have anything better to do than lie around all day, you're bound to get good at something." He had intended for the comment to be light-hearted, but some bitterness must have slipped through. Even if he couldn't see her, he felt Lyra's worried gaze pierce through him.

"Selim-" Lyra began, before Selim cut her off.

"I'm fine," he declared, swinging himself into sitting position. "Really. And besides," he added, almost dreamily, "SAO is playable in..."

Lyra finished for him almost instinctively. "Thirteen minutes."

Selim sighed dreamily.

Lyra laughed happily. "You know, I never thought I'd be worried about you getting addicted to a video game."

"Now I can finally join the brainless mass that is teenage boys," he said with a grin. But despite the jesting, they both knew that SAO was Selim's biggest chance at "normalcy." And for once, the gods had been kind and granted them two copies of Sword Art Online that sat on Selim's bedside table.

A comfortable silence filled the room.

Suddenly, Selim spoke up. "Two minutes left. We should get ready."

Lyra rolled her eyes, mostly for her own benefit since Selim couldn't see her. "Good god, have you been counting this whole time?" Even still, she could detect the hungry anticipation in Selim's normally deadpan voice. She couldn't help but feel the same restlessness. If this actually did work, it would unlock a whole new realm of possibilities for Selim…

Lyra was awakened from her thoughts as she heard Selim awkwardly fumbling to navigate the NerveGear's straps, swearing under his breath as he pinched one of his fingers by accident. She walked up to him, giggling softly, gently pushed his hands away and fastened the black helmet onto his head.

"I'm not a baby, you know," Selim whined, but obliged anyways. Lyra deftly put on her own NerveGear and lay down in her own bed across from him. She heard a thump as Selim flopped onto his back.

"Thirty seconds remaining," she called towards Selim. He merely grunted in response, but Lyra suspected that it was because of the excess of emotion, not the lack of.

Then, as if by some unseen command, both uttered the fateful words, "Link Start!"

The last thing Lyra heard was Selim's voice, saying "I hate being blind" before she faded into darkness.

For as long as Selim could remember, he had always wanted to experience what others had taken for granted -sight. He had never understood the concept, never understood what it had meant, exactly. What were the so-called colors, what did it mean for something to "look like?"

He had lost vision at the age of two, and the doctors had told his parents that surgery would not fix his condition. For the longest time, the best case scenario for him had always been to live a long, happy life completely and utterly blind. The idea pained Selim. It was as if someone had put food in front of a child who had never tasted food in his entire life. He could smell the food, see it, but never taste it.

At the same time though, it is quite difficult to miss something that you have never had, which is why Selim had been able to push the hunger out of his mind. He had resolved to live life to its fullest potential without thinking about what could have been.

Yet the NerveGear changed all that. The NerveGear promised an out for him. It sent signals directly to the brain, so his eyes didn't matter. When he had first heard about it, it seemed too good to be true. Yet all his research had pointed to the fact that NerveGear would truly allow him to see again.

His thoughts turned to the present.

Selim had been waiting for this moment so long, but nothing could have prepared him for what was to come. His entire field of view, unchanged for sixteen years, shattered. His vision flashed. Was this… color?

Too shocked to comprehend anything, he could only look on, slack-jawed as "color" flooded into his eyes, into his mind. Nothing made sense. Everything seemed blurry. The brightness almost blinded him, forcing him to snap his eyes shut and cover them with his hands, palm digging deep into his sockets. Fear replaced anticipation as the newfound colors bored deep into his skull and cut through his thoughts like a cold, sharp knife.

"Stop," he whispered desperately. He could see now, but it was far more than he had bargained for. The color refused to stop its onslaught as it sliced through his palms and eyelids, making him whimper in pain. It overwhelmed his senses until it penetrated through the deepest recesses of his mind.

"Please stop!" he begged. "Help! Someone help! Lyra! Where are you?!" His sobs grew to hysterical measures until he could hear nothing but his own screams. Eventually, his cries died down as he curled up into a ball, accepting his fate.

Slowly, the piercing flashes died down until before settling into one monotone color. After what seemed like an eternity, Selim hesitantly uncovered his eyes and cracked open a single eyelid. What surrounded him was still blinding, but tolerable. He allowed his eyes to adjust. So this was sight, huh?

Directly ahead of him was a complex of weird configurations of color and… shapes? Selim traced the familiar pattern of a square onto his hand, a pattern he knew by heart, then looked at it with his newfound sight. He was shocked at first to see what his hands "looked" like. Like a baby seeing a new toy for the first time, he subject his hand, then the rest of his body, to close examination. He found that he could change his hand by moving it closer and further away from his face. He experimented and marvelled for a long time before turning to face the task at hand.

He had no idea what was going on. The one person that could help him was his sister. Therefore, he had to find Lyra. And to do that, he had to get past whatever facing him right now. From the descriptions of SAO and other games, he knew that he had arrived at the username creation stage. But how was he supposed to create a username?

He had figured out what squares looked like by tracing it onto his hand, then looking at the path that his finger took. And if the things in front of him were so-called "letters," then he would be able to figure out how to read them.

He knew how to read. He could read braille fluently and without error. Likewise, he knew the shapes of letters, as he had traced them on paper for countless hours when he had nothing better to do. Now all he had to do was apply the square tracing technique to letters…

For once in his life, Selim was thankful that he hadn't been born blind. He had read about studies of people being born blind regaining their vision, and promptly overwhelmed by sensory overload. Most had become depressed, and at least in one case, someone had committed suicide. Luckily, since the "visual centers" in Selim's brain had been somewhat developed before he had lost vision, he could theoretically have his vision return to normal. That was what he had been banking on when he signed up for SAO.

After painstakingly tracing letters onto his hand, trying to memorize the outline, then comparing that to the letters on the keyboard, Selim eventually could read off letters by sight. And after some more time, he could understand the words on the screen, which read "Please enter a username."

Taking a deep breath, Selim reached his hand forward, and using a single finger, carefully lined it with one of the letters, and pressed. He swore under his breath. He had pressed the wrong one by accident. Now where was the backspace?...

Finally, he had completed the first part of the trial. He had created a username, "Selim." He didn't want to risk making it any longer, otherwise he didn't know how long he would spend working on it. But he could feel himself making progress. The brightness no longer bothered him as much, and his hand-eye coordination was rapidly improving.

He was brought to another area where what appeared to be a human stood. But it was unmoving and cold. Then it hit him. This was him. This was Selim.

For a moment, Selim stood, disbelieving, then rushed up to himself almost blindly. He examined every part of himself, touching and feeling the familiar patterns beneath his fingers. So this was what eyes looked like. This was a nose. This was a mouth. All the information flooded into him, leaving Selim gasping for air.

This was who he was. After sixteen years, he saw himself. It was frightening and welcoming at the same time. On one hand, he looked so alien. It was scary to think that he couldn't recognize himself. The person facing him didn't seem welcome or familiar. He had always thought that he would be able to instantly recognize himself if given the chance. It was a claim without evidence, but he had always clung onto that belief. Now he was face to face with evidence to the contrary. And it was terrifying.

Yet on the other hand, he finally knew. He knew who he was now. This was him. This feeling of self-discovery was something that Selim had never felt before. It was as if a part of him had been missing, and he had finally found it.

Eventually, he deduced that he could change his avatar to fit his liking. Selim couldn't imagine changing anything about himself, so he pressed "Next" with no hesitation.

He found himself washed with brightness and color, and could feel himself becoming overwhelmed as he braced himself for the onset of panic. But it never came as he heard his name screamed and a pair of comforting arms wrap around him. A face buried itself into his shoulder.

"You can see," Lyra whispered, and Selim gave a mute nod. His throat felt dry, his tongue five sizes too big to speak properly. He contented himself with the comfort of his sister.

Eventually, she let go. He could see her figure now, but it was hard to process anything. He could make out the distinct shape of her head, arms, and legs, but not much else.

"I'm so sorry," Lyra said softly. "I didn't realize that you would have to go through all of that alone. It's all my fault."

Selim shook his head emphatically. "No," he choked out. "This is -this is the best thing that you've ever done for me. Thank you." She pulled him into a hug again, and he could feel a wetness at his shoulder where Lyra's face was buried. He felt tears forming in his eyes as well.

Selim wasn't sure how long they remained there. Eventually, they began the arduous task of helping Selim relearn everything. Red, white, green, big, small, short, tall, grass, dirt, eyes, sun, sky, tree, building, signs. Everything had to be relearned, and it hardly made sense to Selim. Perspective also seemed impossible for him to master. How was it that up close, things were "bigger" than from far away? He gave up on learning facial expressions as well. Those were far too difficult and nuanced for any former blind person to master in a short period of time. But Lyra assured him that he would learn everything eventually, and he took it to heart.

In a way, it was like learning another language. He already knew what grass was, or what a building was. He merely had to learn another way to perceive it. Easier said than done.

By the time the sky had turned red, which Lyra had informed him that it meant the day was ending, Selim was exhausted but ecstatic. Everything had made a little more sense, and he knew that he would one day view the world like anyone else. Unfortunately, it was time to log out. He glanced wistfully at the world that had provided him with a new life, a second chance. Soon, he would be forced to return back to darkness.

He shivered. Now that he knew what darkness was, he never wanted to return to it again. Casting one last look at the expanse of green, he swiped two fingers downwards as Lyra followed suit. "It's okay," she said comfortingly. "You can return whenever you want. I promise." Selim tried to smile at her, but his expression was pained.

He allowed Lyra to guide his finger to the "Logout" button before he felt her hand jerk abruptly and freeze. Selim knew something was wrong, but couldn't imagine what.

He heard her voice. "Mother fuc-"

And we done. Okay, so this was REALLY risky on my part. It was an experiment, remember?

I had to do quite a bit of research to make this somewhat believable. It turned out meh.

Not sure how Selim is gonna fight though. It's gonna be one hell of a ride with his depth perception and hand-eye coordination.

Anyways, what do you think? I think the idea is pretty interesting, but execution? Rip me. First time doing such a thing. Thanks, be ready for future updates!