**** This story came to me in a really weird dream. Here is the Vampire Academy Fanfiction version of it. ****
Blind Eyes
The Beginning.
I remember this day. I was only two at the time, but this one memory will never fade. I was still with my mother then, my father gone, as was typical with dhampir families. We were living in housing in the royal court, as I learned latter. The sky that night was an expanse of dark blue velvet dotted with white stars. The moon, full and round, was perfectly white with gray imperfections. The grass was green, the stones of the court beautiful grays and whites, the trees proudly and arrogantly showing off their autumn colors. I am glad the night was like this. The beautiful night shattered as angry yells filled the air. A blur moved towards me and resolved in a woman wearing a white and red dress, her hands blurred, and then nothing.
That was it. That is the whole memory of the last time I saw anything.
That night long ago, a secretly formed cult of Moroi and dhampir numbering a full dozen had slaughtered 8 feeders and turned themselves Strigoi. In the Royal Court, the reaction was swift. It took less than a half an hour for all the Strigoi were killed. The death toll had reached 32 men and women, mostly Moroi, the wounded were uncounted, there were just so many and the small medical unit had difficulty keeping up with the life threatening injuries. This event had set the whole of the vampire world on edge. Nobody had any idea about what to do.
The two year old with damaged eyes was quickly forgotten in the chaos of the upturned world.
I was one of the lucky ones. Blindness was just a handicap; it was able to be overcome, and not unusual. There were already supports in place ready to help me learn, to help me survive. Being young, I adapted quickly. My vision, the sense that was the most relied on for normal people, was gone. My already supernatural sense of hearing and smell became more perceptive to take its place. I may not be like a bat using echolocation to see but I am able to pinpoint sounds and but people often think it works like that. I could use every and any little noise to create a map of my surroundings, breathing, footsteps, the wind against different surfaces. Smells showed me identifiers and trails, the particular aftershave lingering in the air belonged to one of the guardians who regularly walked the border and stood in the classrooms, Guardian Yuri.
I am Rosemarie Hathaway and I am blind but not helpless.
~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~ ~VA~
I was sitting in a classroom listening to my Biology teacher, Ms. Meissner, lecture about the desert biome. It was interesting that coyotes would behave like they do but I was bored and listening to the slightly screechy chalk write or draw on a chalkboard that I couldn't see wasn't doing it for me. I stopped focusing on the monotone that was our teacher and allowed the whispers of the schools gossip to fall into my ears. The whispers of the other bored students were not quite as interesting as I had hoped.
"Hey, did you hear that Jenny hooked up with the Ivashkov boy when she was visiting her parents in the Royal Court over the weekend?"
"Adrian Ivashkov?"
"Yeah, I heard that she was drunk and ended up sleeping with him."
"So? I would totally sleep with him, he's like super hot."
"Yeah but he's like twenty-one and like a total drunk."
"And rich, his aunt's like the Queen."
"Really? I thought-"
Nope, spoiled Royals partying was not quite as interesting as it had been. Maybe two boys this time.
"Dude, Eddie and Jake are going to fight later" Ralf Sarcozy, I would recognize that irritating voice anywhere.
"Really? I thought that they were tight?" The voice with smooth tones and a slightly whiny undercurrent belonged to Jesse Zeklos.
"Yeah but Jake was hitting on Eddie's girl and Mia told Eddie. Jake lied to Eddie about it when Eddie talked to him," Ralf was getting excited, his heart rate had increased and his voice shot up an octave.
"Damn. And now they're going at it?"
"Yeah, in the old gym after dinner."
The fight would be interesting to check out, Eddie wasn't the biggest or the strongest, but he was fast, much faster than most of the other novices. Jake was one of the biggest and the strongest, he could take hits like a tank. It would be a cool fight to watch, real shame I couldn't.
The class bell rang. It was a mechanical buzzing song that briefly over powered the other sounds around me. For just the moment I was helpless. The first time I had experienced this I had had a panic attack. It took a while before I was able to ignore the feeling for the moment but it was always uncomfortable and I never grew used to it. The bell stopped. It had lasted a second and a half. I hated that second and a half that came after every period.
I let out the breath that I had involuntarily drawn in and shook my head to clear the buzzing. I got up, grabbing my book bag, and walked to Pre-Calculus. The uneven stones of the hallways had been worn down by countless feet walking from class room to class room. Each stone was unique and each let me know exactly where I was. A quick sniff of the air revealed that the chemistry class was working with hydrochloric acid and ammonia, the cafeteria was cooking up lasagna and a seafood bisque. The usual stench of various perfumes and deodorants filled the air, seeping into the stones of the walls.
In Math, I sat next to Lissa, My best friend, and we whispered about all the gossip that we had heard.
"Really, Jenny did that?" Lissa spoke in that musical voice reserved for angels and cinema royalty. She was taller than me, about six feet tall, and was soft and slender like runway models are supposed to be. She was one of the nicest people I have ever met.
Christian Ozera, her boyfriend, was sittng on the other side of her, a more different person on the outside I can't imagine. Christian was prickly and sarcastic with a sharp voice, like a blade. It only softened near Lissa hearing, unless she needed a sharp kick of reality.
"Why are you surprised? She slept with all the royal boys here." Christian was blunt as usual. "I think some of the girls too."
I had to. The little devil was whispering naughty things in my ear and I couldn't help but listen. "Christian, aren't you a royal boy?"
"Yeah, wh-"
"Christian Ozera!"
" –wait… what!"
I started to laugh, quietly to avoid notice from the teacher. Lissa was getting reassured by Christian, one of my friends was getting in a fight, and I was getting a chuckle out of Christian's misery.
It was a good day.
