Part II: Present

Vision Quest III:

She looked up at us with such frightened eyes, but there was hope there within her gaze. A trust that somehow we would save her. And we would. We were so close. She smiled with relief.

"Thanks." Then her eyes widened as she saw something behind us. A distant voice that we knew cried out.

"Leonardo!" We looked up in time to see a terrifying man in metal armor and claws flying at us. We pulled back instinctively and avoided being slashed. But his claws cut right through the chain and the force of his strike sent us flying backwards.

Suddenly the cage was dropping away and we felt a hollowness in the pit of our stomach as we helplessly watched, over our shoulder, her fall into the glowing green vat below. We were too far away and falling as we heard the cage splash into the liquid. We couldn't save her. She was gone. Our mind cried out. Karai!

Lily sat up in bed gasping for air and fighting back tears. It was too much pain. The loss. She couldn't breathe. It's over and it's not real. She chanted to herself over and over in her head to banish the vision from her memory.

"Are you ok?" She could hear the concern in her roommate's voice.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." Her voice sounded frail and weak even to her own ears. No one would believe that.

"You know you were screaming right?"

"Yes. I know thank you, but I'm fine now." Her voice sounded a little stronger. Good. What a terrible start to her birthday. The door burst open.

"Which one?" Nurse Tally knew, but she had to ask. She'd been here long enough to recognize Lily's screams, even as infrequent as such bad episodes were. Most didn't make her scream. It's not real.

"It was me." The nurse came near and fussed over her a bit.

"Been a while since you've had a nightmare."

"Yeah. I'm fine though." Nurse Tally made a snorting noise that indicated how little she agreed, but she held her piece.

Time to start another day. She knew the routine. It hadn't really changed much in the four years that she'd been here. Meals were always in the same place and time, her group and individual counseling appointments never varied in time or location, nor did the limited recreational time in the common area. The day was as uneventful and the same as every day before it in this unchanging place. No one was unkind and she wanted for nothing, but it was a kind of prison with little spontaneity that wasn't provided by the other residents.

Still she hadn't even thought about her friend Ryan in such a long time, it was surprising that she'd had a vision about him. Well, she must have been thinking about him subconsciously then.

It had been repeatedly pointed out to her that she only had 'visions' of people she knew, and often in recent social contact with. They weren't real, no matter how coincidental the events to real things which she shouldn't know.

Another important point to recall was how varied her interpretation of the sighted world was, as though she were grasping and guessing. She'd once thought it meant that different sighted people merely saw the world in their own unique way, but the visions, weren't real, just hallucinations, so that wasn't likely true.

She'd been distracted in school today, school being a generous term. She longed to go with the other children, outside and across the yard to the facility's official school, but it wasn't equipped for someone with her needs, or so her Uncle Arthur had decreed.

Instead, she was privately tutored, with a host of supplemental materials that didn't depend on a pupil's sight to teach. It was probably just as well. It didn't seem like the other children learned much, but they were mostly just passing through so perhaps they could afford it. Even if it was a long term facility, no one else had been here as long as she had, at least, not in the youth ward. And so her uncle had arranged private tutoring.

With the exception that she had a roommate, for her social well-being anyway, her uncle always got his way with the facility. He funded them enough, so it shouldn't be surprising. Just a little disappointing sometimes.

Her fingers trailed over the braille text, explored mathematical manipulatives and conducted small science experiments, but her mind really wasn't on task. She was already preparing for her meeting with Dr. Natham.

She was going to have to discuss her nightmare with him, but she really didn't want to. She'd never talked about Ryan to anyone. It had been her special secret and she wouldn't even know how to explain dreaming about something that likely never even happened to him or never would happen. It had felt like the future. Not that any of it was real.

She accepted that her visions were intense hallucinations and that they weren't real, but that was of no help in preventing them. At best, she went catatonic for a few moments when a vision struck. These were the most frequent. Less frequent, but much worse, were the visions that brought her to her knees screaming.

They'd tried everything. Medications that made her sick and fuzzy, but her visions still came and seemed to burn the drugs right over of her system. No amount of psycho-therapy or alternative techniques could stem them. Her visions simply were.

She'd long ago accepted that she would never be rid of them, and thus possibly stuck here for the rest of her life, but the doctors kept trying. They had no explanation for her condition, but with so little understanding of the brain, that wasn't especially surprising.

Still Dr. Natham had an excellent sense for detecting lies and lying always made things worse. Besides, in the vain hope of someday being free, she tried to remain on her best behavior. Maybe a half truth?

It wouldn't be much different than choosing to remain silent in group when her visions revealed things, not real, about the other members. Speaking only upset the others then, as it would upset things now. Maybe she could be honest, but not completely so. Just tell what she saw and felt while omitting the context. Yes. Maybe that would work.