Chapter 4: Training day blues

It wasn't easy training to hit your target without the guidance of vision, but that was not the only sense that was needed. Due to her lack of vision, her other senses took the liberty of claiming dominance. Her hearing was twice as sharp as that of her peers.

Still there were those who would not give her a chance. She did not seem to be as good as the others, mostly because she was insecure. She trained alone most of the time, and thus did not know of her own strength. During exams she would become so nervous that she would often falter.

They would taunt her, making her even more insecure. Thus she would often practice by shooting poporings in the forest. She would listen for the sound of the blob creature's bouncing, then would fire away. She knew that she had hit her target each time she heard the splat of the poring's relative exploding. Of course she only attempted to shoot the poporings from a safe distance, preferably from atop a cliff.

Though oftentimes she would shoot at the greatest generals...not that they did much for her. The creaking got on her nerves, and their immobility did little to improve her aim. Her arrows often ended up landing in the same place, splitting each other. It was a good stress reliever though...

But through her secretive training, her reliance on sound instead of sight gave her a different ability.

She learned to see without seeing.

What's the matter, does this confuse you? Allow me to explain.

As you know, all living creatures give off heat. Malene had been able to hone her ability to feel the change in temperature in the air. A sort of Heat vision, if you will. But this, along with her keen hearing, allowed her to develop her proficiency with the bow until her aim was lethal.

But her classmates did not know this, and one made a fatal mistake which would make them all think twice before ever messing with a "disabled," though I would say "differently advantaged," person again.

...What?

...you want me to tell you?

Well...alright...

It was the day of their exams once again, and they were taunting her as usual. But one of them went too far.

"Hey Famy! I bet you couldn't hit me if I were standing three feet in front of you!"

Famy...the one name she couldn't stand. They had labeled her as being as blind as the familiars which made their home in the zombie infested caves in the west part of the archer village. She turned towards him and removed her purple glasses, revealing the creepy white eyes which scared them all.

"Actually, I could."

And before he had a chance to move, the young archer fired an arrow that didn't miss.