Eli
I was stumped. My mind was spinning at a thousand miles per second, trying to understand Mike's words. He thought my "sense" power was cool? No one had ever thought that. Well, I mean no one had believed me when I'd said I had a "sense" power so someone thinking it was cool was a radical change. And he'd wanted to hang out with me? A blind girl? I shook my head, thoroughly confused. Mike was strange but in a good way. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Mike wasn't weird, he was just nice. I hadn't met a lot of genuine nice people in my life. But Mike wasn't just nice, he was accepting and trustworthy. He had a presence about him that just said, "Trust me. I'm your friend." As I came to the end of an alley, I got out my retractable walking stick. It always made people feel better when I had this around to warn them that I was blind. People always did a double take when they saw my eyes and realized I was walking without a walking stick. I tapped it on the ground, walking slowly, acting the part of the blind girl. This got really annoying sometimes. To entertain myself, I'd sometimes purposely hit people to see their heads snap up in annoyance then do nothing as they realized I was blind and "trying to find my way." I made my way to an old run-down house that needed some major renovation. I retracted my walking stick and walked inside. The first impression the house gave was old. It had a musty, sickly smell that identified elderly people. It took a minute to adjust from cleanish air to old-people-smell, but you got used to it.
"Eli? Is dat you?" a withered voice called.
"Yes G-man! It's Eli," I answered back. I walked into the living room and there sat G-man, also known as Old Man Eduard. He had white paper thin hair and skin that looked like dried prunes. He wore an old green sweater and brown khakis. His back was hunched and he walked around with a cane that had an ugly gnome face as the pommel. His eyes used to be a bright blue but now they'd dimmed to a light blue and had a white film covering them. He wore big glasses that let him see shapes but not much else. He was almost as blind as me. Of course he didn't know I was blind. See, I've been living with G-man since I was nine. Before that, I had lived on the streets for two years after getting kicked out of the orphanage I had grown up in. Those two years were nasty. I had lived in more than ten different cities, always getting chased out by the monsters that haunted me. One night, I stumbled upon G-man's house and begged him to let me stay one night. He let me in and in the morning he made a deal with me. He'd let me stay with him if I took care of him. He explained to me that his family wanted to put him in an elderly home because of his eyes. However, he liked his house and his independence so he told his family he'd prove he could take care of himself. Well he had been failing miserably until I came along. We made a deal and I've been living here ever since.
"Where you been? I's worried," he stated as he turned back to Gone With the Wind.
"Oh, I was out taking a walk when I got distracted," I explained. G-man talked with a slight southern accent; I think it's from all the southern movies he's watched. I called him G-man because at one time he was really into the whole hip-hop, rap thing and said he needed a cool name to stay young. So we came up with G-man and it stuck.
"I'm going to get the groceries, do you need anything special?" I asked. I'd memorized the grocery list since I couldn't well write it down or read it.
"Yesh, some dogs'd be nice," he replied. I translated that as I want hot dogs for dinner.
"Alright, I'll be back soon," I wrapped my hair up and placed a hat over my head to cover it. When I went out for the groceries or anything else, I dressed as a boy. It would look to weird to have a blind girl go and get food without help. The trip was short since I'd also memorized where everything was in the store and I headed back to G-man's place. As I came closer to the house I had a dark feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. I felt like someone was watching me. I hurried into the house and started putting away the groceries. Then an unearthly screech filled the kitchen. I yelped and fell backwards.
"Eli? Yous alright?" G-man calls. I can't sense anything in the room but I can feel the window quiver slightly. The ugly-chicken-woman was flying outside the kitchen window.
"I-I'm ok! It's just a bird, I'll get rid of it!" I answer G-man. I had to get it away from the house. I got up shakily and headed for the door. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and sprinted for the park.