This is a new beginning I had for Sight clearly. And really...it's just better. I hope you think so too! Playlist
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The strongest memory of my childhood is of my mother's funeral.
A strange cooling mist surrounded me as bugs buzzed in the heat.
A tall, sweating priest read from the bible.
Only a few people came and I didn't know any of them.
No one had anything to say.
All of the flowers laid for her had already wilted under the sun save my iris. She had grown them for as long as I could remember. As the casket began its decent into the ground a hand squeezed mine. I wasn't bothered by it and something was telling me that it was okay to cry, but I didn't. Maybe I had used up all of my tears the day I found her.
She had had me sleep with her in her bed, which I, being six years old, naturally had no objections to. When I woke up the next morning three hours late for school…she didn't.
It wasn't until the middle of that night that someone found me. I don't even remember who, a neighbor seemed most likely. They'd told the officers and paramedics they'd found me crying and holding onto her, begging her to wake up.
After that it was all mostly hushed voices, sympathetic looks, a few pats, sighs, and explanations of natural causes that I ignored. I'd known as much as my young mind could: mom had always been sick.
It wasn't until I was older that I learned she had had the beta form of Thalassemia. She was twenty-nine years old. She had gotten the disease from her mother, who had gotten it from hers all of whom were long gone. There were no siblings to take me in, no living relative that wanted anything to do with me. No one had ever heard of any kind of father.
At some point I'd wondered if, with the high risk of the disease being passed onto me, everyone was too afraid of taking on that kind of responsibility, but I had never shown any trace of it.
With no other place for me, I entered a foster home. I couldn't ever say if it was a bad place to be or not. I hadn't been there very long.
I don't know if it was my mom's death that had triggered it or if I'd always been that way, but the first night in the foster home had me screaming. Shadowy figures of all shapes and sizes hovered over every other child's bed, and paid no attention to me.
I was immediately sent to a doctor, which became another doctor, and another and another until I was landed in a home for mentally ill children that frankly, they didn't know how to help. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I was seeing things that left me alone and never said a word. I quickly learned that they had no interest in me and that they were everywhere, at least one with every living thing. I wondered for years if this was what happened to those who, because of death, were lonely in the world, they could see what others couldn't.
With no other means of passing time in what was mostly seclusion, I studied. I didn't bother until I was about thirteen and the things I had learned to ignore became nagging questions that would not ebb.
There was never a question in my mind about who I was. Anna Grace, daughter of Amy Grace: More than likely insane, but harmless. But the questions I did have, no one seemed to be able to answer.
What were the shadows? Why were they around every living person except me? What did they do? What did they want from us?
The more I dove into the knowledge I could get my hands on, which wasn't much, the more my questions led me to religion.
I gathered the basics of what the most commons believed but ended up concentrating on the most important aspect: Demons, spirits, ghosts, apparitions, the remains of the dead, evil, temptation.
The shadows I saw never physically harmed anyone that I had seen, spoke, and was not bothered by anything it came into contact with, not to mention, salt.
I often found myself closing this books rubbing my eyes, then glancing once again at the shadows trying to make the defining connection, but ending up nowhere. I wasn't doing too well on my own. I needed a teacher.
I asked for one and after a great deal of hassle, got one, but one only adequate enough to prepare me to earn my GED. It was my thinking that once I proved what I could do with the knowledge I gained, they'd let me research more on my own, have access to more information. I was wrong. At sixteen, when my test results came back with flying colors it seemed that every door closed on me. I fought through a long year like that. I became so desperate for answers that when I was seventeen I refused to eat. Death wasn't what I was going for, and I knew that they didn't want it either, so they made me a promise.
One more year, granted I behaved, and I could enroll in a few classes at the local college.
Eighteen. That was the desired year in this house of the destitute. There was a chance, even if it was slight, that they could re enter the world of the sane, privileged, and living. So, like a good girl, I ate, and did anything else asked of me until my eighteenth birthday.
That morning, there was no sign of heaven's light coming through my window, it was raining. No trumpets sounded, no angels sang or carried me away. I went to breakfast.
Jessica sat down next to me…well a foot away from me. It was the closest she ever got to anyone. She had such a sweet and soft face, with beautiful blonde hair, most people wanted to touch her and it never ended well. The slightest chance of human contact terrified her, always had, and by how things were going, always would.
She glanced at me nervously and held her spoon in one hand like a toddler, the other hand twitching nervously in her lap.
"Anna." She frowned at her hot cereal.
"Hmm?" I answered giving her my attention.
"Are you leaving?"
She was younger than me by four years and I remembered my fear of loneliness at that age. The moment called for a comforting touch or hug, but I had long overcome that instinct with Jess.
"Maybe." I answered.
"Do you think there will be more of them out there?" she asked.
Most of the kids in here came to accept each others' problems. Mine seemed like an easy one, but it was hard for most to think that there were shadowy figures around them all of the time, but Jess was a trooper.
I eyed the one that appeared to be nuzzling her ear. "Most definitely, if I'm right about my theory that is."
Jessica's face scrunched up. "Be careful." She whimpered.
"Oh Jess." I said as she started to cry silently. "I'll be fine. I don't think it will be any different. If they haven't paid attention to me in here all my life, then it won't be any different. I'll be fine." I smiled at her. "My kung fu is strong Jessica-san."
This made her laugh which almost sounded like a scream paired with her tears.
Later, I paced in my room, trying to decide whether or not I was going to go to the mistress about it. They had told me that they would make the first arrangements and let me know, but I was yet to hear anything.
My heart stopped when there was a knock on my door.
I opened the door expecting the mistress to be standing there grim faced, but a woman was not what I found. It was a man. Though "man" seemed too…simple a term. His clothes flowed over his figure like they were made for him. There was something other worldly about his face with glowing sea-green eyes and slightly wavy blonde hair that fell around his face like it was painted.
I couldn't say a word, he blinked.
"Anna." It wasn't a question, it should have been. The way he said my name like he knew me should have terrified me, I knew that, but it didn't. His smile was so genuine as he appraised me, but it wasn't in a scrutinizing way. He appeared excited.
I stepped out of the way and he came in my room, no shadow following behind him.
"Um." He said to my gaping expression, holding out his hand. "I'm Gabriel…Cephas."
I hadn't put my own hand out.
"You had shown an interest in attending classes at the university?"
I snapped out of my confusion in time to frown.
He was from the college? He looked much too young.
"Yes?" I managed to say.
He seemed to chuckle a moment, almost disguising it as a cough. He smiled at me knowingly, his face lighting up instantly, I almost smiled back.
"Well, pack your things and we will get you started."
I couldn't repress my grin now. I was getting out! I was going to finally get the answers I couldn't find in here.
I had to stop myself from running to my drawers. Gabriel made no indication that he noticed.
Once I was ready he'd taking most of my bags from me and carried them himself. I walked right out of the front doors and no one made a move to stop me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(These links are highly subject to change!)
