Siktral's Life in the Dark

by Ralfil

2. Blind Meetings

I found myself standing on a cliff overlooking a large forest. As I gazed around, I noticed it was exactly where I had jumped from. Not only that, but I was also in my gliding suit still. “Weird.” I said, “Was that real? Hey Tray,” I turned to face him. “did I zone out or some-” Tray wasn't there. “thing...”

Where Tray had been standing before was the creepy man we had met in the hotel. He just stood there breathing weird and smelling awful. I stared for a moment before blurting out, “What the heck are you doing here?!” He leaned over into my personal space, looking me up and down like I was some recently shot game. I put my hands up a bit and backed away, “Woah man. Dude, as much as I enjoy your company, I'd rather you stopped doing that.”

He just shuffled towards me in his dirty fatigues. “Such an interesting mortal.” He said manically, “You're going to be so much fun to watch.” He reached up and grabbed the straps on my parachute, pulling my face uncomfortably close to his. From his mouth came the stench of a dog's morning breath. A dog that had recently eaten a skunk. A skunk that had been road kill. “You will dance for my amusement!” He was almost snarling, and his eyes didn't look too even.

Needless to say, I was more than a little unnerved by this man and his proximity to my face. I tried shoving him away from me, but he was holding on too tight for that. “Get out of my FACE!” I screamed at him. This guy needed to go to a mental hospital. “What the heck is wrong with you?!” He brought his eyes right in front of mine and touched our foreheads together. It turned out that his was covered in grime and sweat.

Though I was absolutely disgusted, I suddenly found myself unable to move. His stench invading my nostrils and the feel of his greasy skin made me want to puke. I was already gagging. I realized that I was immobilized because he had wrapped himself around me entirely. When did that happen?! I wondered in a panic.

“You are my ticket to the happy fun times. Heh. Now I don't need the others to tell me when I can cut loose! Heheheheh.” He was giggling uncontrollably by that point. I was beyond creeped out by this point, I was terrified. I tried squirming out of his grasp, but it was no use. He had a very tight hold of me. I was only thinking of getting away from this crazy guy.

“What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?!” I screamed at him. This at least seemed to get his attention. He stopped laughing and let go of me, dropping to the ground. The look that he gave me then had only a trace of the insanity I had seen before. For some reason this was even more frightening than the mad cackling. He sat there sprawled out on the ground stroking his chin thoughtfully. His body language and eyes did not work together at all. It reminded me of a character from the manga Death Note. Now there was a disturbing thought.

He looked up at me. “Why, all you have to do is play a game.” He sprung to his feet in one fluid motion contradicting his earlier stumbling. “Play my game, and you will never have to see me again.” He smirked. “I’m sure that’s all you want right now.” The smirk broke into a grin. “Though I’m still going to be changing things up a bit for you. Here’s a riddle to help you out.” He spread his arms wide and began chanting.

“You are in the land
So many have dreamed of.
By my hand
The sight was taken.
Find your food and you will see
With vision of three-sixty.
Don’t be alarmed
At the lost orbs of light
Just replace them
With faceted might.”

He spun around dramatically and stopped with a finger against my chest. “Now, I believe you have an adventure to get to.” He pushed me back with the finger. “Have fun. I know I will.” I realized that he had just pushed me off the cliff. As I fell backwards he began laughing manically again and waved at me enthusiastically.

That was the last I saw of him, though I was mostly focused on the fact that I was falling and my limbs not working again. As I fell to the ground another thought sprung to mind. Aren’t games supposed to be fun for the players? This is a pretty lousy game then. I reached the ground, and everything went black again.

I could hear birds chirping as I woke up groggily. Sitting up, it took a little bit for me to orient myself. “Ugh,” I mumbled as I rubbed my face, “I hate dieing in my dreams.” I suddenly realized that my face and hands felt very different from what I was used to. Then in a flash the previous day all came rushing back to me. My eyes popped open in amazement.

That led to another discovery. It was still dark. I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes in confusion. That can't be right. I thought to myself. I tried to look around again. Still no dice. Why is it still dark? I waved my hand in front of my face. I think I can feel the sunlight right now. It should be daytime. I brought my hand as close to my eyes as I could to try to see it, but there was nothing but darkness. I felt about my face some more to try and figure this out.

As I reached my eyes I found something I had not noticed before. Having closed my eyelids I pushed against them slightly. They gave with little resistance, as if there was nothing behind them. Tentatively, I opened them and brought a knuckle gently towards my right eye.

Now, I'm not always a queezy person, but just about anyone in their right mind would be nervous about directly touching their eyeball. I've done it before by accident. It's really uncomfortable. If you do it with any kind of cloth it dries out your eye immediately, and you have to blink a whole lot or get eye drops in order to moisten it again. So, I was pretty nervous about this.

I became much more worried when the knuckle didn't encounter anything but air. I put it in just a bit farther. Maybe my eyes are just recessed for some reason. Then my finger brushed against the side of my eye socket. It was...a rather large socket. The touch horrified me as I realized what I had refused to admit to myself was a worry.

My eyes were gone.

I began shivering and sweating fearfully. This isn't supposed to happen. I clenched my arms around myself. You don't just lose your eyes. They're always there. I began rocking back and forth as it hit me full on. I felt like I was about to explode. My gut convulsed, and I collapsed back onto the ground retching uncontrollably.

This was probably the most traumatic thing I had ever experienced up to that point. Can you imagine how unnerving it is to touch any empty eye socket, let alone your own? It's an extremely uncomfortable experience.

A mixture of water and bile emptied itself from my body. As its acrid scent reached my nose my retching increased painfully. My stomach heaved as struggled to rid itself of all its contents. Soon another smell rose up with a great deal of heat. It smelled like burning grass, but in a good way. Thankfully it overpowered the stench of bile. The heat felt...good. It was actually comforting.

Slowly, the convulsions came to a halt. I was relieved when it was over. I always felt better after I finish puking for any reason. That might seem strange, but I'm pretty sure it's because of the radical difference between the pain of heaving your guts out and simply being ill. You don't actually feel better, but the comparison is enough to trick you into thinking otherwise. I relaxed a little bit, and the strange new warmth began to spread around me a bit. I was still quite worried, but the warmth was helping me to think in a more logical and less panicky manner. I didn't know why though, or even where it was coming from. I needed the strange comfort, so I decided to think about that later.

Okay, so I've apparently lost my eyes entirely. I have no idea where I am, or even what I am physically. I sat up and ran a hand over the top of my head. I could feel flexible pieces of the same substance my wings were made out of sticking up. They seemed to be fins or spikes of some kind. I need to set some priorities here. I began to form a list of things I needed to do in my head.

1. Figure out where I was
2. Figure out what I was
3. Figure out the rules of this game
4. Survive.
5. ….

Those became my priorities for the time being. I figured I would add to them as I progressed along from where I currently was. I pushed myself up and tried walking on two legs again. With my current numbness to pain (since any then was far less than that caused by retching) I was able to with little trouble. I took a few steps, but stumbled over a large rock I couldn't see and fell again.

“Well,” I announced to myself, “looks like I'll be going on all fours for now.” I picked a direction at random and started heading in it. I figured that since there was nobody near me I might as well move on. Maybe I could find someone to give me a little help.

As I trundled along the birds eventually faded into the background. I had to move fairly slowly due to obvious reasons. Feeling out each step took time. I certainly didn't want to walk off a cliff or something. That could only end in pain. I found that the ground had spots of grass, but mostly it was dirt. I guess I found a pretty big patch of grass. Most of these are really small. I thought to myself.

I kept going for a long time. Exactly how long I wasn't sure. There wasn't much of anything to help me determine how much time had passed. It began to be very tiring. Combine that with how much energy I had expended when I found out my eyes were gone, and you get a very exhausted person. It was then that I began to hear some voices off to my right.

“I still say we should check it out.” That one sounded feminine and young with a petulant tone.

“I've told you once, and I'll tell you again. No. We're hiding for a reason.” A frustrated voice replied, “A fire means that somepony or something is near, and we don't want to meet them.” This voice sounded older, but it was also feminine.

“Oh come on!” The younger voice whined, “It's been over a week since we got away. They can't still be following us. Let's go see what caused it.” I slowly moved closer to hear more of the conversation.

“NO!” I heard something stomp on the ground in emphasis. “We need to keep going. Once we're back to civilization we'll be home free, but until then we are not going out of our way for anything.” The older voice sighed, “If your father was here he wouldn't have any trouble getting you to listen to reason.”

As I continued forward my hand fell upon a bunch of leaves. They must be hiding in a bush or something. I concluded. The rustling caused both voices to fall silent. I must have startled them. I let out a sigh myself. Well, no time like the present. “Excuse me.” I spoke up, “Do either of you know where we are? I seem to have gotten lost.” Silence.

“Seriously? I know you're there. Come on, I have no intention of hurting you or anything. Don't worry.” I heard some rustling from the direction of the two voices I had heard. Plus there was some muttering between them. I didn't catch everything, but I got the distinct feeling that the younger one wanted to come out. The older one was much more cautious.

“I'm...” I began to call out again, but I stopped as I considered my name. If I was in some sort of game, could I give myself a new one? I considered my new appendages, plus some random sounds, before coming up with something to match. “I'm Siktral.” It might have sounded weird, but I enjoyed making up words. It was how I came up with a lot of my character names in video games.

Suddenly I heard a bounding noise and was hit by what felt like a small cloth-covered brick. “Oof!” I exclaimed, falling backwards. “What the heck?” I moaned after rubbing my chest where the projectile had hit me.

“Wow.” said the younger voice. It was right next to me now. “I've never seen a dragon like you before.” I felt something prodding me in the face. “Why do you look like that?”

Well, that's one mystery solved. I'm a dragon. While it was nice to know that, it certainly raised a lot more questions. I still didn't know where I was. Also, if I was a dragon then I couldn't be certain what these two people were either. Maybe they were dragons?

Before I could respond, however, the old voice was yelling, “Are you trying to get yourself killed?! We have no idea who-” The voice had been getting closer, but she stopped with a sudden gasp. It seemed that she was surprised by my appearance as well. I wondered what it was that made me different. I certainly didn't have any point of reference to use for this.

After sitting back up I flared out my wings a bit since they had gotten a little crimped from the fall. I heard an “Eep!” from the young voice. “Well,” I began, “now that you can see I'm not going to hurt you, could you tell me where I am? I'm somewhat lost.” My eyes were closed since I didn't want to freak out whoever was there with a gruesome sight. I was also still rubbing my chest a little. I guessed that part of me was a little more sensitive than my back.

As the older voice began stuttering, the younger one appeared to be more receptive to the idea of conversing with me. “I'm not sure,” she said perkily, “but we're going back to Equestria. It's south.” She was either a child or a simpleton with that attitude. The term Equestria struck a cord in my memory, but I wasn't completely sure what it was from.

I also considered what it meant that I was a dragon. I decided to give more appropriate names to portions of my anatomy mentally as I raised a claw to my chin thoughtfully. I couldn't properly converse with these people without knowing what they were. I could ask. I really hope they don't get offended by it. “So, what are you?” I asked, “I can't exactly tell without seeing you.”

That seemed to break the older one out of her shock. “Well, you could just open your eyes.” She humphed. I thought I heard her mutter “freak” somewhere in there, but I decided to ignore it. As impolite as she was being, I didn't want to run off my only current source of information.

I turned my head in her direction and kept as unreadable an expression as I could manage on my face. “That wouldn't help.” I replied carefully. I really needed to be conscientious here. People tend to fear that which they don't understand, and there are two general responses to something feared: fight or flight. I didn't want to have to deal with either. If they ran off I would be left with no source of information. If they attacked me I was probably going to lose. Being blind is a pretty big handicap. I wasn't even completely sure that I was 'looking' her in the face.

“What?” she asked, “Why not?” I really, really needed to be careful. It came to mind that there was another thing that can cause someone to attack you: weakness. Some people were just jerks. I now had the task of not appearing weak while at the same time not appearing overly dangerous. Still, there can be an attack from not seeming useful. I needed to make myself appealing as a resource. Hopefully not an expendable one.

Ugh, I thought to myself, I'm thinking way too much about this. I don't really have many options: Outright lie, partial lie, or truth. I figured I would go with the truth on this one. At least some of it without revealing all the details. “I'm blind.” I stated. I readied myself for an attack just in case. At this point I was now being poked by the smaller person as they circled me. It felt weird in both fact and feeling, but she seemed innocent enough. I was more worried about the older one.

She seemed to balk at this. “Oh.” She said quietly, “I-I'm sorry. I didn't know.” I looked like I was getting the sympathy card to play. This was a good thing. I relaxed somewhat. There was silence. She tried talking again, “So, um, why are you here?” I heard what sounded like a foot scuffing the ground. She was uncomfortable, but more in the sense of embarrassment for committing a social faux pas than out of fear.

I thought about that before answering truthfully, “I've been roped into playing a game.” It was completely true while maintaining a safety from being extremely vague. I knew it would confuse her, but I had decided now that she probably wouldn't attack just because she didn't understand me anymore. I attempted a smile, not knowing at all what it looked like.

“Huh?” I was right. She was now very confused. I had figured that would happen, though I had kind of hoped she might know what was going on. The next question was predictable and expected. “What game would you be playing out here?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” I replied, smiling even wider. I held up a hand. “And before you ask, no, I don't even know the rules. I just got dumped here and told to play it.” At this point the younger girl jumped on my back a wrapped her … arms … around my neck. That felt even weirder than when she had been poking me. I could feel the rest of her body on my neck. She was definitely very small compared to me, and her limbs seemed to end in a stiff material. I wasn't sure yet, but I got the distinct feeling from it that she was a quadruped of some kind.

I shook myself from my thoughts. “So,” I asked again, “what are you two?” While I had gained a little bit of knowledge from the conversation, I still didn't know what species they were. I figured just about anything was possible since I was a dragon. Even with that in mind, I really wasn't prepared for her answer.

“Oh, right. We're ponies.” She responded nonchalantly.

My reaction to that was given in a flat, unamused monotone. It was more of a statement than question: “What.”

Comments

[Mazamis]

Me gusta, get him those eyes before Griffin finds him stumbling around like a blind dragon... oh wait... also I like the fact that your character has a MAJOR weakness, it makes you not OP like the other... like seriously you're going to need someone to get eyes for you because if your supposed to go somewhere then there is no way in hell you're logically going to make it.

[Captain_Savage]

Yes! I like this one a whole lot better than most of the other chess game stories! I MUST HAVE MOAR!

[Liqwidice]

Oh, I can't wait for your next chapter. I can tell already that this is gonna be a good one. Please good sir. Might I have another?

[AppleTank]

805620
Unless he could figure out echolocation. Wait, that wouldn't help him read maps or compasses either.
Is he the only game piece to tell others that they're in a game?

[Mask]

Hmm,so he has to find some sort of food that will give him 360 vision? That actually sound pretty interesting. Keep up the good work!

[Glassed]

All tension I had for tomorrow's exam is gone now. Thank you kindly
-Glassed

[Cadmium]

I totally know what he needs to do but won't spoil it for those that want to figure it out alone!

(Hint: What do Dragons eat that has, in this world, magical qualities?)

[Forevermore]

This is fantastic. The premise alone of having a blind character is incredibly well-thought-out and well-done.

No real grammatical issues though I was a bit confused on the poem, it didn't flow correctly and sounded kind of chopped. Other than that, fantastic work!

[Ralfil]

805620
Thank you. I really didn't want a boring character that can do anything. Turns out that while this is a lot harder to write, it's also a lot more enjoyable.
806182
I appreciate your enthusiasm.
807433
Glad you think so. I'm working on the next chapter.
808952
Heheh. Yeah, Navigation is going to be interesting. I'm not sure on the letting others know about the game thing though. I haven't read all the other stories.
809776
You'll see...
And thank you.
809921
That makes me feel good inside. Always happy to help.
809944
You're a smart one, aren't you? However, you don't know exactly how it will be used and what side effects there will be.
828175
Thank you. On the poem: to be honest I made it up on the spot. I thought about working it over a bit more, but decided against it since the guy who says it is clearly insane anyways. He doesn't care about doing it quite right. Mostly I just didn't want to worry about it too much. Feel free to give me a different poem to replace it. If it works with the planed story I might just use it instead. Or I might fix it later on. Thank you for pointing out something I can improve on.
To quote someone's shirt I saw the other day:
Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

[Chewed Pencil]

828306

Lets see... Food that gives 360 vision... Dragons eat gems.... The older G1 Twinkle Eyed ponies have gems for eyes.... I think I see where you are going good sir... keep it up!

[Terra]

GIVE HIM DAREDEVIL VISION

[PieisGood4U]

We have know idea who----- Well that was a uncommon fault (No)

[Ralfil]

921347
Thank-you for pointing that out. It's fixed now.