Free About the Dark by helenrena

About the Dark
     
    I stood looking at the corner of the room through
Fox’s eyes, yes, because mine were useless—as blind as a bat’s. I
could, however, see what other people looked at, and right now,
that other person was Fox, only he was looking up, at the spot
where the green cement walls met the green cement ceiling, and I
needed him to look down. I pulled on his chin. After we both
studied the floor for a while, he kissed my temple, and this time,
besides seeing the corner, he saw me as well. A white-haired girl
in a long white dress. A very unhappy-looking girl.
    He smiled (I felt his lips curve against my
skin). “You can do it, Ever.”
    I didn’t believe him, but I nodded. Took a
deep breath. Then, squeezing my fists hard, I sprinted ahead,
toward the corner. When I was an arm-length away from it, I leaped
up and pushed off the wall with my left foot. This propelled me
higher, although by far not as high as I wished. I pushed off with
my right foot, and as I was flying up, I arched backward, trying to
do a flip and land on my feet, but the momentum was just not there.
And so I began falling, my dress flapping, my arms and legs
flailing, and my white hair zooming upward like a cloud around my
head. Fox caught me three feet above the ground.
    “Brilliant!” He laughed. “You didn’t miss my
arms!”
    “It’s not funny, Fox,” Demi snapped behind
us. “It’s pathetic. Ever can’t do anything!”
    “Demi,” Sinna, who stood beside her, said
with a mild rebuke in his voice, “you are exaggerating about Ever.
She can—”
    “She can’t. She’s weak. And puny. And
pathetic.” Demi stomped her foot with such force it shook our
entire bookstore. I mean, technically, it wasn’t a bookstore any
more—it was our prison—but it used to be. Fifteen years ago. A
small bookstore on the second floor of a sprawling suburban mall. I
bet it’d been a nice cozy shop with beautiful bookshelves and cushy
armchairs and maybe even a few small coffee tables. The green walls
peeking from behind this furniture had accentuated its rich wooden
tones and made it so inviting that people had come in here often.
They’d browsed the books; they’d drunk their coffee. Some of them
might have even been teenagers like us. I didn’t know if those
teens had drunk any coffee. We certainly hadn’t. We’d mostly been
learning how to fight and jump and whatnot, hoping to escape this
cement hole that looked like a dark green apocalypse because our
guards had taken out the shelves and the chairs and the coffee
tables. We’d also read a lot (because the guards had left the
books). And bickered. And since not too long ago Fox and I had also
kissed a little. And Sin and Demi had kissed a lot.
    Demi stomped again. “We’ve been training for
years. So that when we get a chance to escape, we’d be able to take
it. But Ever is just friggin’ useless. She—”
    “Ahem,” Fox said loudly, and when Demi looked
at him, he gave her a dazzling smile. “Dem, do you happen to
remember that Ever is my life, and I—”
    “And you’re a melting piece of Jell-O around
her? Yes, I recall something like that.”
    Fox smiled even wider. “No, actually, I was
going to say that I’m here to address all the grievances you might
have with her. So you think she’s useless? Well, that’s a shiny
thought. You can stick it—”
    Sinna waved his arms at them. “Please, calm
down. There is no need for this conflict. Since Ever is visually
impaired, it is only natural that jumping is hard for her.”
    I think he kept on talking, but I didn’t
listen—I stepped closer to Demi, my five feet against her 6’3. I
was shaking. “Yes, you’re right. I am puny, and I can’t do
anything. I can’t walk. I can’t talk. But hey, why is it all about
me? How about we talk about things you can’t do? Like for
example, for all your strength, you can’t get us out of this
hellhole. You can’t kill our guards. You can’t even win a game of
blind