3
Dispatch → Account → Drama
Eyes
You are one of two leaders at the head of the Allied Populists Syndicate. You will never see again.Incredibly unlucky. You always have been, but this takes the cake. A grenade hurled at your best friend. You, hurling yourself in front of the blast. Your eyes, stabbed with debris. Irreparably damaged.
The world becomes labyrinthine. Places that once were familiar become minefields. The empty space in front of you is always an abyss. You do not have the sight to look into the abyss. Only the legs to walk. And you always try to walk. Where you expect there to be nothing, the edges of tables gouge at your shins. Finding your way into the room you intended to go into is never a blessing.
Everywhere you go you hear goading voices amongst your ranks. Whispers that you are unfit to lead. Oh, poor him. Oh, we ought to send him away. There's no place here for him anymore. It's no place for a blind man to be. Your blood boils. Your blood is all you can feel. Blood shifts through your entire body.
Pieter Van Lievenoogen. The man you took a grenade for. Your best friend. The face of your organization. He tries his best to dispel the voices, he says that he knows you, that they owe it to you to keep you around. As if you can't speak for yourself. But you understand what he says, you care about him. He cares for you.
The wounds are still fresh, and you are still hiding. The Dux does not allow political movements. You have resorted to violence to make yourself heard. For the people. But, you are hiding. You need help. Pieter helps you. He is not a doctor, but he is a good man. He wakes you before dawn and helps you dress. Some days, you hold your arms in the air and he will dress you himself. Other days, he will hand you your clothes and direct you to put them on. You dislike the former. But you do not see the point in the latter. He leads you to the canteen and helps you make a dirty soda. It's sweet.
He will guide you around the complex and try and help you memorize it. The smells help you more than anything. You know where the printing press is because it smells of ink. You know where the workshop is because it smells of rock dust. You know where the restroom is because it smells. That's what you tell Pieter. He laughs.
Pieter quizzes you on the most mundane of things. Sixty grit or seventy grit sandpaper? This magazine or that magazine? He'll always place something unexpected into your hands and ask you what it is. Lightbulb, plate, shell.
He convinces everyone in the complex to make it easier for you to live there. There's always some project or another going on, to make you happy. He tells them it is demonstrating how they will provide for everyone according to their needs in the new world. You think he is just trying to be helpful. Always helpful, a great leader. A great man.
Pietre will sit by your bedside and help you read sightless script. He will guide your hand to turn the pages of workbooks. He says you are his best friend, that it will always be him and you. That he will never leave you in one million years.
Your blood boils. You can hear it thrash in your inner ears. Sometimes, you think you hear his heartbeat.
You are Titus Rault. You wish he died that day.