"So, um, I'm not sure when I started seeing the light everywhere. I was like twelve when I realized that not everyone could see it," Alexa was still sitting on Sarah's floor, legs stretched out. Her voice was quiet, low, but steady. Her face seemed calm too, as though she wasn't blind and deaf and sitting in some stranger's bedroom. Sarah was still bunched up against the wall, she hadn’t moved even though her breathing was slowing back down.

"I still remember the first time I realized it - my older brothers were talking about some space movie and how awesome it looked. I watched it and said something about how they didn't do the fog very well. Which of course led to some confusion, the movie didn't have fog, and there isn’t any fog in space, but my brothers thought maybe I meant that the movie should have had fog or something, and then they made me watch a bunch of stupid movies that did have fog and then they talked about that for a week.

"And because my brothers are jerks, I just dropped it and didn't talk about it anymore. I thought maybe I just had some eye problems, but I always got twenty-twenty when I got my physicals so I decided it just didn't matter. I remember once getting a bit excited hearing some psychic talk about auras, but as soon as she talked about the different colors around people I realized I wasn't doing that."

Alexa paused, she tilted her head up to the ceiling, "Huh, maybe it does mean something. I haven't thought about that in years. I mean, you kinda had a yellow aura in here, and Finn had a teal aura in his hospital room. So maybe the colors do mean something.

"Anyways, some of us from school went camping at the end of the school year. I guess that was only a few months ago, but it feels like longer. We joked it was our Twilight trip, cause we were out in the Oregon boonies by the coast. Have you read it? It's great, I'm really looking forward to the next one. Anyways, I'd never been out there before. I've mostly just lived here, and even when we go on a trip it's always to some other city. Like Disneyland and stuff.

"The light was so bright, so thick. It was incredible, Mrs. Bianchi's room is the only place around here I know of that feels close to that. But there, I felt like I could taste the Qi, roll it up in my fingers, and chew it. And I reached out and pulled it into my hands. And before I could blink the woods were all tinged purple and I had this incredible vivid green ball in front of me. And then I couldn't see anything at all. That was the first time I went blind.

"Did you hear about it? I know the girls talk about it. I panicked and called out, I think I scared some of them, but I got my vision back soon enough. When it came back, the green glowing light was still there, but it had sorta diffused some. I spent an hour or so watching it fade away. I did it again on the drive home. The ball was just outside the car that time, but it flowed along with us, passing right through cars and fences as we drove along. I didn't panic at being blind that time, I was just a passenger so I just rested my head back like I was napping until my sight came back.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"I've done it a bunch since then, and each time I go blind. It's stupid, it's not like the green balls do anything, but sometimes it's like I can't help myself. I see the white glowing QI and I know I can do something with it, that it's important, but I can't do anything with it. I guess I’m starting to get used to it."

Sarah tried to interrupt, "Why do you call it that? Qi?"

Alexa was still deaf, "The girls told my parents and they took me to a doctor who told them I probably had a concussion, never mind that I hadn't hit my head on anything. Honestly, I think I had decided to just ignore it as best I could, and if I ever felt compelled to touch the Qi I'd make sure to do it when I was alone and it didn't matter if I could see for a few minutes."

Alexa stopped talking. She just rested her head against the wall, looking like she could sit there all day. Sarah, however, couldn't. She'd been shifting back and forth as Alexa went on. Sarah stood up, and Alexa held up a hand as Sarah moved closer.

She had said not to touch her, but Sarah needed some way to communicate if even a little bit. So Sarah took Alexa's hand with a firm motion. She tapped it five times and then patted it against the ground, saying "I'll be five minutes, just stay here."

Alexa said, "Five sit. Sure. I wasn't going anywhere."

And with that, Sarah slipped from the room. She hadn't left her room since she'd woken up in the morning, and some needs pressed a bit more than a nosy girl. She took her time, used the toilet, brushed her teeth, and even put on a bit of fresh deodorant. She probably didn't need that, she'd showered right before she'd gone to bed, after all. But still.

Her mind kept drifting back to Alexa waiting in her room. She hadn't invited the girl over, but she'd not only come to the hospital, she'd come to her home in the morning and practically forced her way into Sarah's room. And Sarah couldn't even kick her out, since her mom would be super mad to find Sarah alone. Never mind that there wasn't any real risk of Sarah falling unconscious again.

So Alexa was here. Sarah looked at herself in the mirror. Blue eyes, although they always looked washed out by her too-pale skin. Her mom always said she'd tan if she ever got sun, but Sarah avoided going outside as much as possible. Her muddy brown hair fell straight down. At least it usually did, at the moment there were some patches that shot off sideways or hung in a matted tangle. She'd looked like that all morning! Sarah scrabbled for a brush and began working the morning's tangles out. She'd dribbled some toothpaste spatters onto her shirt too, showing white and crusty against the dark fabric. But nothing she could do about that.

Sarah rolled her head around her neck, stretching a little bit. She'd like to hide longer, but Alexa would probably come looking for her as soon as the girl could see again. Might as well just go back.