Gray Hollows is always the same. There are no special occasions that bring at least a drop of happiness. Just a grayscale. Everyone’s eyes are limited from seeing most colors. We are like zombies, but aim lower. That’s us. Colors aren’t the only thing we don’t view. Depending on genes, we are limited from seeing one part of the human face, that either being eyes, nose, mouth, or ears. We can always see hair, but it all looks like a different shade of grey from our point of view. But not for the Seekers.
Seekers are born with vision that is all seeing. They can see everyone’s face in its entirety. They can see color too. They get to enjoy life as it is, as long as they don’t get caught being a Seeker. They are forbidden from Gray Hollows and are subjected to execution for being all seeing.
Well, Reese has one problem. Sometimes the Seekers in the family go by generation. Not always, but they did this generation and fate made Reese the one.
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“Father, why do Seekers exist? Why couldn’t we have everyone be the same?” Reese asked his father at the supper table the night of the full moon.
“Well, I don’t know, son. That’s just how it is, I suppose, but if you are ever associated with a Seeker, you better tell me so I can put an end to it.” his father replied with little emotion but Reese could tell he meant what he said.
Reese was one in a million really. He stared at his father intently, able to see all of his face, and his brown hair and blue shirt. The rest of his family was sight-seeing, which means that they could see everything but someone’s eyes, which could be proven as inconvenient, at least more inconvenient than sound-seeing. Sound-seeing can be pretty neat looking in Reese's opinion.
“Mother, can we lock Reese in the closet again?” Piper, Reese’s little sister asked before she stuffed her mouth with mashed potatoes.
“Piper!” their mother scolded. “That was one time sweety. That was one time when we all agreed that we didn’t want to see Reese and one time only. Plus, honey,” Reese’s mother peered at his father, “you won’t have to end it because someone else can end it on New Years.”
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I felt violated at that point. I still didn’t quite understand what I did to deserve being locked in the closet. All I know is that my family was a bit too eager to shut me in the darkness that fateful night. Piper groaned at her mother’s response and left her chair. I went back to eating. Sometimes, I just wished I was normal. And if everyone else knew I was different, they would too. And I mean everyone.
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Three Days Earlier
I was shaking when I entered my school building on Monday, June twenty-third. I gripped my school bag with anticipation but also petrifying fear at the same time. I was glaring around for no reason, peering at the eyeless students walking around the socially awkward kid in the middle of the hallway. Something seemed off. Something always seemed off. Maybe I was just siking myself out at that point.
I felt the faint blare of the bell pound on my eardrum and my heart jumped out of my chest. It was kind of ironic, being that my heart jumped out of my chest and then stopped completely for a few seconds. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t help but start running to the bathroom, an impulse that I had had ever since I was little, the impulse action when I felt like throwing up. I practically kicked the bathroom door open and went for the closest stall to my right. My eyes hurt from looking at the blinding white all around me and stung from hovering my head over a toilet bowl. Good times.
Ten minutes that felt like an eternity went by and I clutched my stomach. In that moment, my stomach was like a tube of toothpaste that you were trying to get that last little bit of substance out of. I started giving myself gagging thoughts so this hell could end.
“Fuck me.”
I stalk into the similar blinding white, empty hallway and stumble toward my locker, still trying to shake off that last bit of sickness in my chaotic stomach. I could feel my jaw locking up and I was freezing under the air conditioning. For some weird and unexplainable reason, my school building kept the air conditioning on year-round. Even in the cold, harsh winters where it is one hundred percent unreasonable. Kids would go home screaming and crying because of the hypothermia, which they caught from just being present in the school building.
Kids would have to wear heavy and bulking fur coats and winter jackets all day. I had, of course, forgotten my patten leather, fur-lined coat that I would have to wear everyday. My eyes were still hurting and the pain was getting unbearable at that point. I just wanted to claw my eyes out, it hurt so bad. I rushed back into the bathroom and stared into the soul of my reflection, watching my eyes as the pain became more intense. I blink hard a few times. There was a transparent, liquid leaking from behind my eye, coming from the eye socket. I tugged down on my lower eyelid, seeing the liquid starting to gush now, spilling out onto the sink and mixing with the sink water and soap, creating gray toned suds.
The pain was getting a bit better now, but the liquid just kept coming. My vision began to blur, as my face became clearer and clearer. And the liquid became less and less gray. It became colorful. The suds had splashes of red, green, and purple. It was, frankly, beautiful. But the situation and the sight became ugly when I realized what this meant. I was a seeker. And I needed to figure out how I was going to get out of this alive.