One Shot- Dark to Light

One Shot- Dark to Light

In the depth of the night, one could barely see anything, be it anything dull or anything bright. For Sandra, it was not even that. Her curse did not let her see anything, let alone barely. She was cursed with night blindness or what she fondly called, the doom of the night. As darkness befell upon her, she went blind to the world. Friends her age enjoyed rebelling, sneaking out of their rooms to go for parties or simply reading books under the cover while she could only and only stare into the darkness.

The nightingale on the tree next to her window crooned a soft melody. It was her only route to peace of mind at this time of the day. She sat there listening to the nightingale sing one tune after the other, never getting bored. It was always the same routine but she just sat there, listening awestruck and just like every other night, her eyes closed and she fell asleep, the song of the nightingale still ringing in her subconscious mind.

She dreamed of a prince, someone who was a recurring character in her dreams. It was always the same figure, the same face, only the setting differed. Sometimes, it was an abandoned castle, sometimes a majestic palace and sometimes by a well in the forest. When she saw his face, she remembered who he was but when she woke up, she always forgot the face, no matter how hard she tried to recollect it. But when she saw him, she always knew she was dreaming.

He was always kind to her and she enjoyed these dreams as much as she enjoyed being able to see things in the morning after being blind for many long hours. Not that the world was unkind to her. She had a set of perfectly loving parents, friends who would come to her help at the drop of a hat and a brother who never fought with her for anything and always gave in to her demands. It was every girl's dream life. Parents never scolding them, friends who would never go behind their back and a brother who wasn't annoying, who wouldn't want that? Guess what, she didn't. She wanted to feel everything. The pain, the happiness when that pain was gone, the ups, the downs, and everything which wouldn't make her feel like a handicap.

Her prince gave it to her. He wasn't a prince with all the airs and graces; he was simply a guy who had been born into royalty. Whenever her dream took her to places without castles and palaces, she found herself enjoying it much more. He treated her like a princess but he treated her like an ordinary girl. Even in their fights, she found happiness and when she woke up, it was all a dream.

Waking up to this thought just like any other day, she saw the time and groaned, realizing that she had overslept once again. This was the third time in the month and she wasn't happy with herself. She hated her body's habit of sleeping longer when she slept early. 'Her body clock was definitely weird,' she agreed with herself.

Knowing she could still get to school on time, she quickly brushed her teeth, changed her clothes and doused herself with perfume, quickly writing a note about how she had to take a bath and stuck it on the cupboard, among the thousand other notes. She picked up a cup of noodles and a bottle of water and threw them into her bag, running to school which was a few blocks away.

She was panting by the time she reached the locker room but gave herself a pat on the back when she saw that she reached two minutes early. When she entered the classroom with her books, she saw her friends already indulged deeply in conversation with some guy. She took her seat next to Claire and tapped on her shoulder to let her know that she was here. After some hushed introductions, it was time for the class to begin as the teacher entered the classroom.

Their Wednesday began with History and ended with Literature, two subjects which she loved with her whole heart. As the teacher introduced Jake to everyone, she also added a few words of praise about how he excelled in Literature. She was surprised since her teacher never praised anyone except her. After some classes with him, she realized he was a reflection of her own soul, and she did not like it. She did not like it at all.

She felt like all the light in her life was being snatched from her, once again. Except, this was not at night, this was in broad daylight. Her nights grew happy and her days, her bright days grew more miserable with passing time. She found salvation in her dreams much more than she did earlier.

Her mind taunted her about how she wanted the pain but her heart refused to accept that she wanted it. At times, when she was alone at her table, she wanted to do nothing more than pick up a knife and cut her wrist.

She didn't know how it had come to this. Didn't she ask for pain? Didn't she ask for the happiness that came after that? And why did she feel like this? Was this how normal people felt? These questions swirled around in her head but with no one to share it with, she felt like her head was becoming heavier and heavier and she would collapse under the weight. One day, she really did.

It was in another one of the history periods when she truly lost it. Her mind was spinning and all of a sudden, she was in the forest again.

Her face lit up as she thought of her prince and how he always made her feel happy. He appeared from behind her and suddenly started shouting at her, accusing her of being one of the most horrible women he had ever come across and accusing her of much more in the 15 minutes he was there, leaving her there, crying her eyes out.

She felt someone shaking her body vigorously. Opening her eyes, she saw Jake standing next to her bed. His voice was soft as he called out her name twice or thrice. The pity in his voice helped surge unknown emotions in her. She opened her eyes and as they opened, they were steely and cold. And out of the blue, she gathered all her strength and pushed him away with all her might, leaving him startled. He glared at her, although a little alarmed and was about to say something but just then, the nurse came in and his eyes immediately went from angry to warm.

The nurse told him to take her to the gates of the school. Reluctantly, he agreed to do so. She protested but it fell on deaf ears.

As he supported her out of the room, she could feel her insides burning with rage and emotions which she had never felt before. Jealousy and hatred were as new to her as it was to a new born baby but she felt like the shoulder where his hand was would go up in flames any time now and it was painful for her to even stand next to him. To her, he had snatched all her precious belongings, her perfect life, her perfect friends and her perfect dream. He was who she used to be to them and she hated him for that. He had barged in and had dislodged the ground underneath her.

'So this is how it feels.' She grimaced. She never thought she would feel hatred for anyone, especially as strong as this. Every fiber of her being wanted to be away from him and never look at his face again. She felt like she would kill him anytime now. It was physically painful for her to stand next to him without saying something cutting at him or maybe even get down to physical violence. So she did the only thing she could do without doing much harm to herself.

She suddenly pushed his hand off her shoulder to receive another glare from him and started walking away.

"What the heck is your problem? I'm not dying to help you. I'm trying to be your classmate but you being an arrogant, stubborn female dog isn't helping one bit." He lashed out at her in the middle of the walk as soon as she shook off his hand.

"Of course, the perfect student, the perfect friend, you just have to steal all the limelight, don't you?" she taunted him, her voice sharp and the rudeness in her voice, unhidden.

"Excuse me? I stole your limelight? What are you even on about? Take yourself to a doctor!" he retaliated.

"I have to go to a doctor anyway. Fancy rubbing more salt on the wound, eh?" she told him, her voice becoming less sharper by the minute.

"So now you're going to wallow in self pity for your night blindness." He stated, not questioning anything for one second, "I have an advice for you. You are blind at night, not in the morning. I have the same problem, if you didn't guess by now, but then, you were busy being jealous so how would you know, right?"

She was left speechless and she hadn't loathed herself more than she did now. She was feeling guilty. That was a first. In a day, this boy had her experience so many unknown emotions, emotions she had never experience in the fourteen years of her life. Now, she was eager to know more about life on the other side, the side without pity.

She sat in the gardens, the grass feeling soft against her legs and pulled him down to sit beside her as well. Her fourteen years of curiosity got the better of her and she immediately started shooting questions at him. Puzzled at first, he soon adjusted to her demeanor.

The first sign that it had been too long was the signs of dusk arising. The skies were red, orange, yellow, blue and many more colors and this rang warning bells in Sandra's mind. She kept repeating in her mind about how they wouldn't be able to see now. These were the last colors she saw every day before she was completely consumed by the darkness, even if temporarily. But Jake seemed unfazed about the darkness. Soon, she couldn't see but could hear only his voice, the voice reminding her of a certain nightingale. After she finally decided that it was time to go home, she stood up but started panicking that she couldn't see anything.

She suddenly saw a beam of light in front of her and could barely see that Jake was standing up. He brought something in front of her and in the light, she could see it was a rose but it seemed black though she strongly felt that it was white, white for the new friendship she could feel developing in her blood and white for all the good things in her life.

She took the currently black rose from him and kept it in her hand throughout the journey, wanting to see the color first thing after she reached the house, knowing that after reaching the light, the black would turn white.

She reached her home with only the white light in front of her and the hand which was leading her to the light.

Her vision was much clearer now that the fog in front of her eyes was replaced by bright light and a helping hand to guide her through the fog and onto the right path. The hand wasn't fast, it wasn't slow. It was at the exact same pace as hers.

The four highlighted words were the words given to me upon which I had to base the one shot. The genre is supposed to be angst. This challenge was caused by a lost bet. I don't really know how it turned out though since my long stuff is much worse than my drabbles. Anyway, ciao.

Ananya