To Make A Blind Man See And A Seeing Man Blind

To Make A Blind Man See And A Seeing Man Blind

“It's that time again.” Nathaniel said to no one as he sat up off his bed and stared out the window thoughtfully. His hand came up to his face and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. After sitting there for a few more minutes he got up off the bed and walked down the darkened hallway to his brother's room. His brother Ben was in his bed, breathing softly just as Nathan had been. “Ben,” He said. "I going to go out for a while."

His brother showed no signs of life except for the steady rise and fall of his chest. The only sounds in the room was the repetitive beep of the heart monitor and the mechanical buzz of the various life support machines hooked up to the older boy. Ben had been in a deep coma for a little over three years. He'd been taken away by a rare disorder that took away his sight and his mind. He had slipped into a coma only a couple of months after being diagnosed. Nathan subconsciously knew Ben would never wake up, but he stubbornly refused to let him go.

He forced a hopeful grin. "I promise I'll fix you. I will give you your sight back. It'll help you. I know it will.".

"I'll be back soon." He stood up and grabbed his suitcase. It was a plain black case, nothing fancy. Nathan always kept it with him, it carried his tools. He stopped at the doorway and looked back at Ben one last time before leaving the apartment

The night air was chilly but his long coat protected him from the cold. He tightened his grip on the suitcase and headed off toward the rougher side of the city where police and kindly people where hardly found. It was always easiest to take down victims there. He tried his best to stick to the shadows. When he turned down a dark narrow alleyway only to hesitate when he heard voices coming from the shadows. His eyes zeroed in on a group of men in the middle of the alley standing around an unseen person. Nathan turned to leave until he caught a glimpse of the person being assaulted. It was a man about his age. He had scruffy brown hair and tanned skin. But what caught his attention the most were his eyes. They were such a bright striking shade of blue that they couldn’t have possibly been real. Those blue eyes locked with Nathan’s for an instant before he fell to the ground when one of the men punched him in the stomach.

He to a deep breath and walked up to the group of men. "Hey. Step aside."

The men turned around and looked at him in annoyance. "Stay out of our business. This little b**ch needs to learn his place." He kicked the brunette in the stomach, making him curl up in pain.

Nathan casually clicked open the suitcase and pulled out his scalpel. It was dark in the alley the men didn't see the weapon until it was too late. Nathan lunged at the closest one. The man let out a sharp cry of surprise that was cut off quickly when the small blade sliced across his throat. He fell to the ground lifeless and the others took that as their cue to run. Nathan knew he didn't have much time,he had probably drawn a lot of attention and the police could show up any second. He sat the scrawny man up against the wall and shook him. "Are you still alive, i***t?”

The mans blue eyes were half lidded and clouded with pain but, he seemed to understand and gave a small nod before closing his eyes. Nathan checked his breathing and pulse, making sure he wasn’t in any immediate danger. Then, he turned to the dead man lying a few feet away and gripped his scalpel tighter. 'Let's not let him go to waste.’

Dakota groaned and tried to stretch, but stopped when pain shot through every part of his body. 'What the...?' He slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a rather plain looking living room . The walls were painted light blue to match the color of the curtains and the carpet. He noticed there were clean bandages on the parts of his body the ached. 'okay, so I was walking home in that sketchy part of town, then some guys cornered me on my way home...' He scrunched his eyebrows in concentration. 'What happened after that? Everything's in a fog.'

The door to the room opened and a man walked in. He had dark hair and looked to be somewhere around the same age as himself . The stranger looked at him and smiled. "So you're awake?"

Dakota cleared his throat nervously. "Where am I?"

"My apartment." The man sat down at the edge of the bed. "I saw you being beaten up in an alley last night and kindly brought you here for some medical treatment ent."

"Oh. Then thanks, I guess." He said. "Who are you?"

“Nathaniel Briggs, Nathan’s fine. And you are?"

"Dakota Sheridan." Dakota reached out to shake Nathaniel’s hand and missed the first try. He landed the second and gave, what he hoped, was a good solid handshake.

‘How do you miss a handshake?’ He said, feeling more and more like an i***t with every passing second.

Nathan pulled a small bottle of pills, Tylenol, from his pocket. "Here, this should help." Dakota took them and swallowed two without water.

"Thanks. For everything. I wasn’t expecting anyone to help.”

"Did you call for help?" Nathan asked.

Dakota shook his head. "No. I can usually fight guys like that on my own. I mean, it's not like I'm weak or anything but, there were quite a few and well, you know the rest.”

Nathan nodded in understanding. “You should be more careful when you’re out at night. It’s dangerous nowadays.”

"Why would it be...oh yeah, there's some killer on the loose right? You'd think the police would have caught him by now. What was his name again? Eyesnatcher." He remembered how the killings had stared around three years ago. The victims of the killer were always found killed in all kinds of ways from being stabbed to being poisoned. But one thing they all had in common was that their eyes were cut out.

Nathaniel looked at Him and smiled. "But you're okay. You're safe with me."

Nathan stood up to leave. “I’ve got something to do, you can leave whenever.”

When he left, leaving Dakota alone in the quiet room he looked around and found the remote. He picked it up and turned it onto the news.

"Another victim of the Eyesnatcher was found last night..." The reporter was saying. He turned up the volume. "The victim has been identified as forty-two year old Matthew Wade. He was found in this alleyway with his throat cut and his eyes missing. Evidence at the scene shows that there were others present. No other bodies have been found at this time.”

Dakota furrowed his brow when the victim's face was shown on the screen. "That's the guy that messed with me on my way home...”

The reporter continued, "We'll have more information after the break." Dakota jumped when Nathan came back into the room. He stared at the tv then slowly looked at Dakota.

Dakota spoke slowly. "Nathan ...when you found me last night...did you..."

"Are you wondering if I saw the killer?" Nathan asked calmly. "Or are you asking me if I am the killer?"

“I’m asking what happened.” He said cautiously.

"I fought those guys who were messing with you and they backed off. Then I took you back to my place. The killer must have struck after we left." Nathan chuckled softly. "Do I really look like a homicidal maniac to you?"

“Well I’ve got somewhere to be…” Dakota said, trailing off. He stood up, walking towards the door. “Thanks for your help, I guess I’ll see you around.”

Nathan smiled, his body tensed just a fraction , signaling he was preparing for

action, and he advanced upon the departing boy. He held his scalpel in his hand and, just like the day before, maybe even countless beforehand, he drug the blade across Dakota’s throat from behind.

Nathan got to work, using a small pair of scissors he dissected the tissues and retractors that held back the eyelid. Then he attached sutures to each of the six muscles, then sliding a slotted spoon down into the orbit, he pushed the eye out of the way and carefully cut the optic nerve, severing the eye from the cavity completely.

He repeated this process with the other eye and headed to his brothers room to insert them into Ben’s sockets.

After his work was complete he stepped back, examining his brother and the equipment for any changes. After the last pair had failed he was getting impatient and performed the surgeries in quick succession, practically back to back. This time he had a feeling, as soon as he saw the eyes he had suspected

they would be the winning pair. Even so he tried out the thugs eyes to be safe and it turned out to be a waste of his time.

Nothing immediately changed,but he figured he would wait a while before confirming anything. He proceeded to his bedroom and slept, eagerly awaiting the results he knew tomorrow would bring.

Nathan flipped through file cabinet to his latest patients files, Martha Sherry. The last few months he’s had were tiring ,but all his work had paid off. He was now juggling his work and Ben’s therapy. Until Ben is fully recovered, he decided, he wouldn’t let his condition be public.

As he was looking through the files he came across a familiar name. Dakota. Pulling it out further he realized at once it was indeed Dakota Sheridan. Curiosity engulfed him and he discreetly slipped Dakota’s file into Mary’s.

Returning to his office he set slipped the hidden file out and leaned back in his chair, reading the information it held.

The first thing that caught his eye was the last date he had been examined. The day they had met and Nathan had killed him. He felt little remorse at that thought ,but the date was not included in his regular physicals. He grabbed the paper and discarded the rest on his desk.

‘ Patient’s peripheral and nighttime vision has regressed even more rapidly since last exam. Recently color perception has diminished. Patient will take an eye exam and report back in two weeks before we make any final conclusions.’

Nathan knew what these symptoms are. It was the same way his brother lost eyesight as a result of his disorder. Dakota obviously had the same retinal degeneration, which meant he had just restarted his brother on the path to a second coma.

‘ Everything was fine! Why is this happening now? I just got him back and the world is going to take him from home again!’

Nathan left the office without a word to his superiors, he could deal with them later, right now he could only think about getting to his brother, madness gripped him tightly with all the possible ways his brother could end up. He had gotten a new apartment, bigger, so that Ben could have room for therapy. The only downside was it was a bit farther away from his office, so he had to take the bus.

When Nathan arrived at his apartment everything seemed surreal, slipping past all the people crowding in the lobby, running up the stairs because the elevator took to long to arrive, and last of all?

Opening the door to his apartment to see his brother

lying motionless

on the floor.

Dead.

.

“ And now, with the lasted, most up to date news, a chilling story of what a woman found when she went into her neighbor’s apartment.

Two dead men, one without eyes, the other with a pair seemingly halfway reattached and another pair lying on the apartment floor. Is this the work of the Eyesnatcher? Are we not even safe in our own homes? We will update you on the story when more information is announced. That concludes our top story.”