djtenku | [writing] Project Chaos

Title: Hattori Taka
Word Count: 370
Summary: ...

Taka shivered violently, and sniffled – not out of sadness, but testing the air. It was cool, crisp, pure…and the aroma of pine. There was no sound except the whisper of the wind, at it was nerve-racking. They dropped me off in a forest, he said to himself with a knitted brow. What kind of training was this; to be dumped in the middle of nowhere and to be expected to survive a week, and to find the way back home?

The young teenager sighed. He only wore the thinnest white keikogi his mentors had for him and with no shoes; he promptly wiggled his toes and buried them into something compact and certainly cold. I’ll freeze to death. Taka wished for sight. From the day he knew he was blind, he wished and longed for it, even if for a few precious seconds. Sure, he was able to use his other senses; touch, feel, smell, taste, but sight…it was like missing half of a thousand-piece puzzle. The full spectrum of things were not there. As always, however, he sensed who was around, and what mood by speech alone, along with the general area.

But, it singled him out. No blind person shouldn’t be able to do that.

Off in, the distance, something howled. At least he wasn’t alone anymore. Taka closed his eyes and meditated on his previous training.

All living things use energy, no matter how small the amount. All living things have energy…

Something within shattered and Taka opened his white eyes as colors started to phase in. Tall white columns rose from the light blue floor, in sparse numbers. Trees. To the side of them, was a silver ellipse overlapping the blue; curious, the thin boy wandered towards it and knelt at the edge. He saw a faint reflection staring back at him, mildly surprised – his own face.

Taka sat back for a moment. He had sight, or at least a form. He wanted to celebrate, but his task was survival now. He gazed around, and found vague indentations in the ground other than his own. Could they lead back home? Perhaps; Hattori Taka followed them, comforted by the fact that he could now see.