He carried me out of the forest when I was ready, and trust me, that took a long time to happen. I felt like I was about to drown, I couldn't stop gasping for breath. He had to keep hugging and assuring me, "I'm here," and I didn't have the guts to say, "So fucking what if you're here? I just lost my sight." I knew he was trying his best. And I knew that nobody's best was going to be enough for a while. So I let him carry me out, cutting the chokes and sobs down to one per minute for both of our sakes.

I wanted to wrap my arms around his shoulders to support myself, but couldn't get my arms to reach high enough. So I resorted to clinging weakly to a small part of his hoodie, closing my eyes and burying my face as often as I could. He clearly wasn't taking a regular path out, otherwise he would have made a good few turns on the way. He was walking straight through the trees, maybe some even disappeared when he got too close just to clear the way. We didn't talk. We didn't even try. My head started to pound and my ears were ringing with an old song. I tightened my grip on his sweater.

Big girls don't cry.

"Uh, what are you doing...?"

I flinched as another voice came closer and closer to us—somebody I recognized from one of my classes. My mind started to race with terrible possibilities.

No, no, he shouldn't see me like this, if he tells any students or god forbid a professor I'm going to have to tell them I—

"She was lying unconscious on the forest floor. I'm bringing her back to her house, over on the other side of campus." Jack, bless his soul, tried to sound all noble and professional with this stranger, and I tugged on the patch of his sweater that I'd cried into.

"I'm not unconscious, Jack," I said, my voice barely able to carry, even in the quiet night air. "And you can put me down now. I can walk there myself."

"I'm not so sure about that. It's just a couple more minutes, let me take you home. I'll leave you alone after, if that's what you want."

"I'm gonna have to side with old...Nichols, isn't it?" The guy said, ever so oblivious. "Yeah, Leigh Pomerantz told me about you. Listen, if you want to party more, best do it in your own room. It's getting pretty late, and you don't look like you'd get very far walking anywhere."

I would've laughed at this another time, but somebody mistaking me for a drunk partygoer didn't seem as funny to me right now. He said it with all the confidence a fraternity guy could muster from his soul—and his little comment of "Leigh told me about you" didn't hit me so great, either. I mouthed "yeah" and nodded, making sure my eyes fell half-closed to sell the image. Might as well have gone along with it.

"See, somebody here's making sense. You need sleep, trust me." Jack took a step sideways like he was making to go, when the other guy started talking again.

"Where'd you two come from, anyway? Costume party? Your makeup is fucking sick, let me tell you that."

"What do you—" Jack paused when he realized that sick was supposed to mean good. "Oh. Um, yeah, thanks. We should probably go. Bye." The words came out rushed and a bit choppy, but the other guy didn't seem to notice.

"Take care of yourselves, yeah? Stay safe," he called.

"Will do," Jack muttered, sounding just a tiny bit annoyed. Despite myself, I singsonged, "theatre kid..." and could feel him shake his head.

"You humans are impossible."

"Yeah, we know."

—

I took a sick week.

Strangely enough, the first thing that came to my mind after waking up from my 12-hour power nap was to email my professors and tell them I wouldn't be able to make it to class. For how long, I had no idea, but I told them a week. Those emails were the most I communicated with anyone for a good few days, the rest of my time being spent wandering my house with a hand on the wall at all times to keep me steady. My head would snap up at the slightest noise, my hands flinching away from anything that brushed my skin when I didn't expect it. I quickly realized blindness could turn your life into a nightmare; I relied so heavily on how much I saw, hell, that was what my entire career had been built upon. And now my life's work was all for nothing.

Oh, sure, maybe there were blind doctors somewhere out in the world that made it. Maybe if I pulled myself together, told my friends, my teachers, my family what had happened, I would still have a chance to do something worthwhile. But all I could do right now was feel miserable and shut everyone out. At least, everyone who didn't know how to unlock my bedroom window from the outside.

I sat on the couch with my head hanging and my hands folded, nails digging into the webbing between my knuckles until they were on the verge of bleeding. We found out once I'd gotten home that nothing had been lodged in my head by those demons; in fact, there was barely a scratch visible when Jack looked for anything out of place. He told me he had a guess as to why I'd felt so much pain back in the realm, but I wasn't in the mood to hear it. Right now, though, I was itching for some sort of explanation.

Is that just how it feels to have a demon steal your sight? So why was my head burning like I'd just gotten stabbed?!

Jack, true to form, had acted like he was in absolute tip-top shape. He hadn't gotten hurt by those demons, no, they barely laid a finger on him! Nevermind that horrific scream I heard just feet away, or that little remark they made about him being double-dead...

"God," I muttered to myself. "Stop being so bitter about this. You know he's just trying to protect—"

Knock, knock.

Ordinarily, even in this miserable and sobered state, that would have scared me. But I was getting desperate for a distraction. I slowly lifted my head and leaned back on the couch to try and catch some noise; scuffling, the drag of their feet on the pavement, some audible trace of whoever was at my door. No dice. I voted to ignore the visitor if they didn't bother knocking again, and was just about to forget it all when I heard a familiar voice.

"No. Is she gone...?"

I jumped in my seat.

"Nyx?!"

I stood up and made for the door, but my foot got caught on a table leg and I fell to the floor.

"Agh—shit!" I tried to stand back up, but felt a jolt of pain in one of my knees and fell back, leaning against the couch with a wince. Before I could try again, something creaked behind me and I froze in place, not daring to turn around. I heard quiet but frantic footsteps drawing closer and closer, and after a while felt a warm hand on my shoulder. She took one of my hands in an offer to help me up.

"Sorry, I know how rude I must be, intruding like this..." Nyx faltered when I didn't look her way, when I didn't even bother turning my head. I blinked.

"If it doesn't trouble you, Nyx, could you maybe move that table out of the way?"

That was the first thing to fall out of my mouth. In reality, I wanted to yell at her, ask her what in hell she was doing here, how she'd found me after a mere week of me not attending lessons. Well, I suppose that's what magic's for, huh?

Nyx shifted one end of the coffee table so that I had enough room to stand, and pulled me to my feet. I winced again at the pain in my knee, but didn't feel it was bad enough that I'd have to sit back down. She held me by the shoulders.

"Sawyer, what happened? Are you alright? Did...are you—"

"Oh, don't worry about it too much. I'm kind of over it at this point," I lied. I assumed, foolishly, that she had any idea what I was talking about. She hesitated.

"Over...what?"

After a moment, I turned my head to face her as best as I could and gave her an ironic, apologetic half-smile.

"I'm blind," I said, my voice breaking slightly. Nyx let go of me, slow and unsure, and I could hear tremors of fear in her words as she carefully picked them out.

"Because of a demon," she guessed, more in a breath than a sentence. I didn't answer, though I was certain she could see the answer clearly enough. She sighed.

"I'm so sorry." Her hand was on my back again. "Try to stand up straight, I'll help you to a—"

"No, no, don't worry about it." I cleared my throat; I really hadn't talked to anyone in days. "Hey—you came here to do something. What was it?"

I heard an eventual shuffle, like she was pulling an object out of her pocket.

"...somebody from the realm asked me to give this to you." After a long silence, she sighed again and pressed it in my hand. "It's not Jack, if that's what you're wondering. I don't think it's...whoever did this to you, either. It's a message. Perhaps you should open it later."

I turned over the object in my hands. It was rigid and diamond-shaped, with a dozen tiny knobs on one end like a weird, sci-fi remote. My thumb found one knob that was larger and flatter than the rest, and started to trace over it in a circle. "'S this how?" I muttered.

"Yes."

"You know I can't exactly read..."

"No need. It's not that kind of message."

I sat back down, not knowing where else to go from here. Nyx patted me gently on the back. It seemed she didn't know exactly what to do, either. She said in a strangely confident voice,

"You're going to be alright." A pause. "You've always got someone on the other side for you. You know that, right?"

Other side. There it was again. Since when was all this a game?

"...yeah. I know," I said in a slight croak. "Thanks."

Everything about this felt so bizarre. Nyx was my teacher, a cultist, who was loyal to a fault to Chernobog and hated my boyfriend's guts. But she was kind, and I'd excused everything else about her for that. She had always felt more like an equal, a friend, than anything else to me.

And right now, I felt inexplicably bitter towards her.

"I should probably be going," she said under her breath. Without much more of a goodbye—maybe she sensed my simmering anger in that moment—she was out the door, and I was alone. Again.

I turned over the object, device, whatever in my hands one more time, wondering who could've sent this. Were they friend or foe? What sort of "friend" did I have in the demon realm besides Jack, anyway?

I pocketed it, staying rooted to my spot on the sofa. Ten minutes passed in absolute silence. I could feel exhaustion and stress pulling my skin down towards Hell. Probably looked like it, too.

I started when I heard creaking from upstairs and a quiet cough, relaxing just as quickly. He'd entered my house like this a thousand times; when would I get used to the sudden noise?

Jack hesitated to speak first.

"...Sawyer?"

"Down here," I said. He was down the stairs and in the living room in a heartbeat. I stood up shakily, massaging both my hands as he let out a whistle of a breath.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late, I had...things. To take care of." Though he tried to make it as ambiguous as possible, I knew what he really meant as soon as he'd said it.

People. To eat.

My hand automatically drifted to the device in my pocket. A creak in the floorboards told me he'd stepped closer, and I had a feeling he was frowning at me.

"Was somebody here?"

"No," I rushed to say. He could probably tell I was lying, but didn't push it as much as I expected him to.

"Are you sure? It looks like you..."

"Jack. I'm fine. Nobody was here, you don't have to worry about me."

"I think I do, if I'm being honest," he muttered. I tried not to take it the wrong way, as a I have to protect you because you're weak now sort of thing. It was getting pretty hard not to take most things that way. Still, I folded my arms as he came closer, taking one of my hands and intertwining our fingers. He held my chin and gently pressed a thumb to my lips, like he'd started doing whenever he wanted to kiss me. I nodded after a second, wondering how many more times he would have to do that before things changed.

No, you idiot, it'll never change. Your eyesight, it's gone. You can't just take it back.

"Are you sure? You seem out of it."

It took me an astonishingly long amount of time to realize he was talking about the kiss, and hadn't overheard my thoughts. I shut my eyes, not to block out anything, of course, but because it was still nice to scrunch up my face as a refresher.

"No, no, it's okay. Trust me, I need this."

Instead of laughing like I hoped he would, he let out a tiny sigh and held my face, pressing his mouth to mine. It wasn't a sad or regretful sigh, I could tell that much. What it had been was still beyond me. I hated having to rely on my hearing alone to tell how others felt, though since the demons' attack I hadn't left my house enough to remember what it actually felt like to interact with people. Let alone, without my sight. My cynicism growing with every passing day didn't help this sorry state much.

I let myself sink into Jack, even if it only lasted a moment. It almost felt like we were in a movie, or on the cover of a romantic novel. Ha. Take away the fact that we were kissing, and there was practically nothing romantic about this.

We broke apart and I lowered my face, knowing it wouldn't make a difference if I was "looking" at him or not. He tsked and lifted my chin, leaning close so that our foreheads touched.

"Hey, you're not as subtle as you think. I was able to live through this kind of thing for years before that sneaky, demonic bastard found me. So you've got to live for me, too, okay?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What are you talking about? I am living."

"You're alive. But you haven't left the house for days, you don't let yourself get distracted for a moment, you haven't even cried since the day it happened. It's not good to just...stay like this."

I rubbed under one of my eyes, trying to come up with an excuse. Nothing reached me.

"I-I know, it's just...you're going to have to let me be sad for a while, Jack. I can't force myself to feel better, or do anything when I don't see the point. Give it time." I lifted my head to give him a small peck on the lips, instead kissing his nose by accident. It seemed to send the message I'd been going for, anyway. He snickered, brushing a lock of hair away from my face.

"Okay. I just can't stand seeing you like this. But let's come to a compromise: we both hang in there. For each other. You're my best friend, you're my..." He faltered, leaving the hall in silence for a good minute. I raised an eyebrow.

"What, are you trying to come up with some couple-y nickname for me?"

"Yes...? Kind of," he settled with.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, trying to keep the amusement from creeping into my voice. He let out a low, awkward whistle. I had a feeling he was scratching the back of his head, looking just about everywhere but at my face as he scrambled for an answer.

"I don't know. Princess? Teddy bear?" He seemed to realize the second those words left his mouth just how weird they actually sounded. I shook my head, screwing up my face again, and crossed my arms.

"Both of those are disgusting. Just 'Sawyer' is fine."

"Okay, Just Sawyer."

I voted to ignore that little quip, reaching up to pat him on the head with an attempted grin. "Besides, the feeling is mutual, my dear Jimothy."

He gasped, offended, and flicked me on the nose. "But you can call me that monstrosity?"

"Pssh, your face is a monstrosity!"

Jack laughed harder than I could remember from these past few days, and eventually, I started laughing too. We collapsed onto the couch, trying to contain ourselves, but the sheer stupidity of it all kept getting to us. After many minutes of giggling and the eventual sigh to end it, I narrowed my eyes, still smiling.

"So this is living, huh? Second-grade playground insults and being delirious from staying inside for a week?"

Jack ruffled my hair, ignoring my "hey!" of objection. "Please, this is only the highest form of living ever known to man. All I can think of that's missing is a six-pack of Coke, maybe some fresh organs—"

"Wait, you actually drink that corrosive garbage?"

"So you don't object to the 'eating human organs' part anymore, is what you're saying."

"Hey, this is your hypothetical paradise, not mine!" I held up my hands and tilted my head back over the sofa, closing my eyes. He took the opportunity to shift close to me, throw both arms around my shoulders, and rest his head on mine.

"Aw, but what would paradise be without you?"

I laughed again. "Shut up."