The experience of losing her eyesight has made Alia appreciate the preternatural ability she enjoys. She can’t see much, just smears of color and a persistent black spot, but she can see more everyday. It’s difficult to explain; her eyesight will never truly improve because the effects of staring into the sun for almost two decades has left her eyes permanently damaged, but as the realms of matter continue to settle, she regains an awareness of reality that makes her vision obsolete.
She sits outside a lot as her brain processes the slowly returning access she has to the infinity of the multiverse. She doesn’t consciously organize this information into a clear view of her reality, but it happens because of the wonder of the human mind that is largely a mystery to humans. The neighborhood where she has lived in Clay’s house slowly comes into clearer focus the longer she waits, patiently regaining herself.
She can see Ivan and Clay’s faces clearly after they return to the house. They were blurry at first, but hearing their voices, touching them and being in their presence, has allowed her to clearly sense them when they are in her vicinity, and the image of them, their bodies moving through space, is superimposed over the blurry scene that she has been experiencing.
Alia enjoys the peace of her life with Ivan and Clay back in the house and it feels that everything returns to her faster; everyday new things come into clearer focus to dominate the blurry scene that her eyes managed.
Alia feels comfortable to walk around the yard outside the house, and today she is trimming back the bushes along the side of the house. Clay and Ivan had started the work of taming the overgrowth, but then they were both back to their jobs, working as much as possible to pay the bills that Alia had neglected in their absence. They took very good care of her and while they worked, she did what she could around the house to demonstrate her appreciation. Clay would yell at her later, Alia chuckles to herself. He had told her to do nothing but get better, and he would see all the bushes she had trimmed and be mad that she had used the sharp shears. But she likes feeling capable and it’s important for her to use the incredible senses that are available to her so that she can regain her full control of them.
As she trims the bushes, she thinks of Vita and Crude. She called them with Ivan’s phone after he returned, and they were happy to hear that she was getting better; both were eager to see her, but both were tending to their own lives and hadn’t been able to visit yet. She was eager to see them both and to catch up on their lives, and to reassure them that their friendship was important to her despite the neglect she had shown. They both understood that being the Alia is a complicated thing, but she would be happy to apologize to them in person.
Suddenly, Alia senses something familiar. Her view of Clay’s house and the property around it mostly appears clearly to her and the vision of things just beyond his yard is still very blurry. She turns from the bushes, feeling something familiar, but not quite recognizable and she sees a blurry, very dark form approaching her across the view of the front yard to her position at the side of the house. This generally happens when new people or animals enter the yard and eventually things like birds or squirrels come into focus to join the scene, but people usually just move by on the sidewalk and their forms never really come into focus, though enough colors comprise their forms to give Alia a clear indication that it is a person or multiple people.
The form that approaches her is dark, though, and she isn’t sure if it is a person. Until she hears a voice.
“It’s time,” she hears and she knows instantly that it is Yuri. She can suddenly see his face and his body, though it seems that he has made some type of covering or armour using his own preternatural ability that Alia cannot recognize.
“Time for what exactly? You to leave?” Alia isn’t ruffled by his reappearance, she has never been intimidated by Yuri.
“Time for you to come with me.”
“You went back to Eakran and he insisted?”
Yuri shakes his head. “I went back to Tennessee for a while. You had me all mixed up. I don’t know what Eakran is up to, but whatever it is, I’m glad he been distracted this long. He ain’t really a man I want to be mad at me, and he asked me for one thing that I know is important to him. It’s time for me to give it to him.”
“I’m a person, Yuri. I’m not a possession of that alien.”
“See, you say stuff like that and it gets me all confused, all mixed up. It’s cause you so damn pretty. You make me stupid, Alia. What you fail to realize is that that alien you talking about is the one that get to decide if you a possession or not. And he said you is, so you don’t get to be a person Alia. I’m sorry about that I guess, you deserve better. I tried to give you better. But all you do is mess with my head and make fun of me. That ain’t nice. So, since you don’t care about me, then why would I risk pissing off the one man on this planet that give me nightmares?”
Alia is suddenly very angry and her whole face locks into a frown. “I will give you nightmares, Yuri. I will make you regret the day you decided to come back here.”
He nods. And then he grabs her. Alia punches and kicks, but he is stronger and he grabs her, then the two take flight.
PRL Serials 