‘I don’t understand why she does this…’ My troubled thoughts caused my breath to come out of my mouth in little angry white clouds into the winter air. ‘Daughters are more important than junkie boyfriends, aren't they?’ The sidewalk came in and out of the light of the street lamps under my feet as I tried to justify her unpardonable actions. ‘Haven't I done everything for her?’ Shoved deep into the pockets of my blue parka my fingers fidgeted absentmindedly. ‘I know it’s never been good for us, but...damn it.’ I started to bite on my lip. In my distracted worry I hadn't noticed the slight curve the sidewalk had taken, and my feet hadn't either.
I slipped off the curb and onto the pavement. A blinding light came from the left, as screeching deafened my ears. My body was crushed from one side, and my head was hit from the other. This unfamiliar vision was spotted with black no matter which way my eyes lethargically rolled. I was in tremendous pain, just short of numbness. I could feel my body reaching for it, but it wasn't coming any closer. A spinning came from the inside of my head, and I could feel my warmth seeping out of places I could no longer feel. I tried to move, but someone was there. A whisper came, “Don’t move.” I didn’t think it possible, but something colder than I touched me. I drifted off then, somewhere between dark and light, cool and warm. I finally settled into the broken, dry, painful shell that was my body.
Everything hurt, from the marrow in my bones, to the roots of my hair. I put out some effort, and got my eyes to flutter open a bit. Despite my endeavor, I was only rewarded with pitch black darkness.
I couldn’t even dwell on the meaning of this hell I was imprisoned to before two eyes appeared. I wasn’t sure they were eyes, but they looked an awful lot like eyes; two white glistening almond shaped outlines, with a dark center. The element that put the doubt in my mind though was the ring that separated the two.
Rings made of the two most vibrant pieces of topaz you’d ever seen, multiplied by a million. The longer I stared at these magnificent eyes, the more I saw their perfection; how even the whites of the eyes glistened like pearl, and the centers... They were amazing droplets of onyx made from darkness so rich, that they could swallow your thoughts, envelop your mind, and bury your soul. In that moment, I was overcome with sleep again.
As I drifted off, and the eyes disappeared, my gemstone eyes, as I decided they were called, I wondered yet again what I had done to deserve this purgatory. Where my broken body held my tortured mind. Where I was just awake enough to hold the gaze of those gemstone eyes, those little pieces of light in this dark prison. The real darkness enveloped me then, and I resumed my unconscious state of sleep.