The Shape of Sound | Recontinuing

Prologue

Trees. The only thing visible for miles. Trees and bushes. An occasional fox or wolf could be found.

That's the way they liked it. No humans who could interfere with their ways. No hunters to track them down for a bounty. Just an endless swarm of trees.

And then they had you.

Such a beautiful star to help light their way into the future. Your h/c hair matching your mother's, and your e/c eyes matching your father. You were the spitting image of them. A beautiful s/t baby.

And, that is why they decided to name you y/n. The perfect name, for the perfect baby.

It took you only three months to start walking, and ten for you to start climbing trees. You were fast for a toddler, but that only made your parents love you more. Each time you laughed, or cried, or pouted, or even shouted they cherished. A precious gem in their eyes.

You were so perfect to them, that they never noticed the clouds in your jewel-like eyes.

Seek and find. A game they would play with you quite a bit. You would be blindfolded, and you'd try and find them with sound. A fun game for all three of you.

That game helped save your life many times.

The clouds kept getting thicker, and eventually your father noticed.

"M/n! Come here." he would shout.

You were sitting on a padded wooden couch, your chin gripped by your father's calloused fingers. He was examining your clouded e/c eyes.

"Yes dear?" Your mother had come out of the kitchen, an apron protecting her clothes from food.

The two spent what seemed like hours examining your eyes, coming to the conclusion that they would not be able to help you themselves.

.

Buildings. That's all you could see for miles. Large, small, fat, thin, tall, short. It was like a forest of concrete instead of wood.

It all passed in a blur. Quite literally. You could barely see what was happening. The clouds in your eyes made you view the world in splotches of smeared color.
"She's experiencing age-related macular degeneration... How old is she again?" An old man in a white coat had asked. He was but a mass of tan and white in your eyes.

"She's only five sir." Your mother replied.

"This is a very strange case... This usually happens around the age of fifty."

"Is there a way to cure it?" Your father spoke this time, gripping your small hand just a bit harder than he was before.

The doctor had shook his head, a pitiful look befalling you.

"I'm afraid not at the moment."

.

Though you could not see their faces, the sadness in their breathing and posture made you worry.

"Mommy..? What's wrong with me?"

Your soft voice had broken the silence on your walk back to the forest. The concrete blobs disappearing from your view.

"Nothing sweetie... You're perfect, just the way you are." a soft peck to your nose made you giggle.

.

"D/N! Get Y/n out of the house!" the sound of your mother's yells had woken you up.

Your father burst into your room, splotches of orange and yellow quickly enveloping your doorway. Smoke filled your lungs as your father raced you out of the large wooden cabin.

"Daddy..? Where's Mommy?" You had asked.

That short question cost you both a mother and a father. If you hadn't asked that, maybe your father would still be alive. But, fate has a cruel way of kicking people in the ass.

Your father rushed back into the house, searching for your mother. The gas cans you had that helped heat the cabin in the cruel winters finally had enough of the heat.

They exploded, wood and cloth flying everywhere. The impact caused you to fall back.

And just like that, you were left all alone.

.

.

Three months had passed of you scavenging for food. Your poor vision was a hindrance, but it was still possible to navigate. You found berries to eat quite often. And eventually, a wolf pack.

They took you in as one of their own almost immediately. The pups would play with you on a daily, and you loved your new life.

Just as you had gotten used to life without your parents, was when the comfort of color disappeared from your eyes. The darkness scared you, but the soft fur of your new found family always calmed you.

The pups grew older, and so did you, albeit much slower.

Ten was the age you decided enough was enough. The concrete buildings from your memory still burned bright in your mind. The splotches of grey standing out.

You had decided. That would be your new home. No more forests. No more hunting.

You would live there. You were sure that's what your parents would've wanted.