The Eyes

The Legend

-Vincent-

We were back at my shitty apartment, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go. It was the safest place we could go. Julie was asking questions at a hundred miles an hour. "When will I be able to go home? Will I be living here? Where will you put my eye? How will my eye be put back? Is this all real?" But I tried to ignore her. She was getting on my nerves.

"Vincent, listen to me!" She demanded.

I took a deep breath and exhaled through my mouth. "I will be keeping your eye in the Void Chest. You will be living here. This is, indeed, reality. If Grandmother can find a way, your eye will be back in your head. Now please shut up!"

She stood in front of me with her and crossed. She gave me a disapproving look and I rolled my eyes at her. "A Void Chest?" was her first question. I nodded. "What's that?" She was curious, I could tell. I gestured for her to follow me and she did so. I lead her to the only bed room, the one I assumed she'd be taking over. I pointed to the small cabinet next to my bed. A bunch of trash and stuff was piled on it, and it looked like the door to it would never be able to open.

"That's it?" she sighed with disappointment.

"Wait," I snapped. I yanked the door open, crouching next to it. I leaned out of the way so she could see into the endless space.

"Is that real?" She crouched next to me, reaching into it. She took her hand back from the blackness, pulling out an old book of mine. I took it and shoved it back in.

"This Void Chest only opens for me and it has the perfect camouflage. You can put anything in it and never run out of space. I thought it would be the perfect place for the Eye of Death," I told her as I let the eye go into the darkens.

She watched in wonder as it floated away. I shut the door and went to sit on the chair I moved in here while she was unconscious. She perched on my bed and looked at me with her Eye of Life. "Answer one more question?"

I leaned my head back. "If it's about going home, no."

"No! I wanted to know more about the legend."

I looked back up at her. She had pulled her legs to her chest, ready for a story. I sighed and sat up. "Didn't Grandmother tell you enough?"

"Isn't there more?" she replied immediately. I shrugged and she gestured with her hand. "Go on then."

"Well, like Grandmother said, there were two great and terrible powers. Life and Death. They were different than any other power. They were tangible, able to be touched and held. Each were able to fit in the palm of your hand," I explained. "The powers were misused by many people to become awful dictators and false gods.

"Then one day, a powerful mage decided the misuse of Life and Death was over. He and his wife stole both powers away in the night and had the perfect place to hide them: in the eyes of their daughter. She was more than willing, of course. She gave up her entire life, being locked away from people who would know the powers were in her eyes. She lived in hiding for the rest of her days.

"Her father had married her to another mage and they eventually had a daughter, who, after her mother was near death, would be the next to carry the power in her eyes. For centuries the women in the MoonShadow family were the Holders of Life and Death, a mere shell to keep the power away from evil hands."

I had watched Julie's face while I retold the story I knew as a fairy tale. Her expression was strange and she didn't speak for a while. When she did, it was very quiet. "So I'm really Julie MoonShadow and my entire existence was to keep the power of Life and Death safe? I was meant to be locked away forever?"

"Well," I paused to think of the right way to word it. "After so long of no one knowing of the power, it was written off as legend. You wouldn't have had to be locked away if Viktor wasn't a part of this. All you have to do to fulfil your ancestors' wishes and have a daughter to pass on the power, telling her to keep it safe and do the same."

She rested her chin on her knees. "I don't really have a choice in the matter, do I?"

I only looked away from her sad face. I knew what it was like to be ripped from a normal life and shoved into a horrible mess like this. But I had no words to comfort her. None of us ever had a choice.