Vision

The stacks of papers on Sasha's desk were equally short, but equally daunting. On her left were the case reports: a plethora of stolen first aid kits; a pair of off-duty cops missing two pairs of handcuffs; and one drunken camper's sighting of a deer that was “like a zombie,” and “had marbles for eyes.”

On her right were the bills: fees for the ranger outposts; staff payroll, freshly updated with the recent revenue cuts; and, long forsaken on the very bottom of the stack, repair bills for the Franklin outpost. The lower you descended into the pile of papers, the less pay-able their debts were.

Sasha kept the piles sorted and separate from one another in hopes that she could tackle them one at a time. Unfortunately, the problems laid out before her were intrinsically linked. The preserve was taking a hit to its funding in light of recent events, and her staff weren't paid enough to care all that much about getting to the root of the issues.

Sasha unclipped the microphone from her collar and ranted to it, as if her mother might somehow be listening on the other end. She wasn't, of course. Not a soul around could hear Sasha Manifold's woes. She dropped the mic in defeat, accidentally creating a high-pitched feedback loop by tapping it to the speaker of the walkie talkie. In her frenzy to stop the ear-piercing noise, her knees slammed against her desk, sending papers flying everywhere. The photograph of her mother teetered and tipped over the edge of the table, its frame shattering on impact.

Sasha spilled out from her chair to tend to the mess she made. She set the papers back up in a third pile that she’d have to sort through all over again. Luckily, most of the broken glass had remained within the frame, which landed face up. Maria Manifold’s kind brown eyes watched hopefully as Sasha fumbled about, grabbing up the few loose shards. She didn’t want her mom to see her like this.

She reached behind the photograph and retrieved the note she had hidden there to forget about.

“ONE YEAR!!!” It read in bold golden letters at the top of the page.

“One year you’ve been working here! It’s your one year job-a-versary! I know you probably didn’t even realize that. Probably just felt like another day in paradise for you, huh? But you approach every day with such a wide smile on your face and this twinkle in your eye, you’d think you were in paradise!”

She couldn’t help but flash that same smile as she reread her mother’s praise. The twinkle was only tears this time around.

“For a long time I was worried this wouldn't be for you. I didn’t want to be one of those parents who drew up a roadmap of your whole life (though, compared to ‘doctor’ and ‘lawyer,’ I’d say ‘park ranger’ is a fairly gentle prospect for me to lay out there for you :P)”

She chuckled, then frowned. ‘Park ranger’ didn’t feel all that ‘gentle’ as of late, and she might have actually preferred to be in scrubs or a suit right about now instead of a glorified scouts uniform.

“But I should’ve known better. I remember when you were little and we’d be out hiking these woods. You took note of how everything looked, smelled, and felt. You touched everything, sometimes to a fault...”

Attached was a tiny polaroid. It was Sasha as a little girl, her light brown skin covered in reddish welts, but looking so happy because it was her birthday and there was a big ice cream cake in front of her. Maria was standing behind her, cheering for her sickly looking daughter who just turned five.

“You’ve grown so much since then, but you’ve still got that same spirit. That go-getter attitude. That curiosity. That drive. I see it everyday when I look in your eyes, and it makes me so proud. Someday, the Manifold Preserve will be all yours, and I know it’ll be in good hands. Even better than my own!”

She cringed at the notion.

“I know things are tough right now with everything going on. But I promise you, I’ll handle it. All you need to do is keep doing what you’re doing, because that’s been more than enough. You'll see. Things will turn up. I just know it.”

She never got to thank her mother for the kind words of affirmation. Maria Manifold went missing the same day Sasha found the note on her desk. Her body turned up in the forest a month later, horribly mauled and feasted upon—no ears, no eyes, no hair, no fingers, like a fleshy mannequin.

Sasha dropped the letter and buried her face in her tan shirt collar to soak up the tears and snot. When she finally settled, she picked the note back up. Instead of a lush golden signature on the bottom as was customary for Maria’s more formal letters, there was merely a blurb which read, “P.S. Doing a routine check of all the outposts today. Ours is in tip-top shape as always. Let’s see the boys try and top that!”

She slapped the letter onto the table and hoisted herself to her feet. Amidst the chaos of papers and files, one in particular stood out to her.

The form read, “Currently hazardous. Tree still lodged in roof. Structural integrity compromised. Could fall any day now. Removal is top priority before repairs to the Franklin cabin can be underway. Crews advised to proceed with extreme caution.”

She glanced back at the note.

"All the outposts," it read.

She whipped out her phone and texted the group chat with all the other rangers in it. They were a rowdy bunch of young men whom Sasha could never quite reign in like her mother could, but they were about as loyal as their paycheck warranted.

The last text she had sent them was to assure their pay cuts would only be temporary until they could "get things back on track". What followed was a long string of responses which she had up until then ignored: some rightfully frustrated, some showing great restraint in their brevity, a few “I quit” messages which no longer appeared in chat after their senders were removed from the group.

As to be expected, James was the only one who responded with any sort of compassion.

It’s ok Sash we understand we'll figure this out together.

Sasha slapped her fingers at the keypad, piecing things together in her mind and nearly sending the word “mom” instead of “Maria.”.

Hey ya’ll, when was the last time Maria stopped by the Franklin outpost?

James responded fast, despite it being half after midnight on a Sunday.

Only the 1 time AFAIK.

Sasha could always trust James to be there for her when nobody else was, and vice versa. When they met, James was still going by “Jane.” When his family kicked him out of their house, Maria gave him a place to stay for a while and even offered him a job on the preserve: one which he gratefully accepted and had been working happily ever since.

She shot a text back.

I’m going to check it out.

James responded in almost the same breath.

Rn???

She was resolute.

Right now.

U shouldn't go out there this late what’s this about anyway?

Sasha picked the picture of her mother back up off the floor, staring at her through the shattered glass.

Call it a hunch.

She silenced her phone, grabbed her keys, pinned up her hair, and set off.

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The Franklin outpost was once widely agreed upon to be the best spot in the forest. This is mostly because it had cell service, despite being so deep in the woods.

Sasha parked her truck outside, headlights beaming into the dilapidated cabin. She had grown so used to being a passenger, the drive felt strange to her. She accidentally set her car alarm off after parking, which deeply disturbed every living thing in her general vicinity.

As she clicked it off and stepped out of the truck, something wobbled through the air overhead and vanished into a nearby bush. Leaves rattled as if coming to life, then spat out the creature that was causing such a ruckus inside.

Illuminated in headlights was a simple barn owl, face buried between its talons and beak tearing into the mouse it had just ensnared. Its neck jerked upright, giving Sasha a good look at its face. Where its eyes should have been were two translucent marbles with colorful spirals sealed inside.

She retrieved her phone from her pocket and snapped a picture. The owl continued on with its meal, fully aware of Sasha’s presence but abandoning all self-preservation instincts because it was too starved to care.

James must have woken up the other rangers, because Sasha’s home screen was flooded with texts. Most were telling her she shouldn’t go. A few simply wished her luck. One message stood out to her more than the rest, though.

Don’t disappear like your mom.

And she couldn’t tell over text if that was genuine or sarcastic.

She sent them a picture of the owl. The responses were varied.

Holy shit.

Huh. Guess that cooky old dude wasn’t lying.

Crazy how a blinded creature can best a sighted one like that. Thing must have a wicked sense of hearing.

James was the most vocal.

Go the fuck home. Now.

Sasha told them she’d send updates, and that they should call the cops if they didn’t hear from her for longer than five minutes. James started trying to call her, but as badly as she wanted to hear his voice, she couldn’t bring herself to pick it up. She was worried he might be able to talk her out of getting answers.

Overhead, the tree was perilously suspended in the roof of the cabin. Sasha gently pushed one of its branches aside so that she could get at the door. It was locked, and none of her keys matched.

She pulled the pin out from her hair, bent it into an L-shape, and shimmied it around in the lock until it hit all the right mechanisms and signaled her success with a satisfying click. One of the only useful things she ever got from her father was the ability to "pick any lock with anything," as advertised on the box of the antique lock-picking kit he gave her for her birthday. While admittedly hyperbolic, it was a useful trick, and it seemed fitting that she was using it to break into the cabin named after him.

Inside, splotches of moonlight gleamed in through gaps in the ceiling opened up by the fallen timber. She used the flashlight on her phone to fill in the darker parts the moon missed.

With every step, the wood all around squeaked and groaned uneasily. Branches swayed in the warm wind billowing in from above. There were two doors on either side of the room. She left the front door ajar so she could make a quick escape if necessary, but when it slammed shut behind her, she ducked through the door nearest to her. This led to the nurse's office.

As she steadied her breath and rationalized it was only the wind, she noticed an open first aid kit at her feet. She picked it up and sifted through its contents: a near-empty bottle of painkillers, depleted gauze rolls, and a hollowed out box of sterile eye dressings. The kit was one of dozens lying about, varying in brand, shape, size, and color, but all missing the same key components.

On the wall beside her, there was a tattered piece of paper pinned up by a tack. It was a PhD certificate in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, granted to someone named Dr. Kenjiro Izumi, whom she had never heard of.

In the center of the room was the sort of patient’s chair you’d find in a doctor’s office. Its lining was shredded, seemingly by something with sharp teeth or fangs. There were brown feathers strewn about on the seat. Around each arm rest was a pair of handcuffs.

On a tray to the left of the seat, there were a fair few loose marbles lying about. And on a tray to the right, there were only two, which looked deep and dark and weren’t actually marbles at all.

Sasha took pictures of everything and updated the group chat accordingly. The general consensus was that she had gathered enough evidence to warrant calling the police, and that she should get out of there quickly before whoever had been operating out of this outpost returned. Having done more in the past hour to help the preserve than she had her whole life, she finally agreed and started to make her leave.

It occurred to her, though, that there was still one room she hadn’t checked. She might not have paid it any mind whatsoever had the door not been slightly ajar, which it hadn't been earlier. Perhaps it was only the wind, but she had to know for sure.

She swung it open, and stared at the figure sitting before her at a desk.

Truck headlights beamed in through the window behind this figure, making it appear as nothing more than a shadow before lightness. She could tell it was writing something. On each side of its desk were stacks of papers.

Its head was aimed down, and despite not being able to make out any of its features, staring gave her a headache. The edges of the silhouette seemed to shift, as if something was crawling about beneath its shadowy skin.

“Hello?” She spoke faintly, her voice faltering. “Dr. Izumi, I presume?”

She was correct in her presumption.

His voice sounded tinny and disconnected from his body entirely, like an echo of a man.

“Dr. Izumi is currently occupied.”

Sasha asked, “With what?”

“Telling a story.”

Sasha took a resolute step towards the table, but couldn’t find the courage to go any further. Not knowing what else to do, she just kept asking questions.

“Is that what you’re writing?”

She received no answer, so she kept prying.

“May I read it?”

“No. It’s not finished yet.”

Sasha wanted to take another step forward, but her body physically wouldn’t let her. All it could do was tremble, as if overtaken by the strong and primal instinct to flee. She looked around the room. Papers covered every square inch of the walls. Some were stories that followed along vertical stretches of pages. Others were newspaper clippings. The headlights’ glow illuminated some details and shrouded others.

Dr. Izumi reached the bottom of the page, discarded the paper onto the right pile, grabbed a new one from the left, and continued writing. The motion was so fluid, like the robotic arm of an automated conveyor belt. Sasha had to get a better look, but as long as her headlights remained on, there was no way. She’d just have to wait them out.

“Are you stealing eyeballs? Why?” She asked, perhaps taking too far a leap in the audacity of her questioning. But the story he was writing seemed like a dead end to her, and she didn’t know what else to inquire about besides that.

“Dr. Izumi wanted to see things, and now he can.”

Sasha scanned the articles on the wall. They were collected in hotspots between vast stretches of stories and poems, like flowers in a field. And each of the flowers’ petals were different retellings of the same event, all with bastardized spins put on them from different, horribly biased authors.

One flower told the story of a young boy rendered blind at the age of nine from a tragic accident. He took a liking to telling stories, and listening to music very loudly to try and get lost from the world, though the flower didn’t mention any of that—only he and his father knew of that.

Seeing how tarnished his son’s life had become, the father—a genius ophthalmologist—developed a method for transplanting eyeballs to restore his son’s vision.

Another flower told of how the procedure turned out to only be a temporary solution. The son’s new eyes became withered and worn over time, to the point where they ceased functioning altogether. The father was not permitted to repeat the procedure, so he did so in secrecy. Where he kept getting the eyes from was a mystery to many.

The son followed in his father’s footsteps, and made efforts to reignite the public’s interest in the prospect of transplanting eyes. He believed that not only could he restore a human's sight, but that he could also greatly improve upon it. He wanted to see more.

There were photos of the technology in its infancy: heavy, cumbersome rings of gold, wrapped around the wearer’s head, lined with eyes all around, much like classic depictions of biblically accurate angels. Genius technology, inspired by the most profound source of them all: God.

Endless eyes and infinite vision—what could be better?

The key to omniscience, and he was so close!

In all the pictures of him as a young man, he was wearing a hearing aid. His father couldn’t help him much on that front, considering he was an eye doctor, not an ear doctor, and considering he died just before his son was diagnosed with noise-induced hearing loss.

On the back wall of the room was the biggest flower of them all.

It told of how everything came crashing down.

Reports of the project’s funding being cut, because the “quantity of eyes required could not be sourced ethically,” and because the son seemed to be growing increasingly “unstable.”

Shunned by all his peers—every doctor who ever shined a light in their patient's eyes or lack thereof, and told them there was nothing they could do. Frauds, the lot of them!

But out of every last one of them, Dr. Izumi was the only one who could tell a decent fucking story.

The room fell dark just as Sasha spotted a photo of her mother on the wall.

She had waited expectantly for the headlights to die off, but hadn’t quite considered what it would be like after that—what it would feel like to be in a room with a man who could see everything, even in the deepest of darkness. One could expect the experience to be absolutely mortifying.

She checked the notifications on her phone.

Cops on their way.

You got all you need. Now get out of there!

Good luck lol

She opened the camera app, turned the flash back on, and hit record.

Upon getting a good look at him, it appeared Dr. Kenjiro Izumi had perfected the technology from the pictures. His entire head was wrapped in golden, spinning rings. Sasha couldn’t count how many there were because they were constantly in motion, circling about in ways that didn’t seem to make any sense spatially whatsoever.

Embedded in the rings were the eyes.

So many plundered eyes, they were dizzying to look at. All of them were being coated in a soaking agent so as not to become dry. They never blinked. There were no lids to go over them. They twinkled in the light.

The lubricant made it look like the eyes were constantly crying.

Izumi turned his head up at Sasha, which had no practical purpose, but it was a gesture he had grown accustomed to whenever he wanted to presently and consciously look into someone’s eyes. Without looking back down, he wrote his next words with particular zeal.

Sasha Manifold has her mother’s eyes.

Once the impossibility of what she was looking at settled in her mind, Sasha veered her flashlight back to the wall behind her. It was not a flattering portrait by any means: Maria chained up in a hospital chair, with a band over her eyes like she was being prepped for surgery.

Sasha’s reluctance and regard for her own safety evaporated, overshadowed by a white hot and harrowing rage. Dr. Izumi was unfazed, even as she stormed over to his desk and swiped all the papers onto the floor save for the one he was writing on.

“What did you do to my mother?!”

She brought the light close to his multitude of eyes. Their pupils contracted into specks of darkness floating in pools of color, each one having once belonged to some other person or creature.

Sasha got closer and shouted as loud as she possibly could, her voice cracking with anger.

“Are you listening to me?!”

Izumi’s head reflexively snapped to the left as far as it possibly could. His torso still remained firm, and his arms still storytelling away.

“Please, don’t do that,” he requested, emotion finally sneaking into his voice. He jerked his head toward her, staring into her with what seemed like hundreds of thousands of eyes. She could feel her psyche fracture under the strain of his vision. Everyone who had ever stared into him so closely reported it to be the most devastating mental anguish they’d ever experienced, like their entire perception of existence was being challenged and uprooted by someone who could see so much more than them. Still, she did not yield. She was blinded by her rage, if only for a moment.

“And what’s all that, huh?!” She interrogated, pointing down at the paper.

His hands were visibly trembling, causing the letters to appear sloppier than they had before. She couldn’t make out much since his handwriting was minuscule by most peoples’ standards, but she gleaned a few keywords. She saw her own name, and her mother’s, and those words of interest again:

Sasha Manifold has her mother’s eyes.

That was the thing that broke her. She couldn’t muster the voice to scream at him anymore, or say anything else at all. She stared intensely at his face, if it could even be called that anymore, and somewhere in there she could see her mother’s eyes staring back, devoid of the kindness and hope that once radiated forth from them.

Her vision went dark and she fell to the floor.

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When Sasha awoke and tried to open her eyes, she had no eyes to open. All that remained were two gaping cavities, and the flaps of skin that pursed together phallically to cover them. She had already been surgically absolved of her sight. Barren of voice and robbed of vision, all she could do was listen.

The wind whistled faintly, and along it rode the confused cooing of a blind barn owl, desperate for its next meal. The droning ker-chunk of footsteps grew quieter and louder, back and forth, fluctuating in volume.

Her wrists felt cold; she was in handcuffs. Her phone, keys, and even her hairpin were all gone. All that remained at her immediate disposal were her walkie talkie and the feathers on the chair.

The steps grew louder, and louder, and then stopped. She could faintly recognize the whirring of mechanics, and the spritzing of moisture onto never-blinking bands of eyes. Somewhere under all that equipment, she could even hear the wheeze of quiet and laborious breathing.

Outside, the beating sound of frantic, flapping wings spurred Sasha’s spirit. Beneath that rhythm chimed in the squeal of something dying. The owl bested another one.

Sasha flicked her walkie talkie on, found the microphone on the other end of the wire, and tapped it to the speaker. Before Izumi could stop her, he was reeling at the harsh ringing. Through the blare, she could hear his screams.

MAKE IT STOP!

PLEASE!

IT HURTS SO MUCH.

I BEG YOU!

What scared her most is that he suddenly sounded human. Some compassionate voice in her head said to stop the sound, but she shushed it, grabbed one of the feathers on the chair, and got to work.

She thought of the days with her father. He’d be drunk and asleep. The TV would be on, but not set to the right box, so it would barf out an obnoxious beeping for hours on end. She honed in on that sound from her past, and the memories of her father, and the way he taught her how to pick any lock with anything. That was one of the few good memories she had of Franklin Manifold, and she had to root around in her head until finally reaching it with a satisfying click.

When she honed back on the present, her hand was freed. She had unlocked the restraint with a feather, and repeated the process for her other hand.

The screams continued.

I’M SORRY!

I JUST WANTED…!

She wasn’t having any of it. She felt around at the tray to the right of the chair. In one hand she grabbed her keys, and in the other she carefully scooped up two wet orbs.

She hugged the wall and shimmied along it, until pressure clamped down on her arm.

I’M SORRY!

I JUST WANTED TO SEE!

Sasha stabbed the air with her key until finally landing on something that made a sound: the moist squelch of an eyeball being mashed into a leaking sack of nerves and blood. She kept stabbing around that spot like bubble rap, pulverizing one after the other. She couldn’t be sure, but she had an inkling that she struck Maria's eyes somewhere on Izumi’s visage. Perhaps it was because she heard her mother’s voice somewhere amidst all the ringing and screaming. Or, perhaps it was just the wind.

Izumi released her and dropped down again.

I’M SORRY I COULDN’T SEE!

I’M SORRY I DIDN’T LISTEN!

PLEASE, DAD!

S T O P ! ! !

All Sasha felt like she could do at this point was run. It was that same animal instinct as the one from earlier in the night. Had she listened to it the first time, she might still have her eyes.

Behind her, she could hear the rustling of branches, the crunching of wood, and what sounded like a monstrous roar. She ran until she fell, and she kept falling because suddenly the ground beneath her wasn’t level. She went down, and down, and landed in a trench of wet rocks hands-first.

She was still holding the orbs, except they weren’t really orbs, anymore. They were more of a gel, now, oozing out from a skin that had popped upon impact. She cried, and sank into the ground. Sirens sang out through the night as dawn broke over the forest.

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She’d never see James again—his dirty blonde hair and beard, his hazel eyes, his freckles, and his always half-tucked shirt. But she could hear him whisper her name. She could smell his salty sweat. She could feel the fuzz of his arms against her skin as he cradled her. That was about the most comforting thing she could've asked for. Only the news of Dr. Izumi's death might top it, but such news would never come.

When officers arrived at the cabin, they found the tree had finally crashed down the rest of the way. Izumi was gone, as was Sasha's cellphone. Attempts to recover her footage from the cloud were for naught. The only accounts of that night were Sasha’s, the rangers’, and Izumi’s own, which he left behind on his desk, in the form of a story with a short, concise title.

No efforts were made to recover the eyes which Sasha crushed, in part because they were too severely damaged, but mostly because they weren’t even her eyes. Further analysis revealed they in fact belonged to a barn owl—one that the rangers would later find on the verge of death, nurture back to health, and declare as the preserve’s unofficial mascot. The owl, despite never regaining its sight, would live a decent life under surveillance, if a somewhat restricted one. Sasha Manifold would try her best to do the same.

As if poetic repayment for Maria Manifold’s kindness so many years before, James offered for Sasha to move in with him, at least until she adjusted to her new way of life. This lodging turned out to be permanent. Without family on either side to enjoy an extravagant ceremony with, they wed quietly, and lived as happily as their circumstances would allow.

The Manifold Nature Preserve was renamed to the Maria Manifold Nature Preserve, and would make a slow but assured recovery thanks to fundraising movements and community outreach.

As for Dr. Izumi, he was content with the whole ordeal at the Manifold preserve, if a touch miffed that neither of the Manifolds—mother nor daughter—accepted marbles post-surgery. Still, he got a good story out of it.

Every so often, campers would report sightings of him around the woods, but it was always a trick of the light, or a cry for attention. Truth be told, Izumi was long gone. If ever he was sighted again, it was far, far away from Sasha Manifold’s little pocket of reality, and such sightings more often than not resulted in the witness losing their eyes.

Many would attempt to make sense of the countless writings and articles he left behind in the Franklin Outpost, but none would ever quite see the bigger picture. Sasha Manifold came closer than most, but she would forever keep the full truth locked up in her mind, in hopes that when it died off with her, Izumi himself might do the same.