Algernon Black

(Chapter 146) Jasper's Letter

Jasper sat up in bed, winking and holding two fingers before his open eye. He sighed seeing his fingers appear as two unrecognizable blurry sticks even though they were inches from his face. Since the battle, his left eye still hadn't healed and the pupil had a torn line through it with a permanent slit through his eyebrow. The eye still moved, but that was all the functioning it had left. His mothers told him he should wear an eyepatch, but Jasper refused. He saw what hiding scars did to people, and he wasn't going to hide from anyone.

Worse than losing half his eyesight were the headaches accompanying the injury. At first, he thought it was migraines induced by a concussion, but it wasn't so extreme. Instead, it was a deep thud that resonated in the back of his mind like a new heartbeat, and when it sped up, which it did randomly, he had to shut both his eyes and hide from all light as any that reached his pupils felt like piercing blades through his brain.

And when he was thrust into that darkness he would see flashes of images like the ones from the ballroom attack. Men fighting to kill each other in a swirl of chaos around him, Algernon battling against the attacks of a woman, and his friends dead on the floor as blood turned cold stone floors red. The headaches were only becoming more prevalent of late, and the images clearer, as he felt one coming on now, but an unexpected knock on his door took him away from the headache.

"Jasper." His father said, as he apprehensively entered the room.

"Yes?" Jasper asked, straining to make out his father through his blurred vision but noticing something like a small piece of paper clutched in his wrinkled hands. Despite his lacking sight, Jasper could read clear the deep dread in his father's features. The thudding in his head suddenly beat faster and Jasper dug his palms into his eyes as the images of his friend's death became as clear as ever.