Oculus | J. Todd ✔

[02]

The sun had finally peeked out from the clouds after a few days of consecutive rainstorms. Still a musty scent hung about the air wafting from the mud mixing with the puddles on the streets. That was quite usual weather for residents of Gotham city and the rare glances of sunlight were at most considered a precious blessing.

She picked up the presence of light and her fingers fumbled with the curtains on her windows pulling them apart. Gentle sunlight flooded in and yearning to feel the warmth on her skin, she proceeded towards the small balcony of her apartment.

After the usual twelve calculated steps and a slight right turn, she was standing in front of the grill that separated the balcony from the inner living space. Her hands lingered on the metal grill as she pushed it away and stepped outside.

She could feel the light engulfing her and the soft warmth of the sun tingled her skin as a smile crept over her features. Rain always made the city feel twice darker and as the sun shone after two days of bleak weather, she relished each second of the sunlight.

And her eyes though wide open were devoid of any picture, the day's warmth she could feel but not see the sun washing over her. Her fingers brushed against the gradually heating metal railing, her fingertips seemed to tell her where exactly each metal bar was placed that connected it to the floor.

Evelyn still remembered how the light looked like and how the golden rays from the sun washed over the dark alleys. But she could no longer see that scene again only imagine how it would be like down in the city streets.

There were many other things she remembered from the short time when she could see just like the others all around her. The rainy days when her feet splashed into the puddles as she ran after her group of friends, the clear sound of laughter that echoed in the alleys after games of hopscotch and the radiant smiles on all their faces.

She lowered her head fingertips gliding across the metal rail as she recalled what color it had looked like to her years ago. Steel grey with sharp tinges of blue.

Just like a pair of eyes she could never forget.

She retrieved her hands immediately as his face swam in her memory again and clasped her fingers together, the smile from her face fading into a distant look of sorrow.

A tear rolled down her rosy cheek as she recalled what day it was. The sixteenth of August. His birthday. He would have been twenty four if he was still alive. If he hadn't died in an accident.

For Evelyn Nichols, such accidents had become her greatest fear for everything she held dear had been stripped away from her due to them. First her parents, her sight and then her best friend as well.

She took a few steps back hands reaching out for the grill that she pulled to close the balcony, retreating to the darkness of her apartment instead. Despite the steps that she knew so well by then, her foot struck against the couch and instead of going further she dropped down on it hugging a cushion closer to herself, features evident of pain.

She had not been able to see him even though she had been to his funeral and that had been one of the dreariest days of her life. It had been one of those rare days when she could not even pick up on the slightest presence of light and the darkness around her had threatened to swallow her completely.

She had known Jason Todd ever since they were three and his face that was etched in her memory was still of a seven year old boy because afterwards though he had aged, she had not seen it. She could only judge by the difference in his voice, the shape of his hands and the height difference in their shoulders as they stood together.

The last time he had talked to her, he was leaving with his guardian on a confidential trip. He had wanted to tell her something but could not bring himself to say it and never got the chance to tell her later because when he had returned from the trip, his body was in a coffin and he had lost his life.

A tragic accident, that was what people labeled his untimely death. And at that time it had only reminded her of the tragic accidents she had suffered but was still somehow alive.

And the last time she had been with him was at his funeral, her hand gently lingering on the plain wooden surface of the casket, making herself come to terms with the fact that he was no more and it was not some horrifying nightmare from which she would wake up.

Yet it had been so unbelievable for the body lying in the coffin had felt dreadfully empty to her. Almost as it wasn't Jason in there but somebody else who she hadn't known for so many years.

At that moment, her heart had been urging her that there was still hope, the body in the coffin wasn't Jason's but she had had no choice but to take word of the other people around her.

And that was the first time she had considered her disability as a weakness.

For how could she bring herself to believe that the body in the coffin was really Jason's if she could not identify him from any other stranger in that place? It could have been easier with sight for then she could look with her own eyes and his death would be proved to her.

But without her sight she had always felt and at that moment she had felt nothing that could tell her that it really was Jason who had been lowered in the grave.

For years she had kept reassuring herself that the only reason she had had a doubt regarding his body was because he was no longer alive, his soul had departed and perhaps that was why he felt like an empty vessel to her.

But that had not been the case with her parents.

She had still known it were them as she had sat by their coffins, she could still sense their presence. But with Jason's there had been a dreadful hollowness.

And even though five years had passed, she was still uncertain whether her best friend was really dead and six feet under the ground in the Wayne family's cemetery or he was still alive and out there somewhere, hiding in the shadows.

Though her mind told her that it was useless to hope for such a possibility but her heart was somehow adamant that Jason Todd had not been the one in the coffin that was buried in his grave and so there was a little hope that he was still alive, just staying out of sight.

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