My feet pounded against the hot, dry, desert ground, bits of rocks and sand dug into the soles of my bare feet as I ran. My heart raced, galloping against my breast bone like a raging warhorse. I stumbled blindly towards nothingness, my eyes bled from the force of me pushing my true sight ability too far. I had foreseen the future of the laboratory, my home crumbling to the ground in flames. All that I had known my entire life gone in the blink of an eye, a force of some greedy raiders leaving me exposed to the Tular plains around me. The screams of the people I had left behind still seemed to echo in my mind. I pushed forward attempting to leave whatever chaos that had ensued behind me.

Something seemed to reach out and wrap itself around my ankle, my limbs flailed wildly as I tried to catch myself. My body crashed to the ground in a heep of long legs and arms. A new pain exploded through my entire frame, my hand attempted to reach for my ankle that had been grabbed by nothing but a dried out tree root. I wheezed with relief that it was not a person or animal. The hot sun yielded no relief for my battered body, taking the end of my cotton dress and ripping a strip of it off. I knew that I probably looked like a walking corpse, bloody tears falling from my now white glazed eyes. I tied the strip of fabric around my eyes hoping to shield them from onlookers if I ran into any of them.

I forced myself to my already aching feet, they seemed to scream for relief. I tried to take a deep breath, allowing myself a moment to try and collect myself, think of what the professor would do in a situation like this.

Breathe, calm yourself. Feel your surroundings, don’t search blindly. You have sight in your other senses Adrielle use them! I could hear his voice so clearly as if he was almost right next to me.

Though my skull pounded as if it had its own pulse I inhaled deeply, focusing on the air filling my lungs and pushing it out. Slowing my heart rate down and letting myself calm down pushing all that had happened out of my mind. I had practiced this many times before, it was the only other time I was allowed out of my room at the lab. I had to focus on the climate around me, the way the wind moved and stopped noting an object close by. The way the vibration from the earth beneath my feet changed to alert me of something coming.

Pain is a weakness you can’t afford out in the world, it is a feeling that you, yourself, allow your body to endure. Block it out! The Professor chastised me in my mind.

I nodded in agreement to the professor in my head, blocking out, not allowing my body to feel the pain in my feet but the vibrations beneath them. I felt that the vibration to the left of me felt a bit muddled, fainter in a way. Sliding my foot, slowly to the left it bumped a boulder. A smile pulled on the edges of my lips. “Small victories,” I breathed out. Gaining a bit of confidence I started to move forward, letting the breeze, climate change and vibration guide my steps.