...

6.

    Dani could sense her eyelids were open, but everything was dark. Whatever had consumed her seemed to have let her go. Her hands traced the skin of her neck, failing to find any puncture wounds. The strange vibration still plagued her eyes. A wave of nausea hit her hard as the blindness gave way to vertigo. It slammed her down, pressing her skin against the cold leather; the first time this couch had provided comfort to Dani in years. After a few deep breaths, Dani realized that the rapid shaking prevented her eyes from adjusting to the pitch-black living room. It slowed as the leather cooled her body. A little bit of light dripped in from the windows revealing the art and posters were still on the walls and whatever broke the door was gone.

    As soon as she felt comfortable, she stood and approached the hallway to their front door. It was unbroken. Heat flushed Dani’s cheeks. That sleep wasn’t going to do her any favors at work today, but at least the nightmare got her up early enough to do the dishes. Staying quiet required her to work slowly, but it was worth it to not wake her girlfriend. As she tackled the mountain of dirty dishes, Dani daydreamed about Roxy finding their cleaned kitchen and magically becoming gentle with her again.

    Placing the last plate out to dry, Dani headed back into the bathroom to see how bad her eyes were. The vibrations this morning felt much worse and the light from her phone stung her eyes more. Dani persisted. They were almost the same as last night, except the brown in her irises was blood tinged. If it wasn’t a sign something was wrong, she would have liked her new eye color. It reminded her of those red-eyed, white lab mice. She finished grooming herself in the sink and wandered back into the kitchen to make some coffee and hydrate. The calming embrace of a morning alone held her.

    After a few minutes of looking, Dani found her old laptop and set it up on the kitchen counter. It hadn’t been turned on since she dropped out of college. No point when she spent all her time cleaning or scrolling on her phone. After a few false starts, she found herself back online plugging in her symptoms with different quotation placements and synonyms. Medical advice websites seemed better suited for this ancient laptop’s larger screen. After perusing a few of them, it became clear that the only lead she had was lylawhyla’s post. She clicked it again and discovered a few more replies in the extra screen space.

    lylawhyla: My eye vessels changed? They seem to split more than they used to. Is that normal?

    User3819: If you notice any change in your vision you should go see an eye doctor.

    lylawhyla: I did, but they said it was nothing. But it’s just gotten worse, and now they keep shaking. Has this happened to anyone else???

    lylawhyla: I just want it to go away.

    The thread ended there with a passive aggressive “SOLVED” at the bottom. She clicked the username to see if lylawhyla had asked any more questions and found nothing. The original post was from a week ago. Maybe this was some new disease no one knew about yet? The still surface of calm blanketing Dani rippled. This was a bad idea. Her mind wouldn’t let her stop, convinced any answer would restore the calm.

    “Maybe I can find this person and message them?” Dani searched the username and found a profile on a forum called trans.space. In their post history was question about HRT and eye symptoms. Dani clicked it, and her laptop slowly revealed the same blurry photos of their eye. Dani sat there stunned and took a long sip from her coffee.

    Memories of Dani’s futile searches for weird HRT side effects played through her mind. She never had much luck finding any answers. Side effects for HRT are a taboo in online medical discussions. Doctors seem to enjoy ignoring trans suffering and trans people don’t want to shake the already fragile relationship they have with medical professionals. She shifted to stalking lylawhyla; across the strata of lylawhyla’s year on this forum were tons of transition update photos, panicked questions about doing injections wrong, and long incomprehensible diatribes about loneliness and mistreatment. Dani avoided these sites like the plague, never feeling whatever it was that compelled people share this much of themselves. Dani decided if she found a way to contact this person, she would tell her to keep some of this secret. That’s what made her life easier, anyways. Lylawhyla’s last post was titled “I’m so fucked”.

    lylawhyla: I lost my job because whatever’s going on with my eyes. They move so much, and I can’t stock shelves. The doctor has no idea what it is, and now I blew the rest of my savings just to be in the same place I was before. Probably going to be homeless unless someone can help me out.

    The donation link was missing, replaced with a little note from the mods reminding users not to post monetary requests in the questions channel. She wondered if she was doomed to the same fate. A promise Roxy once made to take care of her “no matter what” barely kept the fear that grew in her chest for spiraling out of control. The room shook again.

    Better make myself useful while I still can. Dani got up to deep clean the house. She’d make a donation link and share it around in the right places later. She’d pick up some hours before the shaking got too bad. She’d clean the apartment until it was spotless. While dusting the living room, she knocked a crystal off the coffee table. It clattered on the floor before Dani could catch it.

    “Fuck.” Dani whispered under hear breath. The bedroom door opened.

    “Can I have one day off where I get to sleep in, Dani? I mean, fuck!”

    Dani tried to apologize, but the tears she held back spilled out and she choked on them as she tried to speak.

    Roxy sighed and gave her a strange look. “Hey, it’s… fine. Just please be quieter.”

    Dani covered her face with her hands and willed her body to stop producing tears. There were still a few hours left before she had to leave for her shift, but she wasn’t going to risk disturbing Roxy again. Instead, she silently got dressed and left for the one place where she couldn’t bother anyone.

« Previous Next »
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11