The Only Game In Town [Adventure]

Theo woke up to nothing. He let himself believe for a brief moment that it was just the darkness of predawn and that in a few moments, blinding rays of sunlight would crash into his room and he would be forced to join the land of the waking, rather than his strange limbo between wakefulness and sleep.

But reality crushes the spirit.

It was dark and empty now, and it always would be.

The healers back in Vena Cava's medical tent had said that maybe if he had been taken to a healer of renown immediately rather than dragged across half a city, his eyes may have been saved. But now, to save him from infection the healers were forced to let the tissue scar and let it become a permanent injury.

He hated that Joy hadn't been able to save him.

He hated that Joy hadn't been able to save Lillian. Theo could hear her whimper every night as whatever was in her dreams chased her. But now she was unable to wake up and so Theo was alone in the dark.

Theo grasped out into the nothingness with his fingers. He felt the rough carpet that he had been sleeping on for the past few nights, he could also feel the residual heat coming from the fire that had kept him warm the previous night.

With an effort of will, Theo stood up. He shuffled until he was touching a wall then he followed the wall until he reached the kitchen.

The woman who had let them stay at this house – he couldn't remember her name – asked "Theo, do you want any oats? They're a little cold but should be fine."

Theo just grunted and nodded his head. He sometimes wondered about people who had been born blind. Theo had lived his entire life with things like body language and gestures to guide all communication, and now he could provide those same guideposts in everyday communication, but he was unable to receive them. A blind child would have no concept of nodding their head meaning agreement.

The oats were cold, but Theo didn't mind. He was no longer worried about such frivolous things as "enjoying his meals." He simply woke up and lived a fraction of his life before going back to sleep.

Theo stood up with his empty bowl and tried to walk to the cleaning station. He was slow but determined to try and clean his own mess.

"Let me take that for you." The woman of the house took his bowl out of his hands as he was walking. Without a thought to him, she had taken his task from him. He didn't fight against it. What use was it?

What took him immense time and effort was easy for her. Theo had fallen victim to efficiency.

Theo let the pain and weariness wash over him as he stumbled through this unfamiliar home. He was just so tired; he was tired of not seeing the sun. He was tired of the fact that he would never create another sculpture. He was tired of feeling this way.

Something poked his face. It felt like a finger of a child. A bright and cheery voice asked him, "so, you were in the knight tournament?"

A child was talking to him. Some kid wanted to know what the tournament was like. It felt like a lifetime ago. He remembered the feelings of victory and how strong he felt. He remembered the way that he could freeze his opponents in place with a single glance. He had been so much more then; now he was something less, something smaller.

"Hey, dude! Are you like deaf too? I asked you a question." A finger found its way into his face and stayed there. The little girl just kept poking at him.

"Fine. Yes, I was in the tournament. Happy?" Theo snapped at the little girl.

"No, now you have to tell me about it. Joy keeps telling me how amazing you were, but all you do is sit around all day." Theo could feel heat building in his temples. This little girl really knew how to aggravate someone.

"Yes, I was much better back then. Now, I am just a lazy sack of nothing. Now, would you leave me alone?" Some of the rage in his head bled out into his voice and Theo could feel the little girl recoil from him.

Theo heard a small yelp followed by some shuffling feet as the small child disappeared back into the void beyond his awareness.

Now, where was he? Yes, he was thinking about the art he could have done. He knew it was petty, but Theo was devastated by the fact he would never make another sculpture again. He would never see another block of ice come to life as he shaped it, it was gone from him forever.

Theo was lamenting this fact and let the sadness wash over him when he felt something much rougher than a finger poke at his face. Was that a stick? Did the child run outside to get a stick so she could poke him from a distance?

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He hated this child.

With a grunt he jumped in the direction that he felt the stick coming from. Theo's head cracked directly into a sharp corner, and he let out a muffled scream as he scrambled around on the floor trying to grasp at the little girl's ankles.

The little girl seemed to be incredibly nimble because Theo couldn't find her at all in his frantic movement. After a few seconds of scrambling, Theo heard a voice on the other side of the room ask, "who was the strongest person you fought against?"

Theo turned his head instantly towards the new noise and leapt in that direction. He landed poorly but was moving again in an instant, trying to get to the annoying little pest.

The stick poked him in the leg from behind, but before it could be retracted Theo whipped around and grabbed the offending appendage. Theo heaved on the stick hoping to drag the girl closer, but she wisely let go of the stick and shuffled away from him.

Theo heard the footsteps recede as he breathed heavily, clutching his new stick with all his might.

It felt good to have done something. Victory over a child was still a victory.

With a little too much effort, Theo got to his feet and held his stick in his hands. It was his stick, hard-fought and won in a battle of wits and he would be loathed to give it up ever again. It was his prize, and he would not relinquish it to anyone.

A new stick smacked Theo directly in the forehead. His world rocked as he fell backwards after the strike. That did not feel like the sort of hit that a child could do, but this was no child. This was a specter of Evil, and Theo would not bow to such a creature.

With a battle cry, Theo brought hit stick into contact with this new stick and batted it away. There was a worried squeal as Theo started bringing his stick into large sweeping motions.

His stick bumped into things, but that was the point. He could feel the room around him through the stick. Every invisible corner now was given dimensions and space in his mind.

Finally, with one perfect light swing Theo felt his stick tap something softer than the house's materials around him. One cruel swing brought his stick down onto the child.

But before he could hear the meaty sound of his triumph someone grabbed his stick from its swing. The grip was unyielding, but Theo tried anyways. He pulled and shifted his grip hoping to gain enough leverage to just hit the stupid girl one time.

"She's a kid, Theo. Lay off." Joy's voice sounded different these days. Theo remembered back when they had first met, the other man had seemed so carefree. He floated through a world filled with pranks and enthusiasm. Joy's fire seemed dimmer now, his brightness no longer burned hot, but there was a core of iron beneath it. Something in Joy's voice told Theo that there would be no arguing this point.

And besides, what was Theo doing? Trying to hit a child, he should be ashamed, no matter how irritating the little brat was.

"I'm sorry." Theo mumbled under his breath as he started walking away. He found that he could use the stick in a similar way to when he had been fighting, no, educating the child. He waved it around lightly and wildly, using the impacts of his stick against things to inform him of his surroundings.

"I expected you to be that strong. No one can get into that tournament unless they're super strong." The little girl was somewhere behind him, and she still refused to leave him alone. "Did you get cursed or something? Is this what happens to losers? Are you part of some big conspiracy?"

"I did not get cursed, someone cut my eyes out of my head. Now will you knock it off, someone is going to hit you some day if you annoy everyone like this." Theo waved his stick in what he hoped was a menacing gesture before continuing to walk.

He was going to go outside. He wasn't sure why he felt this way, but he was drawn towards the outdoors.

In the blissful silence Theo walked out of the house. He had been able to find his way relatively well and he was rather pleased about it.

The air smelled different outside of the house. Inside it had been cloying and suffocating, but now he suddenly felt free. He took a bold step and felt the crunch of leaves beneath his foot. He took another step and felt the loamy earth between his toes, wisps of grass folding under his weight.

He could feel the sunlight touching his skin. There was something more peaceful about the sun now that he couldn't see it. Before, it had been an incandescent pinprick in the sky that was untouched by human eyes; now, it was like the embrace of an old friend.

The simmering hate that resided in Theo's stomach was not done burbling, but it relented for a moment, and he let himself enjoy the cool breeze.

"It must be a beautiful day…" Theo spoke to no one in particular.

"Every day is beautiful, just sometimes it is harder to see it." The little girl chirped up at him. Theo hated platitudes, but there was something endearing about how much the little girl meant it.

A moment of silence hung in the air before Theo began to speak. "The tournament was one of the most exciting things I had ever done in my life. I was not weak, but I didn't think of myself as strong back then. But that was the first time I got experience what it felt like to be one of the strongest people in the world."

Theo could feel vibrations through the earth as the little girl started bouncing up and down in excitement. "Did you or the sleeping lady make it further into the tournament?"

A small snort escaped Theo's nose, "I did. But both of us got taken out by Ramses, a man so powerful that it took every trick in Joy's bag to beat him."

The jumping stopped, "Joy was in the tournament too?"

Theo felt a stab of shock when the little girl asked him, he had assumed that Joy had told this girl all about his own exploits in the tournament, and that Theo's involvement now was tangential to this girl's fascination with the tournament and Joy in general.

"Of course he was, he nearly won the whole thing before Vena Cava collapsed."

"He never mentioned it."

Theo felt the pangs of Love start to fight the overwhelming hatred in his stomach. But that was a problem for a different time. His personal woes were meaningless right now. There was a little girl who was excited to hear of the world, and he could make her life a little brighter. Even for just a moment, he could make someone else happier. And wasn't that enough?