Nine years ago...
He felt the cold machinery force his eyelids wide, but the world was black. His body twitched responsively, but the sedatives dulled most of the pain that the procedure caused. Tobias could hear still, albeit the words all bled together and what he managed to comprehend made no sense. "...e'll... ee... ain?" Though the youth strained and fought against the numbing agent thick in his veins, his struggle was for naught. In a galaxy filled with magnificent and terrifying things, a single boy had no right to think he could change anything. This was his penance for believing anything else.
Another cold needle pricked his flesh, but he could only feel the length of it as it penetrated his flesh and injected its contents. The constant flow of drugs kept his body at ease, even if his mind was restless. Several brief sensations like warmth and cool washed over him at intervals, and the steady beep of the biological scans informed everyone that he was still very much alive. Baited breaths escaped him as he felt them wrest his eyes free of their sockets and dislodged them from the optic nerves, one at a time.
That still managed to hurt, despite the drugs.
His heartbeat spiked and his lips parted, but no sound came. "So you're saying he'll never see again?" the words came from a concerned young woman, no older than eighteen. Her dark eyes wavered over Tobias as she watched as stoic as she could manage. It was difficult to see someone's eyes snatched from their body no matter how necessary or positive the procedure was intended to be. She winced. "This is all my fault," she muttered, "if he hadn't thrown himself in the way..."
"Please, ma'am, control yourself," the Arkanian frowned. "There was no way he could have predicted the blast would blind him. He's lucky that's all it did. In such close proximity, the shrapnel from a small grenade could have gored him to death. The concussive force broke several of his bones, and he managed to get away with all his limbs intact. This is nothing short of a miracle."
"Tobias is only sixteen years old," she pressed, "he's not even a man yet, and you call this a miracle?" her emotions were understandable, but the doctor still managed to get annoyed with her. "If he loses his sight-"
"He will see again," he cut her off before she could continue on her tirade. "I have prepared eyes from a donor to replace his useless ones." The pale man gestured toward his workplace where two brown eyes stared back at him within the confines of a jar. They were suspended in preservative gel. "Needless to say, these eyes are very special."
"
He felt the cold machinery force his eyelids wide, but the world was black. His body twitched responsively, but the sedatives dulled most of the pain that the procedure caused. Tobias could hear still, albeit the words all bled together and what he managed to comprehend made no sense. "...e'll... ee... ain?" Though the youth strained and fought against the numbing agent thick in his veins, his struggle was for naught. In a galaxy filled with magnificent and terrifying things, a single boy had no right to think he could change anything. This was his penance for believing anything else.
Another cold needle pricked his flesh, but he could only feel the length of it as it penetrated his flesh and injected its contents. The constant flow of drugs kept his body at ease, even if his mind was restless. Several brief sensations like warmth and cool washed over him at intervals, and the steady beep of the biological scans informed everyone that he was still very much alive. Baited breaths escaped him as he felt them wrest his eyes free of their sockets and dislodged them from the optic nerves, one at a time.
That still managed to hurt, despite the drugs.
His heartbeat spiked and his lips parted, but no sound came. "So you're saying he'll never see again?" the words came from a concerned young woman, no older than eighteen. Her dark eyes wavered over Tobias as she watched as stoic as she could manage. It was difficult to see someone's eyes snatched from their body no matter how necessary or positive the procedure was intended to be. She winced. "This is all my fault," she muttered, "if he hadn't thrown himself in the way..."
"Please, ma'am, control yourself," the Arkanian frowned. "There was no way he could have predicted the blast would blind him. He's lucky that's all it did. In such close proximity, the shrapnel from a small grenade could have gored him to death. The concussive force broke several of his bones, and he managed to get away with all his limbs intact. This is nothing short of a miracle."
"Tobias is only sixteen years old," she pressed, "he's not even a man yet, and you call this a miracle?" her emotions were understandable, but the doctor still managed to get annoyed with her. "If he loses his sight-"
"He will see again," he cut her off before she could continue on her tirade. "I have prepared eyes from a donor to replace his useless ones." The pale man gestured toward his workplace where two brown eyes stared back at him within the confines of a jar. They were suspended in preservative gel. "Needless to say, these eyes are very special."
"
