Shades of Grey

SALVO— JUNE 1844

I awoke some time later to the intense smells of chamomile, lilac and numerous flowers I could not name. I felt the sheets and mattress under me, taking in the textures and trying to surmise exactly where I was. I reached my hand to my face and felt coarse strips of gauze wrapped over the top half of my head, doused with some sort of medicinal chemical. The smells were so intensely vivid that they began to overwhelm and disorientate me. I shook in dizziness until I felt Forma’s strong hand grasp mine. I cried out as her touch sent a sharp stinging pain through my arm, also wrapped in thick gauze. Forma loosened her grip.

“Calm down. You’re in a Salvian hospital,” she said promptly.

I stopped shaking.

“Are you alright?” I asked, trying to ignore the unbearably loud sounds of Forma’s breathing, the ruffling of her clothes and the wrinkling of the sheets below me as I moved.

“I’ll be fine. I broke my arm and I have severe burns on my left side, but I’ll be fine.

She was quiet and I heard her nervously shift her weight on the mattress.

“What about me?” I asked softly, fearing the answer.

Forma was quiet for a moment and then spoke slowly, hesitantly.

“After you were knocked unconscious, one of the flaming pieces of rubble ripped through your face…then your mask and hat caught fire, which quickly spread to your coat and down to your arms and hands…they treated you for burns so deep they were surprised your limbs were still functional.” Forma took a breath. “Grey, the rubble was sharp… it slashed directly through your eyes…”

My breath caught in my chest.

“I’m blind,” I finally choked.

Forma said nothing, but I heard the quick contractions of the muscles in her neck as she nodded, too distraught to formulate words.

“I’m so sorry Grey,” she in an empathetic voice as she gripped my shoulder.

I turned away from her on the bed, too shocked to speak or cry…or think…

“Let me see the scars,” I said abruptly. “Link me to your vision.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”

“Please let me see,” I commanded as I sat up suddenly, clawing at my bandages with my burned hands.

“Alright, fine. Prepare yourself though, it’s not pretty…the burns are still fresh.”

I held my breath as the familiar searing pain ripped through my skull, rocketing its way through the nerves in my dead eyes and linking me to Forma’s vision. When the pain stilled, I waited as Forma slowly opened her eyes.

I sat on the hospital bed in a plain, white gown with the thick, blood-soaked gauze wrapped around my head. Bowls of incense sat next to my neatly folded uniform on the bedside table, their multi-coloured smokes blending together into one dizzyingly fragrant mass.

“Alright, we’re going to take this one step at a time,” Forma warned as she stood up and moved closer to my thin frame.

I said nothing, waiting as Forma gently removed the bandages around my hands, keeping her gaze fixed on them. My breath caught in my throat as I beheld the damage.

Third degree burns ran along my palms where my gloves had melted to my skin. Searing pain plagued my hands as the burnt tissue met the fragrant air and I choked back brief tears of frustration before Forma began to rewrap them, seeing my distress.

“Take it easy, Grey. It’s not so bad…it’ll heal with time…”

“Remove the bandages from my face,” I commanded. “I need to see my face.”

I waited patiently as Forma hesitantly removed the gauze, gasping in horror when the last of the bandages had fallen away.

A deep gash ran directly through both of my eyes surrounded by hideous, burnt flesh that stretched over the entire top half of my face. I reached up to gently touch the scorched flesh, as if verifying in my mind that it was actually real, that I had actually sustained such disturbingly deep burns. I opened my own eyes and gasped in revulsion. My left eye was completely gone, only a gaping black hole remained and my swollen right eye was now black and lifeless, looking more like the bulbous eye of a horse. I covered my face in shame as two tears of despair fell from my otiose right eye, stinging my sore flesh as they fell down my cheek.

“Break the link,” I ordered Forma in a shaky voice.

She did so immediately and I saw nothing but blackness. I turned away from Forma and held my head in my hands.

“Was my cloak destroyed in the blast?” I asked.

“Yes. The analgesic was lost as well,” she replied in a small voice.

Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me mourned for my lost sight, my diminished value as a Hunter…my diminished value as a human…

But another part of me was stronger. I could not cry for myself. I could not cry at all.

I had a vampire to kill.