Blind Voyage

An RP by PapillonCameo and Tachigami

The sky and the ocean water were nearly the same tone, a beautiful, sharp blue, and not a cloud was in the sky. The sun hung high above the heads of those on the pier, stepping up the gangplank and boarding the cruise ship. It was a pearl-white beast, a massive thing, and it towered above them. The vacationers wore clean bright clothing, white tennis shoes or sandals, and smiled and joked around with one another happily. They held their bags, rolled them behind themselves, slung backpacks over their shoulders, and struggled with them from time to time because of overpacking tendencies. Of course, Louis saw none of it. He only heard the activity, felt the energy in the air, and then his mother’s hand on his shoulder. “It’s beautiful.” She said, looking down at her sixteen year old son. “Large and white, you might think it looks like a reimagined Titanic.”

“We won’t be thinking about that.” His father said from the other side of the young man. “Remember how that ended. Hopefully these two weeks will end without a catastrophe.”

Louis nodded. He stuck out rather well in his monochromatic clothing, his white cane held erect in front of him. “I’d rather that didn’t happen.” He said lightly, and smiled a bit. “Are we headed up...?”

“Yes indeed.” Louis’s father stepped forward, and Louis headed forward, followed by his mother. He was always in the middle of them at one point or another if he were with them, with one leading and one bringing up the rear. In a new environment he relied on visual descriptions from them, and gradually put together a vision in his mind. The decks were beautiful, polished wood, and up so high one could feel the ocean breeze and the gentle motion of the ship. Louis kept one hand out to feel what was to his left, walls and doors, keeping numbers in mind until they reached an elevator that would take them to the cabins. They took a short walk until Louis was made to stop, and he felt about the door, feeling the number. His was 74, and his parents were right across the hall---73. He assured his parents he would be fine on his own, and they reluctantly left him to unlock the door and step in. With deft hands, Louis felt the room.

A desk by the door. A door to the bathroom, tile walls and smooth surfaces. A rather large bed, and a dresser and mounted television. A glass door was directly across, and leather couch beside that. He slid open the door and found himself on a deck, meeting a light breeze that came off the open ocean. Louis left it all, deciding to explore the ship where he was able. The open decks most interested him, however.

Great blue seas, salty ocean air, it was all quite breathtaking. But Ellias Ryker thought of it all more as a death trap, well the ship his parents were dragging him onto anyway. He'd read so much about shipwrecks, the unfathomable power of the ocean tides, that going out onto water made the young man break out in a cold sweat. "Do I have to go?"

"Of course. It won't be so bad!" Cheerfully, Ellias's red haired mother pulled him up the plank and onto the smooth deck. Shiny wood shifted slightly beneath his feet, and he immediately wrapped his hands around the railing of the second deck.

Gloria's new husband, Hector, walked past Ellias. "We're in room 79, here's the extra key."

The young man caught it awkwardly. He fumbled with it a few moments, before slipping the key onto a blue lanyard. Now what to do? Taking a deep breath, Ellias started ambling across the deck. Always one hand held tight to the metal railing, and his mind kept working out possible escape routes. There were a few lifeboats on the level, some fire extinguishers ... A few first aid kits hung upon the walls as well, a reassuring enough sight.

But there was so much more missing, to the red head's mind.

Louis tapped his way along the hall, making his way back up the stairs and to the main deck. He excused himself when he thought he might have grown too close to someone, and could almost feel their double-takes and the way their eyes lingered a bit more than they should. But he was used to that. People seemed to take a disability like blindness far more seriously than they should. It was as though Louis had the tendency to wander into traffic or fall off walls, or find himself floating down a river or into the middle of a lake.

When the bright sunlight hit his face, warming him, Louis found the railing and kept one hand around it. The hand around his cane slacked a little, and he brought it up, collapsing the cane and swinging it at his side. He still looked a bit out of place, no doubt, in his dark clothing. But he preferred it. Black, white, and gray were simple enough, and no matter what he grabbed it tended to match. It even matched his jet black hair.

Louis scanned the world around him with unseeing eyes that had once been a deep blue, but now had a discoloring film that made them nearly white. But Louis imagined it in his mind, seeing bright blue waves, light blue sky, a city below them. He loved it all, and though he couldn't lay eyes on it himself, he trusted those he was close to to describe the view so he could see. He smiled, walking confidently with his cane at his side.

The shortest route to the closest lifeboat from the room was unencumbered, there were no obstacles. Ellias felt a teensy bit safer because of that. Carefully, the brown eyed youth clambered up the metal stairs. He noted the anti-slip pads settled firmly upon them, and wondered how well those would help if a raging storm pummeled the ship. Thinking of such things had him wandering the top deck.

A large pool took up the foredeck, and all around the edges were the railings, and lifeboats too. Again there were the requisite first aid kits, some fire extinguishers. All of them were placed at equal intervals, the boats so that it would be easy to lower them without having them fall atop any of the others from the lower decks.

Maybe he would need to wear a life jacket over his usual long sleeved shirts, and have a utility belt with emergency rations strapped on over his jeans. He was that worried about the chance of something going wrong.

His mother and father approached him quietly, and his mother, Jean, placed a hand on his shoulder. "We're headed in to look around the restaurants, Lou." She said brightly. "You have your phone?"

Louis nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling the smartphone out. He didn't text, so feeling for buttons on a flat screen wasn't a problem. He could simply turn it on and speak his call wishes rather than struggle to find the right one when he couldn't see the screen. "Good, good. Call us if you need something, as usual, and ask around if you need help finding something of course. We'll see you in a bit, but you'd better call us before evening, okay?" She hugged her son, and his father patted him lightly, and Louis heard them wander away. Voices surrounded him, but he knew where he was going.

He started off again, patting the rail as he walked. The air seemed more pure up here, he thought, but was sure as soon as the ship set sail he would be enthralled with the beautifully fresh salt air. Perhaps he could visit the front of the ship and stand to let the air hit him directly in the face. He drifted a little, walking a bit away and bumping into someone, stumbling back. "Aah...!" He almost lost his footing, grabbing the rail for support. "Oh, I'm so sorry..." He felt around as if the person he'd run into would still be right in front of him.

His thoughts were entirely upon ways to escape the ship, if the worst happened. Ellias wasn''t really paying attention to his more immediate surroundings. Hands grasped his arms, his clothing, making Ellias freeze. "What are you doing? It isn't safe ... Not looking where you're going." His mistake, really, or a mutual one. Or so Ellias thought, until his eyes met filmed over ones, and caught the sight of a pale cane with a bright red tip.

"I should have been paying more attention to where I was going, instead of worrying.." He didn't want to mention his paranoia, his constant fears. Ellias read so many things that it was hard not to come up with the worst case scenario. The moment he realized the other young man was blind, his mind swept through all the horrible things that might befall the other youth. Getting stuck in a fast filling cabin, with no way of figuring a way out because of disorientation. Not being able to find a lifeboat, getting crushed in a rushing crowd of people ... Ellias couldn't bear to think about it.

Louis shook his head. "No, don't say that. My fault, it usually is." He shrugged, unfolding the cane in his hand and tapping it on the deck. He hadn't realized at first that he was still grasping the stranger until he released him, grasping the railing beside him again. "What's got you so worried? You're supposed to be enjoying yourself, not worrying..." He let himself lean against the railing. "Whatever's on your mind, you should let it go for a couple weeks. That's what this whole thing's about, y'know?" He smiled, hoping he was looking directly at the person speaking but knowing he could have moved aside. "Don't you like the water...?" Why was he even here? Perhaps his family had dragged him along, but Louis couldn't say the same about his. He'd chosen this specifically for his sixteenth birthday, after all.

"But being on a ship ... I just keep thinking of the Titanic, of the Lusitana ... Of all those other shipwrecks I've read about." He was more afraid of the powerful sea then the blind youth beside him. "I can't let that go. What if something happens to my mom?" Like something had happened to his father. Sighing loudly, Ellias wrapped slender fingers around the railing and held on tight.

"Everything scares me." He had to wonder, why was he telling all of this to a stranger?

Louis knitted his brow, and tilted his head slightly. "You shouldn't think of the bad that's happened in the world. It doesn't do you well. You worry so much and you stop seeing the beauty in the world. It makes everything dark. It puts everything in shadow and you can only see the immediate fear in front of you. I learned that... I learned it in therapy while I was depressed a while back. If you keep worrying all you'll ever see is darkness. Because you don't know what else to see. I try not to worry so much..." He shrugged a bit, following the direction the stranger's voice came from.

He laughed a bit. Ellias tilted his hand and reached out to tap the blind youth's shoulder, just so he knew where exactly the redhead stood. "I learned to be afraid a year ago when a building collapsed on top of my father and me. The only reason I survived is because of my dad, but he's dead." The ocean hadn't taken anything from him, but it still could. Each wave foreboded something ominous.

The ship shifted, a horn resounded and the vessel began its journey. Ellias held on to the rail with a white knuckled grip. A small whimper left his lips, and he closed his eyes tight shut.

Louis felt sad, suddenly. His loss of vision wasn't an awful tragedy, of course, and he knew that. He didn't consider it as such, but wished sometimes he could see, and even bartered with his own limbs, often saying he would give up one or both legs to see again. He had finally fallen into acceptance, understanding that losing limbs was a far greater handicap than a simple loss of vision. "I'm sorry to hear that..." He muttered.

When the ship began moving, the horn sounding, he heard a fearful noise from the stranger beside him. Grasping his arm, Louis turned to face him specifically. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. You just have to forget about what could happen and enjoy what's happening in the moment. Look---my name's Louis... Tell me yours."

A hand grasping his arm brought Ellias back to the present moment. Pale eyes met his own brown ones, and even though they couldn't see ... There was still some comfort to be found in them. "Mine is Ellias." Forgetting was far easier said then done. The smallest thing, a sway of the deck, a creak of the ship, could send the red head into a state of panic, of frightened anticipation.

But there was someone beside him who had just as much to fear from the world as he, and yet showed the exact opposite. "How do you stay so positive?"

Louis smiled a bit, and shrugged. "Well, Ellias, I don't think about the negative that can happen in a situation. I want the good, so I look forward to that instead." He kept close to the young man, that sounded about as young as Louis was, give or take a year. "I had my vision up until I was ten. So I was able to see the world for a while. I understand what it looks like, and I could see the good in the world for a time. I've seen the ocean and ships and I've always wanted to be on one, even after the awful wrecks I hear about. It doesn't happen every time, after all. Otherwise no one would do any of this, would they?"

He looked down to where he knew the water was beginning to rush by faster. "You shouldn't stay so close to the deck if you're afraid... There are safer areas near the middle of the ship... my parents are around there I think, I could use a pair of eyes to help me find it..." Louis smiled a bit, hoping Ellias might catch on---it wasn't good to stay where one was the most afraid.

The mention of helping this near stranger snapped Ellias from his thoughts. Immediately, he reached out and slipped his hand to the crook of Louis' arm. "Alright then. What do they look like? Or ... " He shook his head. "Well, how do I know it's them?" Probably they would tell him on their own. Usually parents did wave and say hello when their children returned. There was no reason for things to be any different with a blind child.

It was the perfect excuse to leave the ship's side, and wander nearer the center. Then again, the sides was where the life boats were.

Louis didn't shrink back at the unexpected touch---he smiled a bit, hoping Elias saw, and followed confidently. His sudden change of wording made Louis laugh a bit. "I could see up until I was ten, Elias, so I know what they look like---any changes they make to themselves are told. My mother is tall, but not quite as tall as me. She has red hair, and light green eyes. She told me she was wearing a short sleeved white shirt with a red track down the middle and light gray jeans, and my father has brown hair, kind of short, and a slight beard, short, but more than stubble. He said he was wearing a light blue and green patterend shirt and baggy blue jeans..." He could picture them well. "And my mother's hair is long... she has it up in a messy bun."

He could hear people around them, the thrumming vibrations going through his head. His feet could pick up the slightest vibration when someone walked by. "Are we in a..."---he sniffed deeply---"... a cafe?" He was sure that were the case, but had to rely on Elias to tell him. He normally wouldn't trust someone, but there weren't enough places to hide if he were to do something to Louis. Elias didn't seem the kind to do anything, though.

He put the descriptions into his mind, trying to imagine the other youth's parents as best as he could. "Oh, yeah. There are lots of round tables, with at least two chairs each. It's really crowded. They're serving burgers, fries, and more fancy smanshy stuff as well." Elias laughed. "I really don't want to taste caviar. Sounds ... too ick for me."

He looked to Louis, and carefully led him around some of the tables he'd mentioned, all the while making sure neither of them ran into other people, or the very busy waiters. "Your other senses have to be like superpowers, without being able to see. Kind of like DareDevil."

He could almost imagine it flawlessly. The only problem was that he didn't have the colors that dominated the place. Was it cool, warm? Was it neutral? He went with cool, because they were on the ocean after all. He smiled at Elias's offhanded comment. "It's not too bad... really salty." He put on a bit of a grimace. His parents tended to let him try anything once, within reason. He'd even tried skydiving when he was fifteen, tandem of course. The rush had been beyond anything he had ever felt before that day, and though he couldn't see where he was going, he hadn't cared. The wind, the noise, the free sensation had all been wonderful even in the dark.

He laughed as he felt each table go by, avoiding bumping into anyone. "I can't do that echolocation thing he can, but yeah." He shrugged. "I mean, I've had six years for my other senses to heighten. I can feel... in a way I never thought possible, even. I can hear whispers across the room, smell just about any spice in a food. It's kind of nice." He laughed a bit. "If you see them, my mother's name is Jean. And my father is Mel." He added quickly.

"You've tried it?" Rather surprising really. Or so it seemed to overly paranoid Ellias. The young man shrugged a little. "Well ... I'm afraid of nearly everything, and everyone ... If you hadn't noticed yet." He lowered his eyes, but made sure to keep them peeled for Louis' parents. The red hair he described would be very easy to spot.

"I always thought he was one of the coolest superheroes ever. More then Superman, him being an alien and all." A tumble of red hair caught his eye. Elias called out hesitantly. "Mrs. Jean?"

The young man would have stopped walking, if Louis hadn't been by his side. Instead, Elias kept walking, and hoping that he hadn't made a mistake or been impolite.

Louis laughed a bit, a smile rather stuck to his face as Elias spoke. He seemed a bit more calm now that he had something to talk about. When he called out at someone he probably recognized from Louis's descriptions, he glanced around as if he could see where Elias were looking. "Ah... I don't think they'd be hanging around too much here... They mentioned being in one of the bigger restaurants... probably on the level up... You see a map of this place? That might help." He couldn't exactly read a map but knew some were posted to avoid anyone getting lost.

There was indeed a map, but Ellias barely glanced at it. Only one thing kept him from running to the sides and obsessing about the dangers of standing upon a ship, so easily tossed about in the ocean. It was like being a leaf, tossed around in the wind. So he guided his distraction away from the crowded café, and towards the steps leading up to a place far from the restaurants.

"And where would you be hanging out, if you hadn't come across me worrying?" More then worrying really, but it was a much better term then obsessing.

Louis couldn't help a laugh, shaking his head a bit. "Well, if I hadn't run into you I'd probably be hanging halfway over the side of the ship..." He sighed, feeling a breath of salty air ruffle his hair. "You shouldn't worry too much... We've learned a lot over time, if---if something happens it wouldn't be too bad..." He didn't believe that, but he didn't dwell on the worst things that could ever happen. He did think about the Titanic from time to time, but if he'd heard right, they were headed toward Italy, and he was looking forward to disembarking for a few days once they arrived.

"I really don't know what else I'd be doing, honestly." Louis shrugged a bit. "I don't have many friends, and none here, so I think I'd be wandering the decks. I didn't choose a cruise for the social aspect... I didn't think." He smiled toward Ellias and hoped Ellias was looking at him.