— somewhere in portland, oregon, september 2022

"Alright, can you tell me what you see in the last column? We're almost done, kiddo."

"A-E-Y-Z-W-F."

"That's it. Perfect score. As always. There seems to be no change to the sight of your left eye whatsoever."

"Sounds terrific," Isaac commented while getting up from the patient's chair that he's been using to face projections on a screen for quite some time now.

"No, I mean it," the black haired woman reassured him, as she was busy looking at the chart in front of her, "You got the eye of a hawk there."

He cracked a smile at that. "Why not the eye of a crow?"

Surprised, she looked up at him, but shook her head and laughed instead of saying anything. She knew he didn't want to hear how good his left eye was. He normally didn't show it, but being born the way he was, it was such a shame and unfair, in her opinion. He must have been quite sad about it.

At least, that was what she thought, but in reality, he had gotten used to it a very long time ago and didn't care anymore. His right eye didn't bother him much to begin with, anyway.

"I need to get going now, my parents are waiting for me," he said as he turned away.

The doctor, Diana Stevens, was still looking at him from behind, brows furrowed whilst repositioning her thickly rimmed glasses, as she called out to him one last time: "Happy Birthday, Isaac. See you next time."

They both knew it would be his last appointment with her and she was worried he would take it badly, but as she had known Isaac for quite a while, she was sure he would adjust better than anyone else.

'He's a fighter,' she confirmed with herself.

She had been his physician ever since the Layers had moved to Portland, even though after the Awakened had appeared, she had gone from being specialized in children and the adolescent, to specializing in Awakened. In fact, Isaac shouldn't have been in her care for at least two years anymore, but he liked the routine and since he was always healthy as a horse, all she had to do was check his left eye for any changes.

They needed doctors to check on their health as often and had a lot of things that one had to know. And she was finally approved of taking on this special challenge, officially changing the label on her profession. And with all of that said, she still felt terrible about leaving him hanging.

Whereas she was still lost in thought, the boy nodded and shot her a glance over his left shoulder, before leaving the office and strolling out onto the streets of Portland, knowing nothing of his Doctor's plight. A quick check on his phone told him it was close to 05:00 pm on a beautiful September 22nd, 2022. Exactly twelve years ago, in September 2010, the world became a mess, as the first public Gate had appeared in the air above Seattle – introducing the beauty of Dungeon Breaks along with it.

It was also Isaacs birthday back then – he felt like it might have been an omen, but nothing big had ever happened again on that same date. Meanwhile, he let the fresh air fill his lungs, watching countless people swarm the streets around him like a bunch of ants.

In between those ants, he could see some trees planted on little spots along the roadside. They had all turned into variations of orange, brown and reddish colors. It was almost October, after all. A smile crept up on his face, as a faint memory started to invade his thoughts.

"Elijah, let's watch the autumn leaves together this year, okay?" He felt as if he heard her voice in his head, calling him by a name he hadn't used in such a long time.

A voice that wasn't real; that couldn't be real. It was accompanied by a distant sense of pain, making him unconsciously cover his right eye with one hand.

Yes, there was nothing good about knowing what wasn't wrong with his left eye, as long as there was so much grief in knowing what was wrong with the right one.

Elijah, now Isaac Layer, shook his head and drove the thoughts away. It wouldn't do him good to get distracted like this. It was like this every year around this time, so he should have already gotten used to it by now, he thought. How long had it been? He knew it on the dot, but wouldn't acknowledge it.

Instead, he changed sideways and headed back.

In the first place, the day wasn't supposed to be very eventful. Walking into his home, being greeted by an annoyed look, piercing him from the side, all he wanted was to go to bed and take a nap. Too bad he still had work to do. So he glanced over into the living room, watching his little brother play on his handheld console, while giving Isaac the stink eye.

"Mom said you shouldn't play so much, Riley," Isaac brought to attention, which was apparently uncalled for, as the fifteen-year-old gave a short snort in return.

"What do you care?"

Actually, he wasn't really Isaac's brother so much as he was his cousin. His maternal aunt, a woman with a shady background, died during the 28. Dungeon Break known to men, which was the third Gate opening to the public eye in the United States.

At the beginning, Dungeons tended to break a lot – an awful lot, in fact – especially during the first three years after the initial catastrophe. That's how long it took for the government to understand that bombing away at the Gates would make them break sooner rather than later.

'What amazing insight,' Isaac thought to himself and shook his head.

Another snort was heard, coming from his not-brother Riley who thought this gesture was meant for him. "Mom also said you should come home right after school."

"I was out on an appointment."

"You?" he asked, sarcastically, looking up from his game device in pretend-shock.

"Yes, to check-up on my eyes."

The black haired teen flinched at this, but didn't say anything this time. No wonder his mother didn't say anything after being annoyed at first, when Isaac didn't arrive on time.

The younger sibling might have his gripes with the older one, but he wasn't going to stoop so low as to make a provocative comment on Isaac being born blind in one eye.

'It's a good thing that he doesn't seem to have a problem with his left eye as well,' he thought.

Otherwise, he might have had to feel bad for him or something.

"Either way, if you have nothing else to add, I will go up to my room until Mom calls me down," the brown haired said, taking off his shoes, jacket and the thin scarf that he was wearing outside.

"Do whatever." Lying back down on the couch to play, Riley decided to stop paying him any mind.

Upstairs, in the room he called his own, the first thing Isaac did was locking the door behind him. Then he opened up the window next to his bed, sitting cross legged on top of his bedspread, staring off into the far distance.

He calmed himself and concentrated. If you looked at him like that, you would have thought he was meditating with his eyes open, but that wasn't it. Air seemed to fluctuate around his posture, swaying his light shirt and the soft strands of his hair – though it wasn't truly the air that moved it.

It was something that manifested and moved around him, with no shape, nor color, yet with overwhelming presence; tangible, vivid, feeling a little heavy, even as it was as light and ticklish as a feather. It moved around him as if it was happy to be there, relieved to be called upon and eager to show its power only to him.

But as soon as it was there, it vanished and the air that was shoved and whipped around, regained its original tranquility. Where did that energy go? It seemed to have dissipated, but that was also not true. Instead, it flowed right into the boy at its center, using his blood vessels as a path to circulate through his scrawny figure and invigorate this weak vessel. It was hard to do that and he only learned this method a couple of names ago.

Originally, his body shouldn't have been able to let the flow course through him at all and it wasn't like he could make it his own, either. He could only tug lightly at this energy while being in this state, trying out a few of the things that he should normally be able to do easily.