Blood-Etched Trees

“Hm.” Did she actually just want to hear him ramble? He could do that, he supposed. “I have the letter somewhere at my apartment, along with my jacket and my computer. Królik lives there as well. That’s about all I own, but they serve me well. I also have a pen.” He took it out of his pocket. It was a sleek thing, but a bit thicker than the average writing utensil. “I use it to write things, like that.” He gestured to the symbol she was messing with. “The word reads ‘Sasha’. It just means I own that eye. Which I do. Lets me see a little around it. Not much. It makes me feel safer. I don’t…” He thought to himself before continuing. “I only came here very recently, from very far away, with no instruction on why, or how to make a living, or what I was supposed to do when I got here. So I do what I know. I gather information.”

He straightened up and looked her in the eye. “Was that all?”

“What do you mean, how? I just see. How do you see? Are you some sort of expert on the anatomy of eyes?” What did she want from him? He’d never looked into exactly how his powers worked. He had other things to think about.

“What are you --” Sasha blinked hard as some of his vision was blotted out. “Yes, generally when you put dirt in someone’s eye they lose vision in it, that sounds about right – I’m not a scientist, I didn’t look into it any farther than that!” He scowled, realizing he had actually raised his voice. It’d been a while. “What do you want, an expansive list of symptoms from whatever mysterious genetic disease I seem to suffer?”

Sasha grumbled under his breath as the girl continued to mess around. He’d have to scrub that off later.

He’d just make a new carving, but he hated having a dark spot in his vision.

“Yes. I thought that would have been clear by now.” But he didn’t pursue that line of conversation, because then the girl would blabber more. “I don’t know how far the campus extends, but – probably at least five?”

“I’m not spying.” He frowned. “That would imply I had some sort of hostile intent, or that I worked for some sort of agency. These will fade off in a few days – I just want to see if I can find who wrote that letter.”