The image shows a close-up of a green stinging nettle plant with serrated leaves and small flowering spikes. The plant is surrounded by a blurred background of more green foliage.

Spoiler-Free

This is a sneak preview of the sequel to my debut dystopia novel The other Option. This version is free of spoilers and features one of my blind main characters. For more Terms of Service, check out the sample chapters of The Other Option available on this site. For another blind POV, try reading Touch. To request additional manuscripts or for any other professional inquiries, email sickofmigraines@outlook.com

Being blind, you got a much truer sense of people. And people could be really shitty sometimes. I once heard my grandma say, if you want  to know who someone really is, look at the way they treat the weak and vulnerable. No matter what I did, or how much I learned how to do for myself, others would always see me as vulnerable. And, once I stopped trying to correct them and merely listened, they would reveal their true nature in their reactions. The pair of guards assigned to work duty one cold morning in early spring were no different.

“What’s the deal with this one?” The one on my left asked the other,

“Brac-e-let,” the other nearly shouted in my face, overenunciating the way some people did when talking to toddlers. They were both young from the way their voices threatened to crack occasionally. These sorts of  low-risk in-camp duties were often assigned to the newer recruits. I kept an impassive mask on my face. Seeing people would read whatever they wanted into a blank face, I had found. From the shifting of his clothes, the shouter was miming holding out my ID bracelet to be scanned. To a blind woman. A smart guard would have noticed the way I used my stick to sweep for obstacles and didn’t lean my weight on it. Presumably these two thought I was just too intimidated to make eye contact with them. I smiled inwardly. I could use their ignorance for my own ends. I held my bracelet out to the wrong guard, pointing my face towards the sky. I could tell the sun was out, but not where it was. It was still too early in the year for it to be warm, but the feel of it on my skin was still pleasant after a long, gray winter. The guard on my right, the one with the scanner, grabbed my wrist roughly and I took a breath to suppress the instinct to break his grip.

“Retinnitis pigmentsa?” he said, clearly reading my information off the small handheld screen. “The hell does that mean?” I felt no need to explain. Let them keep talking about me like I wasn’t right in front of them. The amount of useful information people had let slip that way was well worth the annoyance of being treated like an object. He found the important word before long. “Blind.” He said matter-of-factly. “We really wanna be dealing with that?”

“She’s got that stick. Maybe it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle. We need as many hands as possible. The upper 6 dams need a full servicing. They’re all gunked up and the admins don’t want them shut down for more than 2 days. “ Finding a small pebble, I made a show of letting it knock my stick from my hands. Then I knelt in the muddy yard and groped around randomly as if I hadn’t heard exactly where it had fallen.

“Shit,” the shouter shouted, crouching down and thrusting my stick back into my hands. I swayed noticeably as I got to my feet.

“You’re right. Darryl will have my ass if he as to deal with this all day.”

“No work for you today,” the one on the right overenunciated. I held back a wince. His breath was horrible. “Go… huddle under a blanket or whatever the hell it is you people do when you’re not working.” Wouldn’t you like to know, I thought. As I slowly shuffled out of the front yard and between the two nearest trailers, I smiled to myself. At least 2 more days left to my own devices. I would make good use of them.

“Nice one,” Sarella said under her breath from further back in the line, knowing I would hear her even from across the yard. No doubt she had watched the entire exchange. I turned my face slightly so she could see my smile and waved the hand that hung at my side. 

She wouldn’t be able to pull the same sort of stunt herself. Sarella was tall and wiry strong, and in the System as one of their best workers. She couldn’t seem to help herself. I would have something nice for us to eat when she got home. Sarella was my only friend in the Camp and the only person I felt I could trust since my grandmother died. We had both been born and raised in the Seattle Rejects Camp, punished for the crimes of our parents and grandparents before we were even born. When I was 4 and my brother was 5 our parents all died in the same rockslide while quarrying rock for yet another dam. Sarella had been easily absorbed into our family after that, with my grandmother taking all 3 of us in to live with her in her ancient patched trailer. She taught us all she could before a particularly nasty virus took her life 5 winters past. She had taught Aiden too well, and my greatest fear was that the assessors would come for Sarella the way they had for Aiden when he turned 15. They had had a shortage of electricians in Seattle and he had shown remarkable aptitude. If only our grandmother had taught him how to hide his talents, as well as how to use them.

It wasn’t just that I missed him. There were countless parents and family members in the camp who trained their kids to appeal to the assessors with the hope of securing them a better life in Seattle. And I couldn’t argue that the people in the city lived better than us, but it was dangerous in a whole different way. He was the child of two dissenters, so they would be keeping a close eye on him. Aiden had always had a big mouth. It had gotten him into trouble more than once when we were children, and I worried every day that he would say the wrong thing to the wrong person and find himself in the resolution center. And that was the best case scenario. It was unlikely he’d be allowed  to come back here. Not after the System had invested years of training in him. Skilled professionals who stepped out of line were either resolved, or never heard from again. Either way, the brother I knew would be gone. I had no way to know he wasn’t already. I shuddered just to think of it and sped up my steps.

I followed the sound of the small stream that ran diagonally through the camp from the northeast corner to about halfway along the Western fence. The stream ran down out of the mountains and provided the only bathing facilities in the camp. It was bitterly cold most of the year, and never got deeper than about  a meter even when, like now, it was high and fast from melting snow and ice on the peaks above us. It was clean enough, at least. Except for when it was clogged with ash from wild fires across the mountains. Far preferable to the communal trench toilets.

Using my stick, I picked my way through the shacks and trailers until I got to my own, 3 south of the stream along the eastern boundary of the camp. The noises the stick made were as helpful to navigate as the tactile feedback. The wet thunk of rotting plywood signalled the spots’ house. That wasn’t any of their real names, but the entire family was apparently so covered in freckles that the nickname had stuck. I had never had enough vision to confirm it. The rickety clang of corrugated tin made up the siding on the next shack, home to the camp’s resident alcoholic and the only person who you could get passable quality moonshine from. Here and there, there was a crackling thwack as my stick found the edge of a precious tarp. There were few enough of them. Mold and mildew ran rampant in the camp most of the year, only getting enough sun to burn off in the height of summer. No one made it through a winter in the camp without developing some sort of chest complaint. Yarrow could help with that sometimes. Until it didn’t.

It had been my grandmotThe clear ring of metal when I dound the curved shell of my trailer was one of the most comforting sounds I could think of. her’s once, and now Sarella and I shared it. I pulled the key I wore on a string around my neck out from under my dress, tearing a new hole in the thinning fabric under my arm. Shit, I thought. I’ll have to make a visit to Chelsea later. My winter dress was overdue for darning anyway. I could feel the fingers of cold wind that slipped in through the half ten  holes. Most of the camp residents preferred pants and shirts, but not me. They were hard to find in my small size and I liked the way a skirt would shift to mimic the direction of the air or wind wherever I was. The long-sleeved cotton garment comprised half my wardrobe. It had a high neck to keep the heat in and a loose skirt that was both easy to move in, and perfect for concealing the 3 knives hidden under it.

Perhaps calling them knives is generous. Made from scrap metal ground and sharpened against rough river rock until it held an edge and wrapped with string as a makeshift handle. They were crude things, but they got the job done. Whether it was cutting plants or warding off presumptuous hands. Technically, we weren’t allowed to have weapons, but I was far from the only one to bend that rule. In the camp, the only resources were the ones you could make, trade, or steal. And anything you had, you’d better be prepared to protect. I wore the knives strapped to my legs, one on each thigh and a third on my right calf. There were slits several inches long on either side of the skirt for easy access, and large pockets. I had a summer one, too, with no sleeves and a slightly shorter skirt.

A precious knitted shawl I’d inherited from my grandmother and a few underclothes made up the rest of my small wardrobe. It was still too cold for the summer dress, so this one would have to do for now.  Thankfully, the seamstress had a bad belly and, consequently, a constant appetite for mint tea. Something I always had in good supply.

I paused, listening for several seconds  until I was sure there wasn’t anyone waiting nearby before finding the keyhole with my left thumb, and letting myself into the trailer. My feet carried me up the two small stone steps and into the trailer with decades of muscle memory, pulling my stick in after me and leaning it up against the wall next to the door. I locked the door behind myself, letting out a sigh of relief to be home. It was the one place I felt truly safe, not constantly bracing for possible threats. The sudden dark in contrast to the light outside made the dancing bursting lights that swam through my field of vision all the more vivid. When I was younger, the hallucinations scared me, but by now I was so used to them that I just watched and let myself be amused wondering what they would do next.

Even with my short, stocky legs, it only took 3 steps to cross the small trailer. The original interior had worn out or rotted away decades before I was born, replaced with a mixture of mostly rags, dried corn husks and stalks, scrap planks of wood, anything that might be insulating. The makeshift insulation was covered with whatever cloth Sarella and I could acquire. There was a large swath of canvas over the kitchen wall, a swath of old cotton so soft and thin you could feel right through it. Over the bed, and a wrinkled linen patch over the day bed that acted as a sofa when Sarella wasn’t sleeping on it. In the winter we usually shared the larger bed to conserve heat, but in the summer it was impossible.

I found the metal switch and flicked on the series of small electric heaters my grandmother had installed before she died. They would burn you if you touched them and light fires if you weren’t careful but they kept the worst of the mold away and had the small space nicely warm in about 20 minutes. In which time I made myself a cup of tea. Nettle and dandelion and wild burdock. I had always preferred flavors others found bitter and unpleasant.

I sipped at the tea, letting it warm my hands through the thin tin cup as I snacked on a leftover potato cake. There was a cloth full of them, resting in a hanging basket attached to the ceiling over the small kitchen area. Storing anything edible near the floor was just inviting pests. This time of year, Potatoes and greens were about the only thing any of us had in abundance. It made a person get pretty creative with how they prepared them. Perhaps I would try to make some kind of  a bake with onions and herbs. For when Sarella got back. I didn’t have an oven, of course, just the one electric cooking element, but maybe the kettle could work in place of a stovetop oven.

The electricity was siphoned from the fence through a complicated trickle siphon device that my grandmother and Aiden had run under the ground behind the trailer before… I dreaded the day when the system inevitably broke down. There wasn’t anyone in the camp who could figure out how it worked, let alone fix it. But for now, we had power. There were electric lights, too, tacked to the curved ceiling, but I didn’t use them when Sarella was gone. The darkness was another layer of protection. If I did choose to invite anyone in, it would give me the advantage. I was the only blind person in the Rejects Camp since Grandma died. I had no community like the half dozen deaf residents with their own language that used their hands. Just me.

Draining the last of my tea and setting the cup on the small counter, I wrapped the thin blanket off my bed around my shoulders and stepped out of the trailer, stick in hand, locking the door behind me. I stood on the steps for several moments, listening, taking stock of the nearby sounds. Most of the camp would be gone by now, up river to service the massive hydroelectric dams, but you couldn’t be too careful. I heard the distant sounds of someone washing what sounded like at least 3 children in the stream off to my right, and the creak of Jenkins’ rocking chair several shacks to my left. The old polished wood chair was his most prized possession The old man rarely vacated the chair and it provided a good fixed audible navigation point. The camp was otherwise quiet, save for the distant hum of engines in the patrol cars and the sounds of countless birds in the woods beyond the fence. Satisfied that no one would see me, I walked around the side of the trailer to the sea of nettles behind it.

Most of the  camp’s residents avoided the invasive stinging plants, but to me, they were old friends. I swept my stick across the border until I found the smooth river rock I had half-buried in the soft mud to mark the invisible path. I regularly had Sarella check that the gap in the nettles wasn’t noticeable to searching eyes. I edged between the plants sideways, always approaching from above where their leaves had no spines, letting the small gap of a path between the plants guide my feet, carrying my stick behind me. I heard the telltale hum of the electrified fence as the path approached within a meter of it, then abruptly turned to run parallel to it. Yet another reason most residents avoided this area.  I had treated two teenagers once who had tried to escape the camp by scaling the eastern fence during a blackout. They had torn themselves to shreds on the razor wire and, despite my best efforts, they were both dead of infections within the week. It had taken months to get the smell out of the trailer.

At just over a meter and a half, I could easily vanish into the plants in the summer, but even in the winter they were still tall enough to conceal and defend my garden. Most people, I had found, had a distorted view of how much a nettle sting hurt. They feared the plants, remembering dramatic childhood incidents where the minor stinging for a couple hours felt like unbearable pain. It wasn’t like I never stung myself accidentally. It just wasn’t that big of a deal. And there was almost always a sword fern around. The spores on the back of their leaves counteract the sting of the nettles in a matter of minutes. Let people have their fear. More nettles for me.

I took stock of the herbs first, as they were closest to the path. The mint was coming on strong as always, and the lemon balm along with it. Most sighted people had a difficult time telling the two plants apart without crushing and smelling them. ‘This is where we have an advantage’ my grandma had said. She was in her 40s when she went blind but she adapted as well as anyone, and was a huge help teaching me to do things for myself. She had taught me everything she could about whatever she could. Including identifying all the plants she knew by touch and smell. Entirely apart from the smell, mint leaves were flatter and more serrated and had a more powdery texture, while lemon balm leaves had a waxy texture and prouder more bubbly sections than their cousins. Both plants were covered in fresh budding leaves. I picked a generous handful of the mint for Chelsea the seamstress, tying the bundle with a stalk of grass and tucking it into one of my pockets. Moving on, I was pleased to confirm that the chamomile I had transplanted last summer had survived the winter, for once. It must be the tenth time I had tried to get the small calming flowers to take root in my garden. I had finally been successful when I planted them right next to my small rosemary bush after noticing that it attracted more weeds than anything else I planted. Sarella had found the flowers growing out of a crack in the old road she’d been repaving about 9 months earlier and smuggled it back in her undershirt.

Most of the rest of my herbs seemed to have survived the winter. My herbal remedies might have a limit to their efficacy, but they were also the only medicine most of the camp residents were likely to see. The System didn’t even bother registering children born in the camp until they lived past the age of5, so many died in infancy. And I charged significantly less than others. I would take whatever people had to trade.

I sighed as my hands crossed into the food section of the garden and found that my carrots had died again. I had yet to find the trick to getting them to survive the winter. But I would try again. And again. a couple of volunteer tomatoes seemed to have sprouted alongside their cousins. The potatoes were going strong as always. It was the one thing almost anyone could figure out how to grow. Especially when the only potatoes we got out of Seattle were the ones that had already sprouted. Bad to eat but each sprout or eye could be a whole new plant. My potato patch had been going strong for almost a decade, the dead husks of the previous year’s plants fertilizing the ground for he next year’s crop. They were great at self-propagating at this point and had become a staple of Sarella’s and my diet. Pulling the blanket off from around my shoulders I suppressed a shiver at the cold breeze the nettles did little to block. I spread the blanket out on a section of the potato patch I had already thoroughly dug up the week before and set to rooting out the last remaining tubers from the fall. Any longer in the ground and they would start to rot.

Some people made crude shovels or other digging tools but I had always preferred to use my hands. It gave me a better sense of how my garden was doing. The texture and consistency of the soil as it clung to the cracks in my palms, the delicate brush of spiders and the more sharp precise scuttling of beetles as they crawled across the backs of my hands. The soft slick brush when my fingers found a worm. Tools could accidentally kill them, whereas my hands could gently move them to a spot I wasn’t planning on disturbing soon. I had never understood why some sighted people were so terrified of bugs. Especially when there were so many actual threats to be scared of.

I was about halfway done digging up the potatoes when I heard it. Barely more than a breath of wind at least 10 meters over my head. Not even enough to move my hair where it was tied in my usual knot at the base of my skull. It had been one of the hardest sounds for me to learn to properly identify as a child. But one of the most vital, too. My grandma had spent months teaching me how to identify and track it. And it wasn’t like we could advertise what we were doing, which had made it all the trickier and more stressful. It was the sound of a drone passing overhead.

Most of the camp’s drones would have gone with the labor force to deter possible escape while out of the camp’s electrified walls. But apparently the ones they’d left behind were on patrol of the camp. What I was doing wasn’t technically against any of the camp rules, but that wouldn’t stop the guards from seizing everything I’d grown and giving me a beating in the bargain. I froze, useless eyes wide, not even able to breathe for fear it would impair my hearing. I tracked the almost imperceptible sounds of whirring and displaced air as the drone flew smoothly over my garden and past the trailer next to mine toward the open space around the stream. As soon as I was sure it was past, I let out my held breath and gasped in the rich green brown air of my garden as quietly as I could. Crouched down as I was, no one would be able to see me from the ground, but the drone was  a different matter entirely. And this time of year was when my garden was most visible from the air with all the open dirt where nothing had grown in yet. I edged carefully to my left into the sea of nettles, my right hand scrabbling in the dirt until it closed around the comforting grip of my stick. I pulled it to myself in the small open space I’d found between two towering plants. It couldn’t actually help me, the rational side of me said, but it still felt better to have it. As the spiny undersides of the nettle leaves brushed across my face I almost welcomed the stings. The serrated leaves skimming over my cheekbones were my protectors. I sat there still, waiting to see if more drones would pass overhead, ears straining.What I heard was not more drones. At least not at first.

It started with a few distant shouts. Hesitant and scattered. The camp was almost empty. The only people left were those too old, young, or feeble to work. Probably less than 5% of the camp. But enough were there to see. To hear. The disturbance spread through the camp in a cascade of calls to friends and neighbors, and a halt to the usual sounds. The birds in the trees fell silent. The usually ceaseless creaking of old Jenkins’ rocking chair quickly faded to be replaced with hurried, unsteady footsteps. It was times like this I wished I could see. Clearly there was something strange going on. But all I had to go on were the reactions of others. I had lost track of the drone when the footsteps drowned it out. It sounded like pretty much everyone who physically could was converging on the stream, so I assumed that was where the drone had decided to hover. Why were people running towards it? Were they looking to get shot? I stayed frozen in my hiding spot, listening as hard as it is possible to listen. Thankfully, the drone decided to wait until the footsteps died down to speak up, so I heard every word. It spoke with a woman’s voice.

“I don’t want to be part of a place that tosses out the people they see as weak or liabilities like garbage,” the voice said. It was clearly recorded and played back and the quality wasn’t very good, but I could still distinguish every word. And the anger that fueled them. None of us want to live in a system that doesn’t treat us like people. But what can we do about it? That’s just the way things are. The woman sounded youngish but her voice was ragged and worn from strain or exhaustion or both. Still, there was a strength to the conviction in her voice even if she was just shouting into the wind.

It felt like she was speaking right to me in that moment. Everyone from the System to our neighbors to some of my grandma’s former friends had been assuming I would die since it first became clear I couldn’t see properly. I was born half-blind but I wasn’t diagnosed until my first exam at age 5. When they said it was degenerative and incurable most people wrote me off. Especially after our parents died. But not my grandma. And not the woman on the recording. I wished I could meet her.

“Damn straight, we will,”   Another voice joined in, a man this time, I thought. Just as passionate and determined as the woman, but older.

I never heard the last words, as they were written in text, but they were on the hushed lips of every person in the camp by the end of the week.

Help is out there.

Crouching there among the nettles, listening to the drone flee back into the woods, closely pursued by the camp’s which had finally caught on, I felt something blossoming in my chest. Something hard and resistant and almost unfamiliar. It didn’t so much blossom as poked a tentative, probing petal out of a hard calloused bud. Something I had thought I would never feel again. Hope.

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