Cyclops

We all have the chips implanted in the middle of our for heads. That's how Tessa went blind. One of the side effects to the implantation is that one in a million babies who receive them loose their sight. Society has deemed them to be necessary and no one seems to disagree. If you commit a crime and become convicted the chip lights up. The chip also lights up if one of your immediate family members commits a crime because you are deemed to be high risk for criminal activity as well.

Different colors mean different things. Blue for drugs/drunk driving. Red for assault. Sometimes people commit a variety of offenses and the color turns purple. Tessa's chip is lit up like mine because our brother is a drug addict whose cravings often land him behind prison walls.

The colors don't mean anything to Tessa because she can't see them. We thought that would be a blessing until Rick came along. That's her boyfriend. He comes from a very affluent family. Can you see the problem? They can't get engaged because Tessa's light would not only embarrass his family but it would cause his chip to light up as well if he were to become her husband.

The holidays were the worst part when Rick would join us he was the only one without a glow in the dark light in between his eyes and the one who caused this misery for Tessa always had an excuse to avoid dinner plans due to his obsession with getting his next fix.

So yes, I thought it was strange when I got a phone call from our brother right before Thanksgiving. He had called to tell me that he thought he was dying, he muttered a few words about his latest score being laced with stuff it shouldn't have been and how he would make that damned bastard named Jake pay for it. Well, the payback never came because he passed away before he made it to the hospital.

I called Tessa to inform her of what had happened. She and Rick were out at his cabin. At first Tessa did not respond, and instead gave me directions and told me to come pick her up. She said she had something to tell me.

It took about an hour for me to reach the location and I found her sitting outside of the big cave that was on the property completely alone. I asked her where Rick was. What she told me next is a secret and you have to promise to not tell a living soul.......................

It turns out that Tessa had over heard Rick talking to someone named Jake and they spoke of a deal that was supposed to make both of them happy. Tessa said that when I told her that the person who laced our brothers dime bag with toxins was also named Jake she got suspicious.

Suspicious enough to take the wrong bag into the cave. She was supposed to bring the one with the flashlights and food supplies. After about half an hour of walking in the cave she asked Rick if he had made connections with the drug dealer that had sold the poison to our brother. Rick had confessed. He had said he did it because he loved her and wanted to bring her to meet his family and after our brother died then the light would go out and not shine on her for head any longer.They could live happily ever after.

Tessa left him alone in the dark. She didn't need flashlights to find her way back out. If Rick only had a light in the middle of his for head maybe just maybe he could see.