Chapter 2

The first day passed in a blur.

Marcus barely remembered the journey home. The shock had drained him so completely that, the moment he reached his apartment, he collapsed onto his bed without even bothering to change his clothes.

When he woke the following morning, the events of the previous day felt almost unreal. For a few precious seconds, Marcus wondered if he had dreamed everything. Then he walked into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and saw the symbol was still there.

Marcus stared at the symbol covering part of his forehead, visible only through his uncovered left eye, and in the morning light, the pattern seemed sharper than before, frighteningly precise compared to the blurred shape he'd seen yesterday.

He stood in front of the mirror, running his fingers over his forehead as though he could feel the strange shape beneath his skin, but his skin felt completely normal, and as he lowered his hand, the message from the book returned to him.

You are the one-eyed man in the world of the blind.

As the words from the book yesterday played through his mind like a broken record, a flood of confusing questions came with them.

Who had written it, who were they, how could they know someone like him would exist, and if someone was looking for him, how would they find him, when the worst question was the one he didn't want to answer, did he even want them to?

He had no idea what was happening or why the symbols existed, but Marcus knew one thing, the world everyone around him accepted was not the whole truth, and something was hidden under it.

And if the artificial retina was hiding that reality from everyone, perhaps there were other clues hidden in places he had never thought to look.

The library was where Marcus had found the first one, so he returned and spent hours moving between shelves, pulling books from history, science, medicine, technology, and encyclopedias, examining their pages through his left eye, but nothing gave him an answer.

Every page seemed to contain another variation of the same strange geometry. Some patterns were incredibly complicated, resembling the symbol on his forehead. Others were simpler, appearing on signs and objects throughout the city.

The longer Marcus searched, the more his eye began to ache, but just as he was ready to give up, something finally caught his attention, several open books resting on blank pages, each marked with the exact same symbol. His pulse quickened as he leaned closer, comparing the identical patterns before glancing around the quiet library, taking out a pen and sheet of paper, and carefully copying the strange symbol.

Compared with the enormous symbol on his forehead, this one was surprisingly simple. The complicated patterns seemed almost endless, as though every line contained another layer if he stared long enough.

This one didn't.

It reminded him of a strangely angular castle viewed from above, with squared corners and a few deliberate indentations.

Marcus wasn't an artist, but he didn't need to be, he only needed to follow the lines, opening his sore left eye briefly to check the symbol before closing it again and relying on his memory as he copied the shape line by line.

His hand wasn't perfectly steady, and a few edges curved or bumped where his elbow slipped, but the overall pattern was there, until only a few centimeters remained before the final line connected with where he'd started, making him pause with his pen hovering over the paper and wonder if this was ridiculous.

He was sitting in a public library, copying an impossible symbol that only one of his eyes could see, and somehow he was expecting reality to react to it.

What exactly did he think would happen?

Would the paper burst into flames?

Would someone suddenly appear and explain everything?

For one absurd second, Marcus thought of the old stories where a person was offered two pills and told that one would reveal the truth, almost laughing at the ridiculous thought before closing his left eye, taking a breath, and completing the shape.

The moment the line connected, the symbol disappeared, leaving only an ordinary sheet when he looked with his right eye, but when he opened his left eye again, the pattern returned, making his heart slam against his ribs as he stared in disbelief.

Whatever the artificial retina was hiding, whatever these symbols represented, they weren't simply images, and despite the mistakes in his copy, the symbol had responded, proving they were instructions or tools, so Marcus reached for the pen again and wrote a single word inside the pattern.

Hello.

Marcus looked through both eyes, watching the word disappear until only the strange symbol remained visible through his left eye, and after several minutes of staring at it, an idea began forming, barely a plan but enough to make him reopen the book about artificial retinas, find the page containing the original message, and carefully write under it.

Hello. I am the one with one eye. The world is dim, but now I see it. I will look for you here.

Marcus read the sentence one more time through his left eye, confirming the words were there before checking with his right and seeing nothing, exactly as he'd hoped, then slipping the book back into place without anyone noticing.

As he walked home, he still had more questions than answers and was frightened, confused, and unsure whether the people who left the message were friends or enemies, but for the first time since his artificial retina had failed, Marcus felt something other than fear, a small, fragile hope, and for now, that was enough to mark the end of his second day.