He is going blind. That was the heartless diagnosis from the doctor. Not even a flash of real pity crossed the old man's face as he delivered the news. Why would there be anyway? Around the world – thousands of people died each and every day. And the world doesn't stop for them. So why would it stop for him?

He was only going blind.

Itachi sits on a random park bench on a sunny afternoon near a grassy clearing; he fumbles with his glasses between his fingers as he looks around at the blurry green scenery. He never minded that he always wore glasses and eventually got used to everything being indifferentiable without them. It was almost comforting, like an escape. Without his glasses it would feel like he wasn't even there…like he didn't exist. As a young teenager he remembers thinking on an exceptionally stormy walk home from school that without his glasses, it's was like another world. Nothing looked quite right. It was special in a way.

His world…the world of blurred colors and broken lines.

But now, color was to be taken from him as well.

He places the glasses back on his face and notices that his vision is truly deteriorating. Just two months ago, this prescription had made the world crystal clear. Now he can't read the word STOP on the street sign just a few meters away.

He scuffles at himself, what now? He had done everything by the book, gone to Harvard for Political Science, gotten a 180 on the LSATs, gone to Yale for law school, passed the bar on the first try, and was now hearing rumors of partnership with his legal firm. It was all like his father predicted and mother encouraged. It was the path of every other son and daughter in the family…and he was following it to the letter and beyond.

Itachi sighs as he mentally racks up all his accomplishments – they'd soon mean nothing to anyone.

Discrimination is illegal – but the disabled are discriminated in that ill fashioned way that one cannot bring blame to the discriminator. Who would want a blind lawyer? Who would want to be partnered in a firm with a blind man? Who would want a blind man? Who would trust a blind man to run the biggest law firm in the world?

No one.

Itachi puts his elbows on his knees and rubs his temples. A headache decides to attack him in his desperate need for peace. They were getting progressively worse as he aged and his tolerance for pain was exceptional. But now…now it hurts and annoys him all at once. He is frustrated. His body is failing, exactly when he needs it most.

"Damnit," he curses between clenched teeth. He could not be a cripple. He could not live his life that way. He refuses to walk around with a pole…or worse, a dog. He closes his eyes for longer than standard length and the blackness disgusts him. He is not okay with it.

.

…

.

That night he attempts to commit suicide, he wants to be a part of the dead thousand of the day. He wants to be a name in the obituaries and nothing else. A beautiful funeral service, a few passing tears, and a handful of kind words of what he could have been. Because that all he could hope to strive for, otherwise people would know what he couldn't have been. He couldn't have that. He couldn't let people know how weak he was becoming.

.

…

.

Apparently he survives the fall from his four story town house. He knew he should have done it from his office window, but that would have caused more problems than he was worth.

He inhales and doubts that heaven could smell so chemically clean. His surroundings are all white from what he is able tell but there is no sweet harp playing in the background, he's not surrounded by soft clouds and singing angels, and there is no peace or dark flames engulfing him with unimaginable pain, and no devils whispering his sins to him. Not that he believes in that type of thing. It's just something one expects after suicide.

Failed suicide.

He felt the internal turmoil rage inside his soul and the feeling of being incomplete. He was definitely still alive.

"Ahhh, you're awake?" A voice asks but he cannot respond, he tries to move his head but can't. He even realizes that his breathing is being regulated by a machine. He has lost all control.

"Don't force yourself, you're pretty much in a full body cast," the feminine voice says and he doesn't know what to think. Then a big blur of pink appears in front of him, "my name is Doctor Sakura Haruno but you can just call me Sakura. Your family has instated me as your personal doctor and assistant throughout the stages of your recovery," the pink vanishes.

He already knows this isn't a hospital, once word got out that an Uchiha tried to commit suicide he'd be willing to bet his life (death) on his father paying off the media to claim it was a hoax but some local teenagers.

"You're in my private room in my apartment," she says off handedly from further away, "you're parents didn't want your…" she chooses her words carefully but Itachi is not deaf, he hears the sarcasm, "accident to go public. So," he hears the tap of the pen as she writes something on something, "surgery has fixed just about everything…tomorrow I'll try to get you off the respirator and see if you're able to talk. Damn miracle you survived that jump. Well, anyway…I'll skip all the things you've broken, fractured, and permanently damaged and just get to the point."

He hears something being put down but can't be sure. He can move his eyes but not his head and she's just out of line of his poor vision.

"I've received records from your previous doctors and it seems you are," she pauses in such a way that he thinks he hears sorrow in her voices, or maybe it's pity, "going blind. This will cause some difficulty with your rehabilitation but we'll be taking it one step at a time."

He wants to die.

Just die.

If he's going to sink into absolute darkness, let it be out of his own will and inside a casket six feet under. Let the worms eat at his body before his soul destroys itself from living with such a cruel disability.

"Well then, I'll be back to check up on you soon," he listens to her soft footsteps leave the room. He hears a click and the lights dim slightly.

Just like that he's alone. He closes his eyes, and is swallowed by the sore red backdrop of his lids before they fade to black.

He sleeps out of force or out of exhaustion, Itachi isn't sure. He just wants the thinking to stop. He wants it all to end. His future, once bright – now dim…fading…

He wakes up to silence, the dim darkness burns at his being as a cruel reminder of what's to come. He passes onto unconsciousness – voluntarily or involuntarily, he's never sure. Control is just a myth.

He wakes up again to the sound of his doctors voice, "My mother is a fish," and he thinks she's gone crazy but she continues anyway not hearing his thoughts, "Next chapter is Tull speaking; It was ten oclock when I got back, with Peabody's team hitched on to the back of the wagon. They had already dragged the buckboard back from where Quick found it upside down straddle of the ditch about a mile from the spring. It was pulled out of the road at the spring, and about a dozen wagons was already there. It was Quick found it. He said the river was up and still rising. He said it had already covered the highest water-mark on the bridge-piling he had ever seen."

Then he hears the turn of the page and realizes that she's reading to him. Though, what she's reading – with such terrible grammar and structure, he doesn't know and can't say, there is a tub down his throat controlling his breathing and stopping his speech. A mute is what he is now.

She continues for about twenty more minutes or so, just enough for Itachi to learn that a storm is approaching in the book. A boy named Jewel brings his horse and it is somehow disrespectful to his mother according to a character named Anse. The family travels through an almost sunken bridge and the mother's coffin is drowned. A son named Cash injuries his leg and loses his tools. The family retrieves the tools.

"Oh, you're awake!" he catches a glimmer of pink before it vanishes, "so wasn't that nice? I mean the idea isn't nice…but this book," he hears her sigh, "is amazing. It's called As I lay Dying, by Faulkner. I'm not sure if you've read it before. But I think everyone needs to read it before they die," her voice doesn't even shake at the word of death.

"Anyhow," he hears something being placed down, "I needed to wait for you to be awake for this. To say the least, I'm relieved you've slept for fifty-nine hours…I was slightly shocked that you woke up when you did a few days ago, I really thought you'd be in a coma for at least a week. Well, anyhow; I'm going to be right back."

She leaves.

Twenty blinks of Itachi's eyes later she returns, her voice is soft but stern, "Alright, I'll be removing the tube from your mouth. Please understand that there will be an extreme sensation of discomfort and you will feel a gag reflex. I know you will feel the need to assist me in removing it, but the less you move your body the better. If you fully comprehend what I just said blink twice."

He blinks twice.

"Alright Itachi, please do your best not to move."

He feels soft hands on his neck and another near his jaw, and then he feels the most discomfort he had felt since his snowboarding accident a few years ago where he had dislocated his knee and had it relocated without any anesthesia. It's almost like that, except the pain is in his throat and it's ten times worse.

He doesn't remember his suicide attempt or the pain after the impact. He isn't sure whether he should be grateful or not.

He gags, but doesn't move as he feels something slippery and slimy slide against his tongue. Then it's all over and he suddenly feels empty; as if a limb from inside him had been removed. Breathing is harder; he feels the conscious effort of actually inhaling and exhaling. He wants to lift his arms up and hold his chest because he feels like vomiting, but can't. His arms are immobile and there is nothing to vomit. So he coughs. His insides twist.

"At the moment, try to refrain from talking," she speaks calmly, "Now you're going to breathe for a few minutes on your own. Then I'll give you some room temperature water and if you feel like speaking, go for it," she says and after he breathes enough times on his own for her to be satisfied, then he feels the rim of a cold glass cup on his lips.

He tries to ignore the fact that he cannot see the glass…just a blur of a dull gray outline of her hand. He pretends that's not true. He pretends he sees the cup. It's an easy figure to visualize.

He has to pretend or else he'd have tried to drown himself in that cup.

He drinks, it feels strange and as the liquid goes down his esophagus he almost coughs it back up. This time he has something to vomit up. He feels the water spill down his neck and onto his chest.

"Shhhh, it's okay," he feels her touch his chest and the contact burns, "just take it easy."

He drinks another gulp and then refuses the rest. The cup leaves his lips but Itachi can't see that. The doctor had said he had a month before blindness would set in if he did not stress his body. He, now, has a sneaky suspicion that jumping from his balcony had increased the rate of degradation.

"Speak whenever you can."

He doesn't speak right away. He isn't sure what to say.

"I was informed," he senses the trepidation in her voice as she does the talking for him, "by your mother that you're really not a talker," she chuckles softly as he hears the sound of pen against being tapped against a clipboard a few times, "she pretty much warned me that you pretend to be a mute."

It stings. It shouldn't sting, but her words are like the lingering feeling of a paper cut that has been forgotten and only remember when in contact with hand sanitizer.

He's not mute but is an extreme introvert. His mother had him tested when he was five because he hated speaking and socializing.

"Sooooo," she draws out the o longer than necessary. He decides he finds that annoying, "I just need you to speak a few sentences, or just recite the entire alphabet or the national anthem," he feels her hands on his throat.

He pretends to see them, pretends that there is a definite outline to her arms. But it's just a peach colored blur in front of a white background.

"H-how long?" he finally chokes out, because he has to know.

"How long?" she asks back, "How long until you are able to move most of your body? How long you've been incapacitated? How long until you are fully recovered?"

"All," he croaks and wishes he took another gulp of the water as his mouth has suddenly gone dry.

He feels her hands leave his skin and then a familiar chilling feeling returns to his lips, he opens slightly and water streams in. He swallows greedily, needing more.

"You've been incapacitated about a week and a half. You needed a lung transplant, you had a concussion, four broken ribs, both your legs broken, you left ankle and right elbow were completely shattered and required reconstruction, and who knows what other psychological trauma you've suffered prior to the physical damage," she says the last part so lightly that he wonders what her exact mental state is. He'd ask to see her license to practice if he were in any other situation. "I'd say about another day till you can move your left arm in minor ways. Another two months till you can even entertain the idea of walking. From then I'd say rehabilitation will take six to twelve months."

The liquid is gone and the cup is empty. She removes it; her hands are back on his throat, "keep talking."

He doesn't know what to say so he recites the alphabet for her medical exam. Her hands inch lower towards his collar bone and stop at his chest as he nears the twenty-sixth letter.

"Alright, everything looks good," she says and removes her hands from his body, "now then. Tomorrow I will be starting you on a liquid diet and slowly ease you back into solid food. I've also been paid to teach you the Braille system. I was told you're a faster learner."

He's silent. Braille system…his parents know he's going blind.

He doesn't realize that he is crying until he feels her soft and too warm hand whipping away his tears. He just wants her to go away but he can't bring himself to voice it. He hates himself, he hates her, he hates his parents for their poor genetics, and most of all – he hates himself for jumping rather than taking a bullet to the head.

She sits and he hears a book open, "So this is the section we stopped at. I think it's the most genius of them all." She pretends like he hadn't just cried and he isn't sure whether or not to be grateful, "It's by Addie, the dead mother," she clears her voice, "In the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose, instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them…"

She continues reading, and Itachi listens because there's nothing else he could do. His voice is lost somewhere, he's immobile, and his vision is nearly gone. He has never, in his entire life, felt so vulnerable and at the mercy of another human being.

To make matters worse that human being was reading the most obscure piece of literature Itachi had ever heard but it's all he has now. So he listens because his ears have yet to fail him.

.

…

.

He wakes up when he a distinct uncomfortable feeling between his legs and then he feels her hand sweep his inner thigh. His eyes are now fully open, but he can't see. He can't see what she's doing. A gray blur, but he spots a blotch of pink. Something white. A little blue. Maybe.

"Shhh, don't tremble so much," she says softly but it doesn't matter what she says because he can't see what she's doing. He can't move his legs, he can't move his arms fully, and he can barely move his head. He feels complete blindness creeping up on him, faster and faster. The pink hat she wore was the only color he could see now….and that was barely.

"It's okay; I'm changing your waste bag. We're starting the liquid diet, remember? So I need a new one to see how your body is processing protein, carbs, and fats. I just finished setting up, I'm going to pull a blanket over your legs now," and he feels the soft quilt slid up to his stomach.

"Am…am I naked?" he asks and immediately feels ashamed to ask such a question. But he has to know. He has to know how humiliated he is.

"Nope," the doctor replies popping the p, "you're in a hospital gown. Later in the evening I'll be giving you a sponge bath," she says in such a professional tone that its true meaning is distorted in Itachi's ears. "Now then," he hears the slight squeak of the chair and the motions of her sitting down. Once again a book is opened and she continues reading.

And he listens, because he has no choice. Because he can't do anything. He can't die.

She stops after Darl has been taken away.

Out of my own free will, I would have never even opened such a book.

But my free will is gone. A nagging voice reminds him.

"Now then," she says, her voice nearer to him than before, "I'm going to go mix up lunch for both of us. I'll be back soon."

She leaves him, and he stops breathing. Why? He's not sure…maybe it was because she left or maybe it was because it was the only thing he had control over.

He holds it even as his head spins. He continues holding it even when he hears her rush back in the room due to the increased beeping of the medical machines.

"Breathe! Itachi! Breathe!" She yells at him.

But he refuses. Everything is so gray. It's not his world. It's not.

She, then, takes away his ability to breathe as he feels her lips press tightly against his and forces her breath into him. He gasps out of surprise and then a chilling plastic is placed over the surrounding area of his mouth and his eye lids droop. He tries not to breathe but it's too late. Everything's vanishing all over again.

He hopes he's dying. He hopes she's poisoning him.

A/N: Playing around with a different style of writing. Please let me know how you feel about it, and please review the story.

Thank you so much! Hope you enjoyed!