Noise Pollution // Riki and Xena
‘When did malls get so loud?’ Riki wondered to himself as he stumbled along. He hadn’t really gone out much since his blindness and the cabin fever was driving him mad. He was dressed simply, Xena helping him pick out a nice shirt and pants, nothing fancy like he used to wear. He didn’t bother wearing sunglasses, Riki found it rather pointless really. Instead, he had his cane sweeping slowly back and forth, his milked-over eyes half-lidded as he tried to navigate. The cacophony of the mall was deafening, and any blind sight he usually had was thrown off by all the conflicting vibrations.
Normally, a vibration would travel through the ground to his feet, where he would then interpret the sensation into a sort of mental image of where he was and what caused the vibration, but the noise of the mall was so raucous that any picture he could get was incredibly shaky and made him feel like he was spinning. A particularly large person walked by Riki with heavy footfalls that completely threw him off. Riki stumbled to where he thought was a wall, but it was actually a little farther away, so he nearly fell into it.
‘Xena,’ he said a little urgently, and with some frustration – all aimed at himself - , ‘I need your help.’ He wasn’t even sure where Xena was at that moment, trying to sense her footsteps but feeling almost nauseated by the sound crashing on his ears.
