Dear Diary,

There’s a new girl at our school today. I don’t know what grade she is, but she’s definitely not in mine. I suppose you’re wondering why I’m talking about a new girl who isn’t in my year level, who I’ll probably have nothing to do with, but she’s… different.

I was sitting in the assembly hall, just sitting in my assigned seat. You remember how we’re put into alphabetical order, and how I’m nowhere near any of my friends? Anyway, I realised this girl was staring at me, and she didn’t look away like normal people do when you catch them staring at you. Her hair was black – not dark brown, but actually black – and her eyes were blue. Judging from how tall she was sitting down, she was substantially taller than me…

A tenth year girl tripped over something sitting behind the strange girl, and when the strange girl whirled around, apologising for having her belongings in the way, the tenth year girl suddenly squealed and hugged the strange one. “Oh my God, you didn’t tell me you were transferring here!” The strange one tilted her head towards the tenth year, but her eyes were looking at something a few metres behind and a foot to the left of the tenth year. “Faye?” The pair hugged again, and Faye pulled the strange one up from the chair. The strange girl flexed her fingers around the long thin pole that Faye had tripped over, and bounced it from side to side in front of her…

… And I realised that she hadn’t actually been looking at me! She was blind, and I really wonder what her parents had been thinking, transferring her to a new school where she wouldn’t know where anything was, and this school is practically made of stairs! I suppose that girl, Faith or whatever her name is, will help her around the place. Maybe she’s in tenth year, like Faith or Faye, I can’t remember her name. I know Faye – I think that’s her name – is in tenth year because she does the same kind of inter-school competitions as I do, and I remember her telling me she was in ninth when I had been in eleventh year.

Anyway, everyone was talking about this new girl – Katrina’s her name, apparently – but no-one was sure which grade she was. I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow, since Rani’s promised to find everything she can about this Katrina, and Rani knows everything about everyone. I’d hate to find out what she knows about me and Dave…

The following extract was translated from its original Braille format into English, and then decoded.

Dear Diary,

Today was a good day, starting at Infinity Academy. I met Faye again; I’d deliberately kept the transfer a secret from her, and it was priceless to hear her so surprised. I guess a normal person would have written “her expression was priceless”, but as you know, I haven’t been able to see ever since the incident.

I could smell the people around me, the scent of curiosity rolling off of them, and I could hear the hushed whispers, gossiping about me. Faye’s known me for a long time, before and after the incident, and so she knew about me being blind, and also about my now extraordinary senses. It was great today, at school, and the teachers were a little shocked when I told them I could actually read normal books, but only if they were new-ish, the raised indentations of the ink into the paper highly distinctive to my sensitive trained fingers. I told the principal that, and when I passed the impromptu reading tests with flying colours, they accepted me to the school. I suppose the principal neglected to mention that fact to the staff.

It’s fun living the normal life, or at least as normal as it’ll ever get. Everyone’s being so nice, and I think I can find my way around without needing someone to take me to my next classroom.

Faye was a little curious about why I moved to the area, but I just muttered something about the health and safety. If only she knew why I’d moved to Australia, she’d probably freak and start barricading herself inside of her house. That’s if she’d believe me, of course. No-one will, probably, but that’s Russia’s fault, or at least the Russian government’s. It was their choice to hush everything up, but I guess that’s all for the greater good. I mean, how would I be able to do my job if everyone knew what I was doing and where I was?

I know she asked me to retire, that there would be another pair just like us who would take over, dealing with everything. But I couldn’t, and she died in my arms from the wounds that she had suffered in the incident where I lost my sight. What if our replacements didn’t arrive? Then when they did, they would probably shout at me for not dealing with everything, that I had just sat there even though I could have done something. So here I am, in Australia, waiting, watching – okay, so I can’t see, but I can hear and smell when the next incident will occur.

The various signs haven’t appeared just yet…

The sky… the clouds have just raced across it, too fast, changing shape rapidly, disappearing over the horizon. The scent of danger filled the air, with the unknowing principal sitting mere metres away from where the attempt on his life would come from. I moved to his side, ignoring the teacher’s commands to ‘get back to my seat or else’. My marks be damned, I’m not letting anyone die, not on my watch. She’s moving as well, to the door. She crouches, ear pressed against the wall.

“They’re coming.” She whispers. The principal – not the school principal, but a ‘principal’ as the person a bodyguard is supposed to be protecting – stirred uneasily, he could smell the danger, but at the moment he, like everyone else in the room, was wondering what it was she and I were doing.

The door burst open, and it would have whacked her on the head had she not reacted. All the girls screamed when she punched her hand straight through the door, splinters flying everywhere, the knife slicing through the leg of the masked figure that had flung the door open.

I hauled the boy up, thrusting him towards the window as my partner dealt with the mercenaries fighting to get into the room. The boy had been prepared well: he knew when to utilize the escape techniques that a certain someone had taught him long ago. When I was sure that he was safe, I turned to deal with the small battalion of armed soldiers. They fled a few short minutes later.

That was one of the less difficult trials, one where little damage was inflicted on either me or her, or to the surroundings. I don’t know what it is that told us where the next incident would occur, but we trusted our instincts, as I do now. Something tells me this is the last trial, before my replacements arrive, fresh from their training. I’m not wearing any kind of mask for this one, and so I appear as I really look like, and I’m using my real name, my real details.

Because after this, I will not have anything to do, and so it seems fitting that people know who I am, what I did… It also opens me up to assassination attempts, and that I welcome, because I will not have any reason to live anymore. The ‘normal’ life, of ‘normal’ humans, is boring to me, nor am I interested in this ‘love’ they speak of. She wasn’t supposed to die, but since she is dead, I have lost the one who was supposed to be my partner in battle, for everything.

You know, we are trained, partnered, prepared to never have children, for doing so would have unforeseeable effects on the entire fabric of space and time. We aren’t normal people, born to be orphans, resurrections of past protectors, born to protect the ones who will change the world for the better., those who will awaken to be the ‘angels’, I suppose, to reshape the world. And then, our jobs will be fulfilled, our kind put to sleep, until next needed. The endless circle something I have experienced many times, and this time, you will too.

I have to go now, and I leave you to ponder over what I’ve just revealed to you. About me, and about my kind.

Dear Diary,

It’s been really fun today. You know that blind girl I told you about yesterday, Katrina? She’s great friends with Faye, and we asked her lots of things, although Rani told us not to ask really personal things, like if she was born blind or not. But anyway, we had lots of fun talking about all the places we’ve been. Apparently, Katrina’s been everywhere, from the UK to Europe to China to Japan… and well, you get my point, she’s practically been in every single country.

Anyway, she say’s she’s going to stay in Australia, or at least she plans to. Faye told us to never mention anything about Katrina’s parents, because they’re dead.

“How?”

Faye shook her head. “I can’t tell you, because I’m not exactly sure, and because she made me promise to never tell anyone what I did know. But don’t ask, because she’s had a really hard time, having to keep moving all the time and learning the language from scratch. Of course, it was easier when she could still see, because you can’t really type in Braille for any language except for English. I suppose that’s why she’s in Australia right now.” She didn’t realise that she had let slip that Katrina had been able to see, once.

“Promise me you won’t ask her… Please.” The huddle of girls nodded in assent, and they broke up hurriedly when they spotted Katrina approaching.

For a moment, Rani thought Katrina was staring straight at her, watching her, but then she remembered that Katrina couldn’t see, the pole a testament to that fact. Katrina, however, was actually ‘watching’ Rani; she could smell that scent coming from Rani, and knew that she was the final principal.

Dear Diary,

It’s been so long since I’ve written in here, and I’m really sorry for having forgotten about you. It’s really hard to find time to write in you, since I have so much to do, all the time, every day of the week, every week of the year… All this training is so hard, but we have to train extra hard, because the group we’re replacing is, well… not even a group. One’s dead, and the other’s blind.

I know that the one left, she’s SOOO famous, and she’s been able to handle the last few assignments, even though she’s blind, but… I just hope that we can equal or better her, because it’ll break her heart if she retires and… and we can’t handle things, even though there are two of us and both of us possess all of our normal five senses and the extra sense that comes with being one of our kind.

I got the message today that ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are dead, but I never really loved them anyway.  They were just empty people, as if some higher power had decided that having people with ‘real’ personalities would hurt more when they died. I suppose that’s true. My partner, Kayasaki, he’s really good with hand-to-hand combat, and at ‘using the environment’. I’m better at stealth, which is the compliment to his ‘loud’ techniques, something which I suppose they’ve worked really hard to achieve: agents that require the other unit of the group to function at their best. But with Katrina, she’s lost her partner, but she can still function as an agent. It’s as if she’s both of them, in one person, but… on the outside, she’s not even one.

Never judge a book by its cover, I say. Katrina was and is the best protector the world has never seen, will never see, because the world isn’t ready to see any of us. They are blind to us, blind to the very people who make up the core of their world. The world is blind to itself, as much as I am blind of myself: I will never do anything for ‘me’, and I can never think of any such thing.