Chapter 1

“You’re able to see a person’s aura. The color represents their morality. Good people have a white aura while evil people have a black aura. Most people’s auras are a shade of gray. Today you meet someone with a blue aura.”

Ever since birth, my vision has been close to perfect, so when my grandmother handed me the small case that contained the chestnut frames she had worn many times before, I couldn’t help but flash a quizzical glance in her direction. She told me, “For you, Aletheia. May you finally see the world as it is.” I paused for a few moments, and as I went to speak, the words were halted in the back of my throat. Her steady breathing had already ceased to exist. I I inhaled sharply as the first tear fell onto the case that my right hand clenched. Leaning over, I placed a light kiss upon her forehead. I slid off the edge of the bed and glanced at my grandmother one final time�"still perplexed by her final words to me. I turned the doorknob and braced myself to continue my life without my grandmother.

Ding. The elevator doors slid apart, and I stepped into the hallway. Feeling somber, I gazed at the floor as I trudged down the carpeted hall towards my apartment door. “I’ve never realized how hideous this carpet is,” I thought. Inside my apartment, I made my way to the bathroom to reassure myself that I didn’t look as bad as I felt, but boy was I wrong. Staring back at me in the mirror was a red-faced, puffy-eyed girl, with a disarrayed brown mane upon my head. “Yikes,” I said aloud. I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket to check the time�"8:26. I decided I had suffered enough today, so I cut through the other side of the bathroom and into my bedroom. I stripped down, donned my comfiest pajamas, slipped between the silky sheets covering my bed, and fell into a long dreamless slumber.

In the morning, I stumbled across the floor of my bedroom in search of my purse, and more importantly, the item concealed within it. I reached into my bag and pulled out the small black case. Hands shaking, I undid the clasp of the case and removed the fragile frames. I walked slowly towards the mirror just a few feet to the left of me. I looked ahead into the mirror and took three deep breaths before unfolding the glasses and sliding them onto my face. At first, I was confused, for the glasses didn’t seem to be intended for correcting vision, but a few seconds later, I noticed the weird coloring that had appeared behind me. I turned to look behind me if there was a light on or something, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Looking in the mirror again, I moved back and forth and watched as the glow seemed to follow me wherever I went. I stopped moving and stood directly in front of the mirror completely bewildered with what I saw. Gently, I reached up and pushed the glasses up onto my forehead to look at myself with normal vision. All of a sudden, the aura around me vanished, and the world looked as it did before. I thought back to what my grandmother said to me right before she passed, “May you finally see the world as it is.”

“What is it that I’m supposed to be seeing about the world, though,” I wondered out loud. I slid the glasses down to rest upon my nose once more and gazed out the window when I noticed more faint glows surrounding the people walking around below. It was like looking through a portal to a strange world; every person had a different shade of white, black, or gray surrounding their body. I decided I would go investigate this strange phenomenon occurring because of the mysterious glasses I now possessed.

I quickly threw on the first t-shirt and pair of leggings I could find, threw my hair into a loose ponytail, and headed out the door. Unlike yesterday evening, today I had a bounce in my step as I walked down the ugly, carpeted hall. Although my grandmother is gone, it's hard to be sad for I know she had a reason for giving me those glasses when she did. In the elevator, everything clicked into place. My name and the glasses had a connection. My family is of Greek descent, which is where the name Aletheia�"meaning “truth” in English�"comes from. I deduced that there must have been a hidden truth about the world that my grandmother needed me to find that she must not have understood or must not have been able to discover herself.

I pushed open the main door of my apartment building and stepped out into the cool spring breeze. Walking among the people I previously saw from my window, I could now see the auras up close. To my left, was a man�"he was surrounded by a dark gray aura�"yelling into his cell phone while he waited for the bus. To my right was a mother and child sitting on a bench�"they had light gray and white auras, respectively�"who were chatting happily. I wondered if the auras showed the moods of people I passed�"the darker the aura, the angrier the person was. When I reached the crosswalk, I stopped to ponder that thought, but my rumbling stomach derailed my train of thought. Across the street, I spotted a small diner I'd never visited before, so I figured I might stop by and try it out.

From my booth in the back corner, I could see all the bustling activity of the diner. I gazed around watching the people of all auras interact and tried to make any connection I could between the people and the shade of their aura. Suddenly I heard the sound of a yelp and glass shattering on the far side of the restaurant. I looked to see a young waitress speedily apologizing and attempting to clean the water off the man she had run into. When she bumped into him, it caused her to spill the water and drop the pitcher�"shattering it on the white tile floor. “Clumsy b***h,” the man said as he rudely pushed past her to dry himself off in the bathroom. I watched in awe as the dark gray aura surrounding him ripple, and then slowly darken to a deeper gray color.

I had the glasses for a week now before I was certain I had understood the truth they were meant to reveal. Through my observations, I'd seen the ominous auras both darken and lighten right before my eyes. I recognized the auras change shade based on a person’s actions and morals. But what I couldn’t seem to understand was the reason my grandmother designated the glasses to me. The bell on the coffee shop door chimed and I caught a glimpse of the person exiting the door. I saw a blur of blue rather than a shade of gray. Startled, I grabbed my coffee cup and hurried out the door after the blue-aura'd stranger. I whipped my head back and forth searching for the blue glow I had just seen. To the right, I saw a woman with a dark ponytail surrounded by a blue glow rushing down the sidewalk. I pushed past the dozens of people crowding the sidewalk and dashed towards the blue in the distance. As I neared the ponytail, it suddenly whirled into an alley a block away. I increased my pace and rounded the corner, only to find the woman seemed to have disappeared into thin air. At the end of the alley was two massive dumpsters as well as a pile of old boxes. “Well, there’s no way she magically disappeared. She must be hiding amongst the boxes,” I thought as I cautiously made my way towards the back of the alley. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just have a few questions,” I called out in the general direction of the dumpsters. An entire minute passed. She finally peered around the container.

   “How can you see me?”

   “What do you mean ‘How can you see me?’ I have two eyes that seem to work pretty well,” I said, confused.

She studied me for a few moments before completely revealing herself. She walked up to me and pressed on the bridge of my glasses for three seconds before bringing her hand to grab my left hand and tugged me along with her. “Don’t say anything until I say you can.” We walked with purpose and silence for a few blocks before stopping outside an eerie looking store. She held a finger up to her lips to motion for me to stay quiet. We waited for six minutes in dead silence before a man opened the door and walked in. Before the door could close, she yanked my arm and pulled me into the store.

Inside, she steered me toward a staircase in the back left corner of the store. On the way up, she pulled a key from her back pocket that fit in the door at the end of the hall. Once more, she pressed on the bridge of my glasses, then stared at me with an unreadable gaze. I blurted out, “What am I doing here and who are you?”

“My name is Vera, and I’m a seer just like you are. It’s a very rare and dangerous gift which is why I concealed you on your way to my apartment.”

“Concealed me? How? I’m confused.”

“Take off your glasses,” she requested. I slid them up and was left staring at an empty living room.

“Woah, how did you do that?”

“Science,” she grinned at me.

“Do you know who created the glasses,” I asked Vera.

“I do. My mother gave me this pair right before she passed away. She disclosed to me the origin of the glasses and the society that held possession of the seven pairs before the group split.” She walked to the couch and motioned for me to join her. “It will take a while, but I’d be happy to explain everything to you.”

“I’d love to understand it all, but I’d wouldn’t want to just waltz into your house and disrupt your day.”

“Nonsense. I live alone and I don’t really have any friends, only acquaintances,” Vera said. “Sit�"uh, wow I just realized I never did ask for your name. I kind of just dragged you across the city with no questions asked. How rude of me!”

“The name is Aletheia�"Ally for short,” I said with a laugh as I sat. “Woah isn’t that weird? Both of our names mean truth in different languages.”

“Oh my god,” she paused, “Is it just me, or does it seem as if fate meant for us to meet? It feels like much more than a coincidence that I would run into one of the other six wearers amongst the millions of people in this city.”

“This is definitely the strangest thing that has ever happened me that's for sure.” We both got quiet for a little while and took that time to study each other. Vera had her long, brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail; loose strands of her hair had fallen after our run across the city. Behind her glasses were deep blue eyes�"nearly the same color as the aura that surrounded her. She seemed to be approximately the same age as me. Her skin was very fair and she wore a loose college t-shirt and light wash jeans. I studied her for a moment longer, not focusing on any part of her specifically, but more on the concept of the woman before me.

She broke out into a wide grin, “So Aletheia, are you ready to have your mind blown?”