[ WP ] In a world without vision , a sighted man uses his `` fifth sense '' to gain an upper-hand .

The steady drip of water from the stalactites had failed to lull Cedra to sleep. 
 Normally the gentle, rhythmic *plink* was enough to send her mind wandering - and then off into sleep. But now that it was time to sleep - cold time - she was restless and fractious. 
 It had started a few days ago, after the cave-in. She'd been caught in the rock fall and struck on the back of the head, falling to the ground with a cry of pain. She could still feel the abrasions on her palms where she'd fallen forward onto the scree, hurting her wrists as well. Dizzy and disoriented, she had put her hands to the back of her scalp and felt *wetness* there. 
 *Blood. * 
 Crying out that she was bleeding, the others found their way to her through the rubble and took her back to the healer, who probed her injured skull with sure, deft fingers. 
 `` Just a concussion,'' he had said, `` she will be fine in a few days.'' 
 But she was n't fine. 
 The *thing* was back inside her head. 
 Twisting in her bed, she made it go away by facing the wall. The thing *moved* in and out of her head at random, when she also moved around. Cedra had no words for it, but whatever it was, it was annoying. 
 Rolling over brought it back again and she tried to study it within her mind. 
 It was, she decided, a shape. 
 She could feel what it would look like in her hands; the texture would be smooth on one side and ruffled on the other. 
 Lifting her arms out, she tried to imagine holding it. 
 Then the object went away. 
 Perturbed, she dropped her arms. 
 The object returned. 
 Carefully Cedra lifted her arms again and watched as the *thing* vanished slowly with the movement of her body. Experimenting, she ended up with both hands in front of her face, near the wet orbs on either side of her nose. When she covered her orbs, the *thing* vanished. 
 *What was happening? * 
 
 & nbsp; 
 Cedra was declared fit to work again, but she was disoriented by more of the *things* drifting in and out of her head. She had finally figured out what they were - they were the cave fungus that grew all around them on the walls of the caverns they called home. 
 Somehow she could *see* them without touching them. 
 With further experimentation, she discovered that she could see other things in this way by bringing them near the fungus. Not only could she feel them with her hands, but she could feel them *inside her head* somehow. 
 She had n't told the healer yet, but she was sure this was n't normal. No one had ever spoken of anything like this before. 
 Cautious, she used her new ability to navigate the dangerous tunnels under the guidance of the fungi. 
 Whether she liked this'gift' or not, she did n't know. It felt alien, yet it felt *right* - as though it were something that had always been missing. 
 Whatever it was, she did n't want it to go away. 
 
 & nbsp; 
 She'd found the shaft by accident. 
 Guided by a proliferation of the fungi, she'd found a way through the caves that she'd never seen before. 
 It lead to a narrow path through a split in the rock and emerged into a huge cavern with a shaft running through the middle. 
 While this was remarkable in itself, the fact that she could see *all of it at once* was miraculous. 
 It was as though a huge, powerful fungus sat high above, illuminating everything around her. 
 And turning her head upward to try and see the sky fungus made her orbs *hurt* like they had been cut. 
 *What was going on? * 
 Frightened, she fled back through the cleft in the rock, hurrying toward the comforting smells and sounds of home. 
 But she knew she would go back; because she had seen something in the cavern. 
 *Stairs* cut into the far side of the massive shaft.
