Not a shadow. The curtain. He could see the pattern of the fabric, the blue and white stripes, shifting in the breeze from the open window.
Leo had a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic thief that had slowly taken his peripheral vision. By the time he met Dr. Chen, his world was a tunnel. He navigated school with a white cane and remembered the shape of his mother’s face from photographs. The central part of his retina was still alive, but without the supporting rod and cone cells, it was starving for function. RCTD-418
On day 26, Leo was in his bedroom, reaching for a glass of water on his nightstand. His left eye, the one he usually kept half-closed because it saw only murky shadows, caught a flicker. He froze. On the periphery of his vision—the dead zone where there had been only black for three years—he saw the curtain move. Not a shadow
But the most useful lesson came from Patient #17, a 65-year-old woman named Helen. Helen had advanced geographic atrophy from dry AMD. Her central vision was a blurry void. RCTD-418 didn't restore her central vision—the damage was too old, the supporting tissue too far gone. However, the treatment did reduce the inflammation that was spreading the atrophy. It didn't give her back her sight, but it halted the progression. Her remaining peripheral vision, the little she had, stopped shrinking. Leo had a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a