This is the first of a series of fictional horror stories written by Luke McGee.

Its elongated mouth twisted into spirals that dug deep into its cheeks, pinning its gaping grin to its sunken face. The spirals’ epicenter landed just below its eyes, which stared unblinking at him like omniscient headlights. It found every flawed aspect in the husk of a being that he was, and it fastened them to a pedestal for all the world to see through those two cosmic eyes. Whatever shortcomings those two eyes may happen to miss,

the several other eyes

found with ease-

–Had those scratches always been there?

            He glanced at his window with a casually analytical gaze. He couldn’t remember there being any scratches on that pane before, but then again he hadn’t opened his blinds in a long while.

When you’re trapped in your house for weeks on end, you don’t have a need for sunlight. The light provided by the three lamps in his bedroom was more than enough.

His gaze broke away from the scratches and back to his monitor. No further thought was loaned to the entertainment of creatures or ghouls lurking at this aperture. A raccoon had probably slinked its way up onto the roof of the sun porch just below his second story window and had been the cause of the multitude of scores; nothing more.

He had opened his room to the outer-world’s glare for one purpose only: to get proper lighting for an unnecessary (as he deemed it) video-interview.

Since the virus swept so unexpectedly, the world had to keep on moving somehow; and the world seemed to love the idea of not only hearing you but seeing you. He could not understand why, but the world thus insisted on video calls as an alternative to social interaction.

He waited patiently for the host to let him into the interview, as he waited his eyes magnetically drifted back towards the scratches… that was odd, the scratches seemed to be on every portion of the glass except for one. Earlier when this bout of self-isolation first began, he had gone through the routine of shuttering his windows when two portions of two blinds had peeled themselves off and fell to the ground, creating a perfectly square opening in the top left corner of the shutters. An area which currently had no scratches.

This puzzled him. You would think a creature trying to get in would scratch the only area with a view of the inside, if this was the case then-

“-Hello?”

His head snapped back to the monitor, the interview had already started.

He could feel the eyes of the several staff members on call pinning him down, judging him. It felt as though they were searching for a defect, any defect, in his flawed existence.

He suddenly felt himself squirming in discomfort, desiring to duck for cover like a cockroach after being caught by a kitchen’s fluorescent spotlights.

“We’re sorry to have caught you unprepared, but if you are now ready we may begin the interview. Please give us your name.”

To him this voice became grating. It was so condescending, it knew he was flawed, it knew he was imperfect. It thought it was perfect.

He snapped back to reality.

“Ah. Yes, my apologies-”

-The interview went about as one would expect.

He could constantly feel their eyes soaking in every inch of his figure, picking apart his mind only to discard every aspect except for the negative. It was this anxiety that caused him to constantly answer the wrong questions, and with half-baked answers at that.

It had drained him. And for what? He wouldn’t get the job. As long as these imperfections stuck themselves to him like scarlet letters he would fall short of every expectation.

That night he took a shower. He could feel their eyes on him still.

He lay in bed facing the scratched window pane, the blinds now covering its faults. But now that tiny opening where the two blinds had peeled off… it haunted him.

It felt like it was the perfect size for two eyes. Two eyes to watch him. Two eyes to watch his chest rise and fall in sleep. Two eyes to see every time his breathing grew irregular. Two eyes to gain pleasure from the inherent fallibility of his being.

He shuddered and turned over. It was only his mind. He was overthinking his faults, it had ruined his chance at the job and it would ruin this opportunity for sleep as well.

He shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

scritch, scratch

Did he hear that?

No. He was still overthinking.

scritch, scratch

No. That was not in his mind. Where was it coming from?

scritch, scratch

He knew even before the question was asked.

He shot up and his eyes instinctively fell on the opening- and there they were.

Just as he had feared. Two eyes. Two eyes staring in.

He had seen it.

It knew.

That was what it wanted.

CRACK

No more scratching; it cracked the glass with one fell movement. It slowly began to seep through.

The eyes came first, and as it bled into the room it reformed in a way which defied gravity. First came its face.

Its elongated mouth twisted into spirals that dug deep into its cheeks, pinning its gaping grin to its sunken face. The spirals’ epicenter landed just below its eyes, which stared unblinking at him like omniscient headlights. It found every flawed aspect in the husk of a being that he was, and it fastened them to a pedestal for all the world to see through those two cosmic eyes. Whatever shortcomings those two eyes may happen to miss,

the several other eyes

found with ease.

When its limbs reformed it was perching on his desk. No eye on its imperfect incarnation dared to blink. Neither did he.

He would run.

He should run.

But he couldn’t run.

He felt bile rising in his throat. The horror of the creature disgusted him, he wanted to do anything to escape its glare. But if he was a cockroach this thing was a pin. It held him where it wanted him.

But what did it want?

It made no move.

He knew.

It wanted his sight.

It wanted to hold him.

It wanted to watch him-

-to watch him suffer.

He was frozen…

He would starve…

He would die alone-

-under watchful eyes.

He could not cry for help…

He wanted to look away…

He was unable.

All that was left were those eyes.