The Left Eye

My eyelids fell like steel anchors, sealed shut against my eyes. Maybe this was all a dream in the first place, and if I could just, go to sleep. Maybe all would be solved. No more panic would be needed. I could only hope to God himself that's what it was, and nothing more. I still tried to keep my eyes open, but my vision was fading, blacking out from the sides. There was no use in putting up an effort to fight back. I gave in. The wind still tickled my face like grass against one's knees, sending ripples of shivers up and down my spine. Not enough to keep me awake. in fact, just the stimulus I needed to finally drift into a peaceful slumber. My eyes... they were... they were drifting away.

No.

They were... no. I couldn't go to sleep. The blood vessels in my eyes slithered across my retinas, almost like they were alive. They were... they were burning. My eyes were burning. But there was no fire. Like needles were pricking out of my pupils. A hot, searing pain shot into my head. Was I on fire? I couldn't have been. But what the hell was happening?! No. No! I couldn't take it. It was too overbearing. I wanted to scream. I needed to. My head was scalding with the fury of an untamed conflagration. I started cursing uncontrollably. My temples pounding like hammers, my eyes I felt cracking, ripping apart at the seams. Then blood started to stain my skin. I felt them roll against my cheekbones like thick and meaty tears. Drop by drop, the rivers of blood that fell down my face in small, dark canals amassed themselves around the back of my neck in a pool of beefy red.

I gasped. No air. No breath. No more wind. The rumbling stopped.

Now my throat was burning. I couldn't talk. I tried to speak, but there were no words. The more I strained, the more blood filled my mouth cavity and drained over the sides of my jaw and onto the table. I started choking. I was being suffocated. Drowning. In a pool of my own blood and flesh. My vision faded once again. My head was light. But I was happy. I was content. The burning in my eyes slowly subsided as it became harder to stay alive. But I enjoyed it. I was on the brink. I wanted to die. I had to. The burning, I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I was too petrified to even scream. Not that I could anyways. Every time I tried to talk, the blood gargled up in a sinister red foam and rolled down my lips like a faucet. I felt myself... slipping away. It felt good. It felt great! I welcomed the eyes of death into my own soul. Just end it. Take me already. Take me, damn it! You cowardly piece of shit! Take me!

My eyes snapped open.

I awoke on the table, drenched in a cold sweat. I gasped for any kind of air that was available, even the rotten, overused air that I so reluctantly inhaled a while ago. Anything. I didn't want to die. I didn't. The dense, fat roaring was still beside me, and I could still taste the wind current's gentle nails gliding across my hair and face as I sat there. Just a dream... Thank God. But nightmares like that shouldn't feel that lucid. I was dying. I was so convinced it was happening. It was so real...

The crisp, distinct sound of a door slam. The deadbolt locked. My head jerked up, not expecting to see anything regardless. But it sounded close. Not as close as the rumbling that still split my ear beside me not a foot away, but it was prominent enough to detect the brusque crashing of the steel door. It was on the other side of the room, I knew that for sure. But that still barely told me anything at all. How big was the room? Or better yet, who was responsible for slamming the door? I spent minutes debating what was more unsettling: Someone that just came in, in disregard to your knowledge, or someone that just left and was there watching you, listening to you the entire time.

A second noise. A small metallic click. Like something shutting off or powering down. Upon glancing over my left shoulder I could no longer feel the wind current that glided so serenely against my cheek before. It was gone, and the rumbling soon faded to extinction as well. Only now did I realize how loud it was. The thick throbbing in my eardrum, the shrill ringing in my left ear. I was almost positive I had went deaf in that side.

The dripping nose still continued beside me. I had no idea for how long, though. I'm just going to assume I had been in here for around a day. But how long was I asleep? It couldn't have been for more than a couple hours. Maybe three or four. I felt well-rested. Alert. That probably could've just been from the door slamming, on the other hand. I was still shuddering from it, trying desperately to cast the thought from my head.

I'll just start at hour twenty-four at the next water drop. Seemed accurate enough. I started to wonder what was at the bottom, what the water was dripping against. There was no indication of water touching water. Otherwise, there would've been a strange plopping noise. This was something else. The marriage between water and iron. It was something metallic, as there was a crunchy clanging noise for every drop.

Screw it. I couldn't shake the thought. That slamming door was driving me to the brink of insanity, but something was holding me back from getting up. There were no restraints or chains, but I simply didn't have the mental capacity to ascend. No matter what happened, I had to stay put. Something else might happen. There could be oceans of traps and blades all pointing at me with thirsty teeth. Maybe I was being paranoid. But it was a lot safer to stay here and not take such an undecided risk.

A whisper. Concise and clear, but muddy and distorted.

"Veins..."

My ears perked up, eyes quaking in fear. I tossed my head around behind me, expecting to meet something. Nothing. No. It was right there. I had to be going insane. I was panicking. No. No! Panicking is not an option. I must stay calm. I must breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale...

"Moving..."

This time, I couldn't tell where it came from. I gasped. I grunted and gnashed my teeth like a madman. It had to have been something to do with the door slamming. There was someone in here. Someone with a sick and twisted sense of humor that like to see the sanity of a man drizzle away and vanquish against the cold solid ground. But I had to stay calm. At least there was a rational solution as to where the whispers were coming from now.

"Alive..."

Now it was obvious whoever it was in here was just screwing with me. But there were only three words spoken. Veins. Moving. Alive. There didn't seem to be any distinct pattern or intention behind the sequence. Another drop of water.

Twenty-four and a half now.

My head jerked up. A hazy silhouette painted on a wall on the other side of the room. I could finally see something. My eyes had been secluded from light for an age, even so much as staring at a small light gave me a small headache. There was nothing else. Just a light. No definite origin or purpose.

The television snapped on in front me, the penetrating ring of static grasping my heart. The light was far too unbearable. Leaning back wouldn't help. I couldn't help but instinctively close my eyes.

I kept my eyes closed. Particles of light still could peer through, and it didn't help at all with the hammering headache. Every time I so much as slightly lifted my eyelids, one ray would get through. My head felt like it was being slammed up against a steel wall, in pattern with the light rays, every eye-opening was an aggressive head-pounding against a metal surface.

I listened past the static distortion, as the channel soon came into focus. It sounded like some kind of special report being broadcasted on a news network. It was their big story for the night, telling me it was around ten o'clock. Usually what time the nightly channel 3 broadcast comes on, and I could tell by the lady's unmistakably coarse smoker's voice, it was same anchorwoman that had been on the channel the last five years.

I only drowned out the piercing volume of the television, which was easier said than done. Eyes still closed and head pressed against the wood surface, now my ear was receiving most of the harsh intensity of the noise. Like I had no choice to listen in, and whoever threw me down here like a sack of carrion wanted me to listen.

I heard my name, suddenly.
On the news. The way the anchorwoman said it only served to be more unsettling. I shivered. Now I was really getting mortified. What the hell was happening? Did I die? Was I in Hell? And now I was looking at my death scene over again like a blockbuster film feature. What about the rest of my family? What happened to them? Did they die with me, or still live?

So many questions started to rush to me, pricking my mind with small seeds of curiosity. All the questions flooding in, I soon started to look at them like answers. I was in Hell. I was being tortured. What despicable wrong had I done to unravel such a punishing fate? Was it my father? Was it the enjoyment I derived from his well-deserved death? It couldn't have been anything else. I only tried to live my life without hardship or pain. I looked forward to the rest of my life when he passed on. He kept me there, for so long. Chained me up like a dog, and left me to rot for the vultures to feast on me body, and my already fragile sanity.

I only wanted to live a life of serenity. And without violence or inexplicable deeds of violence and rage being shown up on the news that night. And now I was one of them.

No. A testimony from a police officer on the television. By his voice, it sounded of a healthily built man well in his twenties. Ethnicity was still an unknown variable. I listened in.

"His family has refused to comment on the incident. But we now have numerous search teams doing the best they can to recover this man and reveal his whereabouts. We give him the utmost wishes of safety and our care, and our hearts today all reach out to this struggling family."

The television snapped off again upon the closure of the story.

...I was missing? I was only in here for a day or more. But how long could I have been away from them? Weeks or months? And just now they started to realize I had been whisked away from the planet by some madman with a mind likely to be more twisted than mine?

My brain and heart went numb with rage. My hand scurried around the wooden planks to see if there was anything nearby that had a tip or hard surface. Something sharp grazed my hand and dug into my flesh. The blade end was long, and the metal body of the blade heavy and rectangular. A meat cleaver.

Without thinking, blistering with fury, my first thought was to take the cleaver by its handle and hurl it at the television screen. It was dark again. I had no idea where to even begin to remember where it was. But I had to vent my anger on something.

Blind as a bat, my left arm swung forward with the cleaver, letting it go at the time I saw fit. A glass pane broke. Electricity sparked from an epicenter in the middle of the room, sending yet another ripple of light into the blacks of my pupils. Another pulse at my head. Another slam up against a metal wall.

But I hit it.
The satisfaction of the blade leaping into the screen, it felt good. The metal wedge carving into the wires and bulbs of the television like a hot knife through butter. I started to laugh again. But it wasn't a joyful, uppity laugh. The tenderness of the gasps started to flaw, and my throat started to crumble. I felt like I was being asphyxiated. Yet I was still laughing. Soon, the laughs turned to throaty cries. Then just as quickly to seething growls of pain and panic.

This place was turning me into a fucking psycho. Like I wasn't already. But it was a cold day in hell when an event out of the blue succeeded to scare me or even unsettle or disturb me in the least. My friends and family thought my heart was made of stone or something. Through heaves of panicked laughter and growls, a faint chuckle at the thought. My heart. Made of stone. Heh heh... stupid, ignorant people. Like I actually had a heart...

My attention was diverted. An overhead spotlight started to illuminate the room. Not a blinding light. Still enough to give me a decent headache, but not of mind-numbing proportions. It was generous light. An ally of mine. It enabled me to look around and actually take in the sights of the room. Upon further inspection, the stench of dirty laundry and sweat gave it the ambience of someone's basement that hadn't seen good upkeep in years. The floors were littered with rat and mouse feces, and a unearthly combination of blood and unshed dog hair peppered the ceiling and walls. I still could remember its foul stench.

On the verge of vomiting, even I couldn't come up with something this screwed up. It petrified me. I was waiting for some frail, poorly-hinged closet door to swing open and pour out with piles of animal carcasses. Where was this man storing all of his victims? Or better yet, another question would be, what the hell does he find in purposeless violence and bloodshed. Like he had a sick and demented pleasure out of seeing a life being taken. Guess that was something we had in common.

It looked as though his only targets were animals. There were unclean tiger and cat pelts strewn across the floors, some made to cover the lousy excuses of upkeep. I could see the carper tearing underneath it like it was rotting. My eyes scanned across the room some more. Until I found...

Oh my god.

A hazy silhouette of something, the shock pressed me up against the table. My throat was closing again. It was just standing there, taunting me with inactive mouth and eyes. It did not breathe. It did not sway to the left or right, but stared. Beady black soulless craters for eyes, and the bottom of the mouth was gashed open with a scar that carried all the way down the chin and tickled the collar bone.

It looked like a human. Like a little girl. But there was no blood to be found anywhere on her cold body. Yet she only stood there like a statue and peered into my eyes with those retina-less pits. Sockets. Her eyes had been ripped out, optical nerve and all. But no screaming. No pain. No flesh. Just standing.

I shook the vision of her. There was nothing else I could do but simply stare down at my chest and pretend the grotesque figure didn't exist. But her gaze settled upon me, the heavy weight of her eyes like a cinderblock, down on my head and shoulders. I closed my eyes, and murmured to myself.

"It wasn't real. This isn't real."

This wasn't a dream. No. This was the type of lucid nightmare mastermind serial killers and sociopaths only aspire to accomplish in their violent endeavors. This was more traumatizing than any wicked concoction of gore in the darkest of minds, or even the most beautifully twisted imaginations humanity could offer up. This was torture. And this was real.

I had always seen that cheap girl-in-the-white-nightgown trick in old, choppy japanese horror films. Even in the video game industry it was getting to be overused to such redundant absurdity that it was downright sickening at times.

Such a thing wasn't scary to me at the time. Then again, I was never there looking at the figure in reality, in the living breathing flesh. Nothing is ever life-threatening when you see it on screen. Was this an act by the paranormal? No... It couldn't have been. I erased the ludicrous thought from my head as quickly as it showed. But a burning curiosity grew in the pit of my stomach. As lifeless as a stone sculpture, it was just standing there. Eyes like an empty void, staring, carving a scar through my soul.

The fluorescent bulbs wired to the ceiling grew brighter, and everything in the room started to gradually come into focus. I was able to scrutinize the girl a bit closer now. Though it pained me to my core to so much as look into that pair of shallow craters. There was something I noticed, where the scar that met her collar bone, something, a fluid was dripping out. Not blood. But a colorless liquid that dripped onto the ground like thick honey and smelt of a drunkard's saliva.

The foul aroma that filled the air I couldn't even begin to describe. Still, it was unknown as to what the liquid was. Small markings on the scar were noticeable. Further inspection showed that her lips had the same markings on them, like they were brutally sewn shut. Speckles of dried blood could be seen around the creases of her mouth and breasts. Wait. That's exactly what they were.

Sewing marks.

This body used to be alive and breathing. Such a sweet and innocent girl, murdered in cold blood, and then sewn up and stuffed. That liquid. Possibly embalming fluid? That wasn't a girl anymore. It looked like a fleshless puzzle of a human that someone tried to assemble together and then tossed it aside carelessly like a rag doll.

Carved into a statue of fluid and artificial skin. It was place in front of me, for the sole purpose of staring at me. It was like a harness without the use of any metal chains. Just looking at it made me mortified to the point. I was afraid to get up, because in some way, I felt it breathe cold wisps of air. Like she was right there, inches away from my face and I could smell the deadened fumes of raunchy pestilence she blew into the air.

My heart started aching again. My head throbbing more than it was ever before. Like a worm was tunneling through and eating away at it. The pain. I couldn't take it. No. No! Stop this! Please! I started cursing up a storm, slashing my hands into the air like a savage beast. Such cruel acts should be sealed away, draped over, and hidden from humanity. No person should be exposed to the company of such stomach-turning scents and misshapen, horribly disfigured silhouettes. I started shaking. My hands quivering. I could feel the enamel peeling off of my teeth from grinding them against each other so fiercely.

I was panicking again.
I was screaming. I had to get out of this sick prison.
This was it. I had to run.