My boyfriend Josh is a bit old-fashioned. Or should I say, we both prefer things from the past.
Josh loves reading old comics, always praising the original X-Men lineup and insisting that Cyclops should be the main character in the entire comic series. According to him, the other mutant characters that came later only became independent because of rising popularity.
As a result, he refuses to watch any movies after the 2003 “X-Men 2”, He believes that the later films shifted the focus to Wolverine, which he sees as an insult to the X-Men series.
“He’s just a guy who regenerates and has claws. How can he compare to the powerful laser?” Those are his exact words.
Josh also has a fondness for old games, especially those released on PC consoles between 1995 and 2003. That was his childhood and the starting point of his exposure to pop culture.
During the heyday of electronic gaming, one of Josh’s favorites was the “Final Fantasy” series. He insists on using the Asian title “太空戰士” (Space Warrior) instead of Final Fantasy, considering it the classic name.
He openly admits that, for him, the works worthy of carrying the series name are only the seventh, eighth, and tenth installments. As a devoted fan, he even learned Japanese and Chinese because of the series.
I mention these things to give you an idea of what kind of person he is. The therapist told me that these past interests were one of the reasons behind everything that happened.
So, when the game publisher announced the release of a remake for the eighth installment of Space Warrior in 2019, Josh immediately bought it.
Not only that, he also went online to purchase a limited edition single released with the game. And everything began with that CD and the included track, “Eyes on Me.”
This song was not only popular when the game was released but also well-known among players who love the series. Josh loved it so much that even after completing the remake, he continued to listen to the song repeatedly.
“Josh, you’ve been listening to this for a month. Can you change another song?”
“This song is a classic, Emma.”
“But I hear it when I come home. It’s making me a bit… how do I say it, tired.”
Although Josh still kept listening to “Eyes on Me,” he remained a great boyfriend by wearing headphones or playing it in his room. Yet, sometimes I could still hear the song playing faintly or catch him humming it in the shower.
A few months after getting that, one day I entered the house with a pizza in hand, a casual purchase on my way home. To my surprise, Josh wasn’t at work, as he had informed me.
I called out for him, and soon enough, he appeared, holding an old CD player in his hands.
“Baby, I need you to listen to this.”
He looked visibly concerned, and I started to feel a bit nervous.
“Oh my God, dear, are you okay?”
“We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need you to listen to this.”
He gave me the headphones.
The machine played a segment of “Eyes on Me.” I listened to it twice, apparently set up by Josh.
“So, did you hear anything strange?”
I took off the headphones, indicating that I hadn’t heard anything unusual.
His expression didn’t seem right.
“The lyrics were supposed to be like this.”
He opened the small booklet inside the CD, pointing to a line. It read:
“How you shyly placed your eyes on me.”
I didn’t understand what he was trying to convey.
“Don’t you think the ‘on me’ at the end sounds like ‘zombie’?”
“No, it’s definitely ‘eyes on me.’”
He then convinced me to listen again several times, but I still couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Josh’s expression softened a bit, and he admitted that he must have been mistaken.
Josh worked as a development engineer for a startup company, mainly responsible for the detailed design of various program pages. Therefore, his work hours were flexible, and he could even work remotely without going to the office, thanks to the internet.
Looking back, I realized that he started hearing strange sounds in the song after he was promoted to project lead. Although the entire project wasn’t handed over to him, his acknowledged abilities and the desire to achieve results at that time may have contributed to the increasing pressure.
Perhaps the growing stress made the song “Eyes on Me,” representing his passion for things and childhood memories, more important to him.
Not long after the incident, I went on a business trip. My job was being the editor for a women’s fashion magazine, and at that time, a new project was planned to collaborate with local models and economic firms in Canada.
Josh and I would have our “goodnight calls” every day. However, that day, shortly after I returned to the hotel room, he initiated a video call.
On the screen, he was definitely at home. The lighting in the image was dim, and I guessed he was lying in bed.
“Hey, dear, how was your day?”
“Not great, Emma. I feel like that CD…no, the song doesn’t feel right.”
I tried to reassure him, “Hey, you look really bad. What’s wrong with the song?”
“I still hear ‘zombie,’ and it’s making me more and more anxious. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way.”
Josh wasn’t someone particularly timid. Despite his love for old-school video games, it didn’t stop him from trying out modern things. Although he scoffed at certain practices of game developers and studios, he was by no means a fearful gamer.
In fact, he enjoyed games like “Forbidden Siren”, “Alone in the Dark”, and “Silent Hill”, which were horror games with diverse elements.
“Josh, you’ll be fine. You played ‘Outlast’ without a problem; a simple word like ‘zombie’ shouldn’t scare you.”
“I know, Emma. Trust me, I really know. But… it’s different this time. I feel like there’s something hidden in this song.”
Our conversation that day didn’t last long. Working outside all day had left me extremely tired, and Josh’s anxiety seemed unfounded to me. Still, I earnestly comforted him, urging him to take a few days off and try to relax.
However, when I returned home, I immediately realized that something was seriously wrong.
His room looked messy, scattered with papers filled with distorted words and shadowy figures. Josh, wearing an oversized hoodie, sat hunched over in a chair. The computer screen was playing “Eyes on Me,” but there was no sound.
“Dear, oh my God, you look terrible!”
I went over to hug him, but Josh’s body stiffened, hesitating for a moment before responding to my touch.
“Emma, you’re finally back.”
His voice was hoarse and weak, and his body in my arms felt devoid of warmth.
By then, Josh had been working from home for three days, and he had taken leave starting the day after. He told me he couldn’t work because “that song” was causing him significant distress. At the time, I thought it was just the word ‘zombie’ bothering him, and I didn’t consider it a big deal.
“No, Emma, something’s wrong with this song. No, it’s me, something’s wrong about me.”
Then he changed his tone, “I can’t figure out exactly what’s wrong, but something feels off.”
“Okay, it’s alright, Josh.” I touched his head, continuing to comfort him.
“Now that I’m back with you, what’s wrong with this song?”
He opened the booklet with the lyrics and played the song on the computer. Apart from the line “How you shyly placed your eyes on me,” making it sound like ‘zombie’ at the end, he had heard more and more ambiguous words in the song since the last time.
“Like this, the lyrics should be ‘Wishing they would be heard,’ but it sounds like ‘Wishing they would be hurt.’”
He played that part again.
While the two pronunciations did sound somewhat similar, in the song “Eyes on Me,” I felt it wasn’t to the extent of being indistinguishable.
“Well, it does sound similar. But distinguishing between ‘heard’ and ‘hurt’ shouldn’t be that difficult, especially in such an emotional song.”
“It’s not that, I know the singing style causes the difference.” Josh explained.
“But… every time I listen to this song repeatedly, those strange pronunciations always make me uneasy. I feel like something is not right.”
“Maybe you should stop listening to this song?”
Jash didn’t answer.
“Baby, I think you’re overthinking. Is work going smoothly recently, or are you putting too much pressure on yourself again?”
He sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Well, maybe I am overthinking. You’re right; I shouldn’t let this song mess with my head anymore.”
I suggested that we go to his favorite pizza place that night, and Josh’s smile returned a bit. As he chewed on the hot crust, cheese, and toppings in his mouth, my boyfriend returned to his normal self.
“Darn it, Emma. I’d rather the Space Warrior series never get a remake again than see this place close down.”
I laughed, “Wipe off the sauce by your mouth first; right now, you look like Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker.”
We both thought things would end there.
After all, Josh did start his leave to relax and stopped listening to that song. However, the night before he was supposed to return to work, I woke up in the middle of the night and found an empty space beside me.
I called out to Josh in a low voice, thinking he might have gone to the bathroom or got a drink of water. But when I opened my eyes again, the space beside me remained empty.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but Josh was nowhere to be found.
Glancing at the clock before getting up, it showed 4:37 AM. Not as dramatic as in movies, but it still made me a bit nervous.
I walked out of the room, intending to search for Josh in our dark home. But I quickly found where he was because the door to his workspace was slightly ajar, casting a strip of yellow light.
“Josh, dear, what are you doing in the middle of the night?”
As I approached, I heard the melody of “Eyes on Me” coming from behind the door.
Josh was indeed inside. Like before, he was huddled in the chair, eyes fixed ahead, but the screen only displayed a full-screen program playing along with the song’s melody, creating pixelated visual effects.
“Josh, what are you doing?”
I shook his shoulder, but he didn’t respond. Unease crept over me as I began to wonder if this was some elaborate prank he had planned since returning from his business trip. However, my chaotic thoughts were quickly overturned because something was genuinely off with my boyfriend.
I grabbed the back of the chair and turned him towards me. However, Josh’s gaze remained fixed on the screen, and his neck twisted in unnatural angles as I tried to shift his position.
“Baby, what’s happening? What’s going on?”
After a moment of silence, a voice finally escaped his throat. Although it was Josh’s voice, it sounded unfamiliar, almost as if he had become a different person.
“I can’t sleep, Emma. It… it’s calling me, and I have to do it.”
“Calm down, it’s okay, baby.”
I gently touched his face, trying to turn him towards me. But his body was rigid and cold, feeling like low-quality silicone.
He continued to stare at the screen without any movement in his eyes, operating the program to skip to certain parts of the song.
“Listen, here it sounds like singing ‘Share lie be the one of you.’”
(Original: “Shall I be the one for you”. )
“Josh, I think…”
He ignored me, continuing his monologue and manipulating the program to jump to corresponding sections.
“And here, even though the original lyrics are ‘Close as I wanna be,’ it sounds like ‘gouge eyes want it be.’ The previous line is still ‘so let me come to you.’ I think this song is trying to tell me something, or rather, there’s something trying to convey a message to me through this song.”
(Original: “To feel your heart beating fast”. )
“Wait a minute, Josh. I think this is too absurd…”
“Here too, the original is ‘To feel your heart beating fast,’ but I hear ‘To feel your hurt begin fast.’ Can you feel it? That thing wants to experience more of my pain, it wants to tell me something.”
I continued trying to get his attention, but Josh still ignored me. His words became increasingly nonsensical and eerie, and I felt he needed to break free from this situation quickly, or things would take a turn for the worse.
“Josh, seriously listen to me.” I shook his body forcefully. “You’re acting strange, and you can’t listen to this song anymore! I want you to get back to bed and sleep.”
“I feel it, Emma. It’s calling me; it wants me to do something. What do you think I should do?”
“Snap out of it, Josh!”
I shouted at him, forcefully closing the playback program. It was the first time I had raised my voice at him; we had almost never argued before.
Josh seemed to snap out of a trance, looking at me with a dazed expression. After a moment, he realized the situation and buried himself in my arms, crying.
“Oh my God, Emma! Everything feels off, it’s really strange! I don’t want to do this, but this song keeps conveying something to me.”
He exclaimed, “I saw it, Emma! It’s watching me in the dark abyss, those blue eyes!”
After stabilizing emotionally, I took Josh to the nearest hospital emergency room. The on-duty physician assessed his unstable emotions and poor mental state, determining it wasn’t at a pathological level. Therefore, he suggested Joshua take some sedatives and sleeping pills and sleep until the first batch of psychiatrists take over in the morning.
We agreed.
Watching my boyfriend’s serene sleeping face, I gently caressed him and planted a kiss on his cheek. Joshua shifted his body, continuing to immerse himself in the realm of dreams. At that moment, I felt reassured.
The hospital clock displayed 5:22, with about forty minutes until the psychiatric doctors began their shift. My nervous tension started to ease.
I must have fallen asleep.
When consciousness returned, the first thing I saw was the clock on the opposite wall, with the black hands indicating it was 5:49. A sense of ominous foreboding rushed over me, and I quickly turned to check Josh’s hospital bed.
The bed was empty, with only a disheveled sheet.
Before panic could fully engulf my thoughts, the hospital’s broadcast system played a familiar melody.
The beautiful and emotional voice of Faye Wong echoed in the cold space, singing one of the most famous songs from the Final Fantasy series. It was the haunting “Eyes on Me,” the song that shattered Joshua’s life.
“Josh, where are you?!”
Everything happened too suddenly, but at this moment, I was certain Joshua was not safe. The medication had not taken effect on him, possibly exposing him to the strange entity in the depths of his dreams. Or perhaps a nurse took him for tests or examinations?
Frantically searching for my boyfriend, the alarm at the reception desk started wailing, and two men in uniforms rushed past me.
“To the top floor, 999!”
One of them shouted as they ran past the nursing station, prompting a nurse inside to follow suit.
I won’t explain how I managed to get to the rooftop and see Joshua standing on the outer wall of the building. The daughter wall there is higher than an adult’s waist, and there are no footholds around, making it challenging to climb up. According to the hospital staff afterward, the door to the rooftop is usually secured with an electronic lock, and without the corresponding card, it’s impossible to access.
“Josh! My God, what are you doing!”
Amidst the security guard’s intimidation and the nurse’s persuasion, I cried out to my lover. At that moment, I was completely filled with panic and fear, desperate to pull him down from that place.
“Emma, can you hear that?”
He said this as the hospital’s speakers coincidentally played the lyrics, “Just reach me out then, you will know that you’re not dreaming.” This lyric, accompanied by Faye Wong’s beautiful voice, felt like a gentle and enchanting call, sending shivers down my spine.
“As long as I wanna to go, I will know that all of this is real.”
“Josh, it’s just a song. Nothing is calling you; it’s all in your imagination!”
“No, Emma. It’s because none of you can hear it. But I can, it’s calling me, those blue eyes are summoning me.”
At this moment, the song, after some eerie static, jumped to “so let me come to you, close as I wanna be.” Immediately, I recalled Josh mentioning that he thought this part of the lyrics sounded more like a call to gouge out his eyes.
“Josh, please, stop this. It’s an illusion; you’ll get better.”
“But, Emma, it’s real to me.”
My boyfriend slowly turned towards us until he faced us. Everyone present couldn’t help but gasp, and I was on the verge of screaming.
Joshua had gouged out his eyes with some tool, leaving only two dark red holes on his face. I couldn’t fathom how painful the process must have been, but he looked strangely calm, even more stable than he was before.
At this moment, the song reached the lyrics, “And stay there as I whisper. How I loved your peaceful eyes on me.” Despite being such a tender phrase, it seemed ironic and absurd at that moment. Although my boyfriend was calm, he no longer had eyes to gaze upon anything.
“I have to do this, Emma. I must, and I believe it’s what I’ve long desired.”
“What are you talking about, Josh! How can you leave me?!”
He smiled, blood continuously flowing from the two holes.
“I still love you, Emma. Don’t worry; I’ll still be with you, just in a different way.”
“No! Damn it, Josh, you idiot! Don’t do anything foolish. Can you hear me?!”
“I will dwell amidst the cosmos, around you forever.”
“I don’t want any cosmic dwelling or what the fucking damn thing else. I want you to come down from that wall right now!”
He grinned, blood and saliva mingling on his teeth. I had watched so many bloody and horrifying movies with him, but I had never witnessed a scene like this—a blend of madness and serenity.
“I must respond to that voice, Emma. If you hear it, you’ll understand this feeling.”
“No, I won’t allow you to do this!”
“At the beginning of the world, there was no humanity, and I believe the end will be the same.”
Before his body leaped into the air, swallowed by the parapet, the last words he left me with were, “Remember, I love you.”
My therapist encouraged me to write down the story between Josh and me. While I believe he genuinely tries to be gentle and empathetic in his profession, I know he fundamentally doesn’t believe the story I tell.
He, much like I was at the early stages of the events, considers Joshua to be possibly suffering from a mental illness. I, on the other hand, witnessed my boyfriend’s suicide, left traumatized and struggling to cope with the immense pain.
I’m not, and I am pretty sure that I am not.
Though not a professional, armed with the power of search engines, I quickly discovered that Joshua likely suffered from a psychotic disorder. Typical symptoms of such a mental illness include hallucinations, delusions often involving persecution or paranoia, all of which manifested in Joshua.
I don’t deny that he exhibited symptoms, but there’s something more hidden in these events. Something larger, darker, and mysterious – It must be the blue eyes he always mentioned.
I will find out what it is.