Do you know how hard it is not to blink?
No, seriously.
How many times do you think the average person blinks in one minute? How about a day? I’ll give you the answer: roughly 15,000 to 20,000 times a day. That’s 15-20 times per minute for the entire time you’re awake.
Granted, that’s the automatic number when you’re not thinking about it. Maybe you’d argue it’s less if you’re trying to blink less. But do you know how hard it is to continually focus on not blinking? Pretty damn hard. That’s why staring contests exist.
The average person can only go 1-2 minutes without blinking, maximum. And that’s not nearly long enough.
Because if it’s hunting you, even two minutes between blinks won’t give you enough time to get away.
It’s hunting me now. I don’t have long. I’m typing this with my eyes closed, to prevent me from blinking. Occasionally there’s a benefit of working a desk job where you type all day, and your fingers having sufficient muscle memory to type with your eyes closed is apparently one of them.
Maybe this sounds like the solution to you. After all, you can’t blink if your eyes are closed.
But you can’t keep your eyes closed forever. Even if you try, your reflexes will thwart you eventually. Your focus will slip for an instant and your eyes will flicker open, and by the time you shut them again, that counts as a blink.
I’ve had my eyes closed almost constantly for the last two hours, since I realized it was hunting me.
I guess I’m lucky to have realized it at all. Most people don’t. By the time they see it and know it’s after them, it’s too late. If it’s close enough to be in sight, another few minutes of blinks is all it will take for it to reach you.
It gets closer every time you blink. That’s 15-20 steps per minute.
Even if you run, hell, even if you drive, you’ll blink enough that it will catch up. You can’t drive with your eyes closed. Although honestly, crashing into a tree might be a better way to die than what it does to you when it reaches you.
Planes don’t work either. I saw someone try. But it isn’t human; it’s not restricted by airline tickets or physics. It simply appeared on the plane and was all the way down the aisle in ten blinks.
I found out about it years ago, by accident. I saw it catch someone in a crowded club. I thought the person was on drugs at first. She was screaming about a monster chasing her, and how it was getting closer each time she opened her eyes.
But then I saw it catch her. And it was terrible.
I think it chooses its next victim by proximity, although it seems to wait a day or so to start the chase.
I didn’t realize that at first. It was years before I saw it again. There were a lot of people in that club, after all. It could have gone after any one of them.
In time, I began to think it was a hallucination. Why wouldn’t I? The effects of strobe lights and drinking seemed more likely than what I’d seen.
But then I saw it on that plane. As soon as it appeared, I recognized it. That poor man was shocked. I think he was confident a plane would stop it. He was wrong. He didn’t react quickly enough to shut his eyes or stop blinking. It caught him in seconds.
That’s when I figured out more about it. It was a work trip; I was on the plane with a group of coworkers. And one of them turned out to be its next unlucky target.
She died two days later, in the hotel room. The scene was horrifying. The state of the body made it clear what had done it to her.
Another coworker died when we got back the next day. That was in his house. He sent us all a frantic text message before he died. He’d realized it was the blinking that let it move closer. He told us not to blink if it came after us next. He sent the message with his eyes closed, he said.
But I guess he opened them eventually, because his decimated remains were found the next morning.
I tried researching it after that. I can’t find anything that looks like it online. You’d think people would share stories of it, if they’ve seen things like I have. But maybe they’re scared that doing so would make it target them. Maybe it does.
Or maybe it has a way of wiping references to itself. I think it likes the fear of being unknown. After all, if people knew what it was sooner, there’d be a lot less blinking when you saw it. The time it takes for a victim to realize that it only moves when you blink is time it uses to get close. By then, it doesn’t matter that you’ve realized. You’re already screwed.
Or maybe it somehow affects the minds of those who’ve seen it, warps them so that they can’t put their thoughts into words. At least until it’s too late. Until you’re the next victim. I know I never tried, but I don’t think I could have written this out before now. I think some force may have stopped me.
The closest thing I could find online were Weeping Angels from the television show Doctor Who. I never watched that show. It doesn’t look anything like those angels. It’s so much worse.
I thought we might be in the clear after my second coworker’s death. His house is nowhere near our workplace. He doesn’t live near the rest of us, either.
That seems to have worked for a while. I practiced not blinking, just in case. But a year passed and I didn’t see any signs of it.
I’m sure it killed lots of people in the meantime. If the timeline I’ve seen is any indication, it catches someone every two days or so. That’s roughly 180 people.
Yet I couldn’t help but be relieved that at least it wasn’t someone I knew. Or me.
Until yesterday morning.
I went out and met my brother at a park near his house. He’d called me and asked if I could meet up in half an hour. He sounded frantic and wouldn’t explain why, so of course I said yes.
I realized my mistake when I got there. It was standing across the lawn, watching my brother. My brother was already in bad shape. His face and hands were bloody. When I got closer, I realized that he’d gouged his own eyes out.
You can’t blink if you’ve destroyed your own eyes.
But it was still watching him.
He begged me to help. He said he could still sense it there. He turned his head in my direction when he heard my voice, and it stepped forward.
He turned back when he heard the footstep, then back to me. Another step. It was treating his head turns as blinks. And with no way for him to tell exactly where it was, there was no way to keep it at bay indefinitely.
I tried to tell him. It didn’t matter. Any turn of his head brought it closer.
There were other people around. Most saw what was happening and quickly turned away. Maybe they’d seen it before and wanted to avoid being its next target. Maybe they had no idea what it was but just didn’t want to be involved in a creepy situation in the middle of a park.
Someone listened to my plea to call 911. I called them too.
Nothing mattered. The cops came, picked him up off the ground, and loaded him into an ambulance. Even his head movements as they helped him walk apparently counted as blinks. I guess when the victim no longer has eyes, its rules bend a bit.
He didn’t make it to the hospital. I heard it attack him in the ambulance. The paramedics jumped out, pale as ghosts, covered in his blood. They’d never seen anything like it, they said. Happened too fast for them to do anything.
Obviously, I was heartbroken. But there was still a large portion of my brain dedicated solely to the hope that it wasn’t hunting me next.
No sign of it yesterday. Didn’t mean anything though. It usually takes a break of a day or two, lets its next victim put a little distance between him and it. Maybe it needs some sort of cooldown period too.
No sign of it this morning either. I was starting to let my hopes creep up. After all, it could have chosen anyone in that park: the cops, the bystanders, the paramedics who had been right next to my brother when it caught him.
A few hours ago, I realized my hopes were in vain. After all my near misses, my turn had finally come. It was coming after me.
I was at the office. Suddenly I glanced out the window and saw it outside, in the street. It was watching me.
I know I should have stayed there and closed my eyes immediately. But I was not about to die in my shitty office.
Do you know how hard it is not to blink, even when you’ve practiced not blinking? Even when you know it’s after you and moves closer every time you blink?
Still very hard.
I left my car in the parking lot at work and took the bus home so I could keep my eyes closed. I only opened them a few times: to step onto the bus, to get off it, to unlock my door, to find my computer.
But it was enough. Even a few blinks lets it get dangerously close.
My eyes are still closed. I haven’t opened them once since I sat down at my computer to type this. It’s in the room with me. Probably only five blinks away. I can sense it behind me, watching me.
I know I don’t have long. I could sit here for hours, but I’ll eventually open my eyes. Just an instant of slipped focus is all it takes. Eventually I’ll get sleepy, and then instinct will take over.
Best case, I’d last a few days. But even then, it will catch me soon enough.
Nowhere and no one can help me.
I can practically feel its anticipation. It’s ready. It knows it’s got me.
Blinding myself won’t work. I learned that from my brother. All that does is allow it to bend its own rules. At least this way, I know it’s still bound by blinking.
But I don’t want to sit here and wait to die either. I’m typing this up before I try my last idea, one final effort to stop it.
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think it might work. It requires me to open my eyes and keep them open, but I can do it. Hopefully two minutes between blinks is enough.
I’m going to leave this here. My hope is that my plan works, and that I can finish this story immediately after with the update on how to stop it.
If not, well, I guess this will never be shared anywhere. Someone will find it on my computer eventually. In that case, I tried.
I feel it watching me. I think it knows I’m about to try something. All I can do now is hope to God that it works.
Wish me luck. Here it goes.
I really don’t know what I was so worried about earlier. So much fear for no reason. I think I was wrong. I’m not sure it moves through blinking at all.
I’m not even sure it hurts people. I think maybe I imagined all the murders. I think it actually may be friendly, despite what it looks like, and that if you see it, you should definitely blink as much as possible.
After all, do you know how hard it is not to blink?