I have a problem. I’m not really sure where to begin as this all happened pretty suddenly in the grand scheme of things. It’s probably best to start with the part that will need the most explaining: I can see where you were yesterday.
…I can also see where you’ll be tomorrow.
If that sounds unbelievable, I don’t blame you but it gets worse: I can see where you were at any point during your life.
As long as I’m physically looking at you in person, I can see these things in my mind with flawless accuracy. I can see what you looked like, what you were wearing, and it’s weird but I can also tell where you were, even if I’ve never been there.
The way I found out about this ability is actually really funny. I was working in retail at the time. I was hired in the department that handled scheduling, in a quasi-managerial position. I would sit in my little corner of the store (with full view of the doors and most other departments: gotta love the open floor plan) and wait for people who needed scheduling. Being a young man at the time, I naturally spent most of this time smiling and flirting with any pretty young ladies that walked in the doors. It was a different time, people were way more social and approachable.
So one excruciatingly boring day, it felt like it had been hours since any customer had walked through the doors– let alone any pretty young ladies around my age. So I’m just zoning out at this point, when suddenly this… we’ll say ‘mature’ woman walks in, and makes a bee-line for my desk. She’s wearing sunglasses, has her hair done nicely, and is wearing a very expensive dress. A very low-cut expensive dress.
Now I’m not saying I don’t find older women attractive, but this dress was not exactly flattering to her figure. She wasn’t overweight, far from it. It was just that she was… well… old.
She was also very nice, and remarkably easy to schedule. She made an appointment with one of our instructors, didn’t complain about the price, and seemed genuinely friendly– which was nice. There are tons of ‘friendly’ people you’ll come across in retail, but it’s rare to find someone who seems to be genuine about it. So I struck up a conversation.
“That’s a really nice dress,” I said, smirking slightly and raising an eyebrow. Classic flirty face. Older ladies loved it. She was no exception.
“Oh thank you!” she said, returning the suggestive smile, “It used to drive the boys crazy. Would you believe I’ve had it for 30 years? It’s [brand name I can’t remember]!” She stepped backward away from the desk to do a full 360 degree turn, sending the rippling ends of the silken dress floating just slightly upward with the motion. In that moment, I thought ‘You know, I’d like to see what that looked like 30 years ago.’
That’s when it happened.
There was this strange haze about the whole place as I watched the lady twirl, like an actual fog. I didn’t focus on that for very long however, because as she completed her first turn and was facing me again I suddenly lost my breath. She looked different all of a sudden. Very different.
She was stunning. She was wearing that same dress, with her hair done that same way, and she was radiant. She looked to be no older than me.
…And she was right, that dress probably did drive the boys crazy. She filled it about as well as you could possibly imagine. I was completely caught off guard. I suddenly found that my brain was… let’s say… ‘competing for bloodflow.’
“Can you believe it still fits after all these years?” She asked, her voice now young and delicate. Her smile was captivating as she stopped twirling and the dress (and the figure within it) came to a slow, bouncing rest.
Now I’m not saying this didn’t freak me out a little bit. However I was a young man with a BEAUTIFUL woman in a low cut dress twirling around in front of me and entertaining my flirting, so all I did was say “From where I’m sitting, it looks just the same as it did.”
She loved that. Her smile widened, “Oh young man, if I were your age… well, my husband’d probably have words for you!” That smile erupted into a laugh and she turned to walk away, bidding me a good afternoon. She swung her hips the whole way out of the store– and man did my eyes appreciate it.
It was only after she walked out the door that I really took stock of the haze that had accumulated around the store. It was thick, I literally couldn’t see any of the shelves, or any of the stock on display, just this thick greyish-white fog. Without the beautiful lady to focus on, I was suddenly very worried about where this fog had come from.
I stood up from my desk, seeing if I could see the source of the mist, but just then it broke all at once. “Yo, the fuck was that about bro. You chasin’ granny now?” One of my coworkers had walked up within 5 feet of my desk and I hadn’t noticed. As soon as I heard his voice, the fog receded in what felt like an instant.
It was Will, one of the people I’d become pretty good work friends with. As shaken as I now was by the fog, the sneer on his face was contagious. It was one of the things I liked about Will. I started chuckling, and all I said was “Take it easy, she used to drive the boys crazy.”
He took it as a joke, and the rest of the day was normal.
Now you may be wondering, “OP, I thought you said you had a problem? A little fog in exchange for being able to see how hot old ladies were in their prime seems like a gift.” And you’re not wrong. It certainly was a gift. I started making a habit of it. You’d be so surprised to see what people looked like when they were young.
I’ll explain how the problem started.
A few years went by, I got promoted a few times and so did Will. One day, we had another older lady walk in, and I immediately looked to see if she used to be hot. She was.
Over the years I had learned to unfocus it so that the fog would dissapate, and the old ladies would turn back to their true age. Usually I just had to say something, or do something else that would focus my attention on something tangible.“Yo, this one used to be smokin’.” I said to Will under my breath. The fog dissapated.
He laughed like usual, but this time he also got a look on his face like he was thinking about something.
“You know I try man,” he said, looking up like he was choosing his words, “but I can’t see it. How can you possibly tell if these old hags used to be hotties? It’s like you have a gift.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a gift. I dunno, I can just see it in my head, what they used to look like.” I said, grinning an obnoxious grin.
Then he said something, and this is where my problem began.
“Cool, does it work the other way?” he asked, “Can you see what someone is going to look like? Might help you dodge a bullet – or a WALL if you know what I mean.” I did know what he meant, obviously. Could I see if someone who is hot now will be hot in the future?
I didn’t know. I had literally never even given it a thought.
But I was intrigued. My new position at the company afforded me a slightly longer tether, so I walked away from the managers’ desks and out onto the sales floor. I was looking for a pretty lady, and as luck would have it there were several in the store. I scanned the area, and met eyes with one of them. I consciously thought about their future, about what they would look like…
…And sure enough, the fog rolled in. Suddenly I was staring into this girl’s future. I saw… sunspots, wrinkles, and grey hair done up in curlers.
I was amazed. I had no idea this ability worked this way. I unfocused it, the fog dissapated, and the girl was young and beautiful again. I went back to the desk.
“Nah, doesn’t work that way.” I said, casually shrugging my shoulders at Will. I figured it was best to just play it off like a gag. I wasn’t trying to open some kind of weird, meta-physical can of worms on my work buddy.
“It’s a shame, I was gonna introduce you to this new girl I met. See if she’s a keeper.” Will chuckled, and the rest of the day was pretty normal.
The next day, however, is when things got really weird. See, I had just found out that this weird ability had way more utility than I had previously thought. I started to think, what other ways can I use this?
It turned out, not that many. I didn’t have any crazy cool superpowers or anything like that. Pretty much, I could see what someone looked like in the past, and what they’d look like in the future, and I could control how far backward or forward I could see. The only new discovery I made was that it also worked on men. It figures, but I had never even thought to try.
I decided that I would go to my job early, and sit at one of the outdoor benches and just watch people with my ability. This went about as normally as something this strange could go – I saw a bunch of old people as young people, and a bunch of young people as old people– that is, until a particularly pretty lady was walking by. I wanted to see if she would still be as pretty in the future, so I focused.
The fog rolled in.
…And as soon as I saw her, my breath stopped and my heart skipped. She certainly looked different. Very different.
She was wearing a very formal-looking black and white dress. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, barely even eyes at all. Her skin was sickly pale, her hair wet and dishevelled. Her smile… I could tell she was smiling at me because of her body language, but it wasn’t a smile. It was as if her lips were permanently drawn back as the skin of her face pulled them, revealing all of her teeth in a gruesome visage. Suddenly I realized what had happened.
She was dead.
I was seeing her after she was buried.
This immediately made me panic, I couldn’t focus on anything but her face. Because I couldn’t break that focus, the haze would not recede. I continued to stare at this woman’s corpse– and she seemed to notice that I was in sudden distress. To my discomfort, she tilted her head and walked toward me.
As she approached within arms-length, I suddenly felt the mist creep up on me from all sides. It seemed to solidify around us, to the point where I felt physically clausterphobic. I was filled with fear and dread. I tried to back away, but I physically couldn’t. It was like I was inside of a box.
Inside of her coffin.
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” She asked, her voice sounded broken, like her vocal chords had decayed.
The look of concern that her tight, ghoulish face contorted into did not help me look any less like I had seen a ghost.
“I… uh… it’s nothing, I just… Can I have your number?” Not my best pitch, but I really just said it because I couldn’t think of anything else to say to try to dissolve the situation.
Luckily for me, in the haze I had completely neglected to notice that she was walking with a man – probably her boyfriend or husband. He did not take kindly to me asking for her number.
“What the fuck is this, some kind of joke?” His words finally broke my focus enough that the haze receded, and I was staring at a very angry short man who looked older than she was. I apologized to the lady, who was now alive and beautiful again. She was smiling but blushing as though she were embarassed.
I looked at the man, his face was still red with anger, and I said “Sorry man, I thought you were her dad or something.”
He didn’t like that, but he just gave me the finger and took her by the arm as he walked away. She stole a glance back at me, and I as our eyes met I caught a flash of those hollow, empty eyes that I had seen in the fog. It sent a shiver down my spine.
I didn’t sleep very well that night. So many thoughts crossed my mind.
First I just thought of her eyes, how haunting and lifeless they had turned. Then I began to think about the fog. How it had taken the shape of her coffin. Did this mean that I was physically visiting this future somehow? Was that what the fog was? Some kind of place-holder until my mind could make sense of the fact that the entire world around me was suddenly in a different place and time?
Furthermore, I didn’t feel like I was looking that far ahead. Maybe 5 years.
Her gruesome smile haunted me, her misfortune looming in the not-so-distant future…
The next day at work, I showed up and put my head down at my desk. I had gotten no sleep, and had spent the entire night tossing and turning with my thoughts. Most of the day passed without incident, until Will came in for his shift.
“Yo, sleepyhead.” He said. As I raised my head from my desk, my bleary vision was met with the same boyish smirk as always. “Rough night?”
I forced a chuckle. He had no idea.
“Yeah, just got carried away reading spooky stories on the internet.” I lied.
“Nice, very productive.” he jeered. “Anyway, you’ll never guess where I’m gonna be next week.”
I shuddered. Based on what had recently come to light about my abilities, I more-than-likely could guess. So I focused, a week ahead. ‘Where is Will in a week?’ I thought. The fog rolled in.
I saw him looking normal, but dressed like he was going to a concert. Maybe I could use the fog to figure out where he actually was? Will had started speaking,“I got tickets to see the Foo Fighters!” but I had already started to focus harder… tried to look at the fog as though it would morph and focus into my surroundings.
It worked. Suddenly the fog began to take shape. I had expected to see a concert venue, but to my confusion I was looking at some kind of alley. Asphalt crept up from the mist beneath my feet, and concrete-block walls formed on either side of me. It was dark, but I could see that something was… off about Will.
There was something on his face. Dripping down his face. Dripping from the center of his forehead, where there was now a neat little hole about the size of a dime.
I was staring at a bleeding gunshot wound in Will’s forehead.
I put two and two together. Whatever happened before or after that concert, it led to his death.
Panic set in quickly. My thoughts reeled, but just as quickly as the panic had come, it went away. I had a thought:
What if he doesn’t go?
I quickly unfocused. The alleyway we had been standing in rolled away like the mist, and Will no longer had a hole in his head. I asked him, “Wait, what day was that concert again?”
“Next Friday,” he responded. A Look of worry began to grow on his face. He knew what I was going to say before I said it. This had happened once or twice over the years where Will had lost track of his days off. Unfortunately, that meant it was my job to inform him that he would have to cancel his plans and come to work. All I had to do was lie– tell him that he had to work on Friday. Maybe it would save his life.
I mustered up my best fake regret, and said “Duuuuuude.” I put my hand to my forehead, and Will knew that this meant I was about to tell him that he didn’t have Friday off.
He didn’t take it well, got pretty angry at me. I didn’t care. I didn’t want him to die. I needed to see if this would work.
…It did.
Next Friday came and went, Will worked and then went home.
I half expected to find out he died in some freak accident that night, like it was just fate and nothing I did could change the fact that it was his time to die.
But he didn’t.
The End. Great story, happy endings all around. Right?
Well, unfortunately, not so much.
That night, I had a dream. It was… abstract, foggy and difficult to make anything out. But what I could definitely see… was an eye.
A bloodshot, angry, horrifying eye. And it was definitely staring at me.
For what felt like hours and hours on end, I sat in this foggy emptiness with this eye fixated on me, staring into my soul. Accusing me of who knows what. The longer the dream continued, the more forboding it felt. The more visceral and real the eye became. By the time I shook myself awake to the sound of my alarm clock, it had felt like that eye was burning into me.
When I got to work that day, I apologized to Will again for not being able to find anyone to cover his shift. He seemed to let it go, even apologized for getting angry because ‘he should have kept better track of his hours.’ Normally that would have made me feel bad about lying to him, but I figured since I had just saved his life it was worth it.
Though, now I was curious to see whether I really had saved him. I tried to look into his future, to see where he would be in a week.
The fog rolled in.
…But suddenly I was alone.
… Or I thought I was, until I looked up.
There above my head, arms length away, was the eye from my dream.
A deep sound began to fill all the space around me – an otherworldly sound like a thousand voices chanting a low, constant drone. The eye widened and began moving even closer to me, the sound growing and multiplying as it drew nearer and nearer.
I fell to my knees, closed my eyes and grabbed my head, trying to physically force my focus away from the eye. The noise began to fade, but it was fighting me. It did not want the fog to recede.
With all my strength, I shouted at the top of my lungs. As my scream got louder, the chanting noises grew quieter, and I could feel the presence of the eye receding. When the fog finally cleared completely, I was still on my knees but Will was holding on to my shoulders, shaking me as though he was trying to wake me from a deep sleep.
“Dude… are you alright?” He asked with a concerned look on his face. “What was that about? Did you just have a heart attack or something? Should I call an ambulance?”
I couldn’t think of a good cover. I just told him that suddenly my head hurt, and I needed to get some air. I punched out and drove home. I just needed to be alone, needed to think about what had just happened. I reached my house and made my way to my bedroom, and collapsed face down into my sheets. It felt like that whole ordeal with the eye had made me tired. I tried to sleep. I instantly regretted it.
As soon as I closed my eyes, I began to hear the otherworldly hum of the eye. Horrified, I shook my head, broke my focus, and jumped out of bed.
That was an hour ago.
Now I’m sitting here typing this to keep myself awake. I’m afraid of what will happen if I fall asleep. I am so delirious. My vision is starting to blur. The fog is rolling in. I can feel it closing in on me, gripping me tightly from all sides. I hear the chanting.
I feel its gaze on me.