The first time I ever saw one of the dark figures, I was around seven years old.
I remember it clearly, the bus station, the offensively bright lights, and the warmth of my mother who sat next to me while we waited almost alone in the station. Alone but for one other figure, standing idly near a door, not moving, not speaking, immune to the occasional passerby that seemed to pass right through it. I recall trying hard to focus on the figure, looking at it intently, seeing it almost like the afterimage of looking at a bright light. Its violet and blue form seemed both there and not there, existing in one spot but always on the edge of my vision. My mother couldn’t see it, and I doubt at the time my explanation was of any help, given I myself didn’t know what I saw. Eventually our bus came, and we left the dark figure there, along with any thoughts of it, until years later.
The second time I saw one, I crashed my car.
I had obtained my license a month prior, and while driving I came across a somewhat sharp turn, and before I could properly think, I swerved to avoid the human-like dark figure that had been standing in the road. The car passed through the figure, scraping the guard rail, and though I was physically fine, my mind spun trying to make sense of what had happened. Certainly I had hit the figure, but also certainly it was still standing there unphased, and as I stood beside my car and called out to it with a shaky voice, I remembered.
For a long while it seemed unreal. I could not bring myself to touch it, though I came within a few steps of it. I could see then that it did move slightly, standing there, vaguely human, trembling every minute or so. It was unsettling, the surreal feeling of my eyes struggling to convince my brain that it was real. As I waited for the tow truck I stayed away from it. Simply being near the figure felt draining, likely a result of straining my eyes and mind. Before leaving I remarked on it to the tow truck driver, who looked towards where the figure was, and commented that “whatever I had seen, it was gone now.” And so I watched it in the mirrors as we drove away, I saw it tremble again, and I closed my eyes until we rounded the bend, glad to be leaving it behind.
Over the next few years I saw the dark figures again, here or there. I soon realized the one I had seen at the bus station as a child and the one I had seen in the road were likely not the same figure. There were many of them, slightly different in size, all vaguely human shaped. Some with arms that would reach the ground, other with long spindly legs, upwards of 10 feet tall. They would be on rooftops, roadways, open fields and occasionally looming ominously in a crowd of people or doorway. I never saw them move, walk, appear, or disappear. They seemed to simply be there and then not be there the next time I arrived. Whenever I saw them, I would instead look to the surrounding people, hoping to see someone, anyone that was also seeing or reacting to the figures, but I never did. On the internet I also had little to go off of, and though there were similar things described as ghosts, apparitions, demons and so on, there was never anything quite like what I saw.
Unwilling to admit to my apparent psychosis, I tried capturing them on all manner of photography, digital, and physical medium. I could see them in mirrors, yet no camera could record them, no detector noted a difference in temperature or radiation of any sort where they were near or had been. I could not bring myself to touch them, both out of fear and due to one occasion where I had walked through a doorway into one, passing through it cleanly, and then immediately fell to my knees. It was like walking through static. It was a feeling of being drained, of being suddenly tired, and terribly frightening. Though later I would find the longer I stayed near them, the more the feeling would alleviate and it became bearable. I would say, at that point, I was cautious of the figures, and while I disliked them, they weren’t inherently frightening, more so simply unnerving. Seeing them up close was akin to suddenly seeing a spider-web in your path. And seeing them at a distance was simply something that I learned to live with.
There was, however, a night when all of that changed. When I began to fear them in earnest. A night when I awoke to one in my own home. It had been a hot night, and I awoke feeling disoriented and physically ill. I had kicked the covers off of my bed and laid there sweating, attempting to muster the strength to sit up and find some water or open a window. When this strength eventually came, I was shocked to see, in the corner or room, one of the shadowy figures, its deep strange violet-black form standing out against the real darkness of the night. I froze and watched it, sitting halfway up in my bed, tensed and unmoving. It was facing away from me, only evidenced y its drooping neck and shoulders. Its head hung low, facing the ground, and in its familiar way, it trembled every so often.
I recall sitting there for what felt like hours, until my back and neck hurt from the strain. There was something wrong about it being here, an unnerving feeling I couldn’t quite place, but everything about the dark figure this time made me feel uneasy. The feeling grew and grew as time passed, and it wasn’t until the sun’s first rays came through my window that I could finally place the feeling. The figure ever so slowly raised its drooping neck, and without moving its body, the faceless blank head slowly turned to meet my gaze.
Ah yes, it was the feeling of being watched. The figure took a step towards me, and I bolted from the room as fast as my legs would carry me.
From that day on I saw the dark figures more often. I felt weak more often, even when not near them, and the most unnerving change was perhaps, that the dark figures, no matter how close or far away, despite any apparent obstacles, now all stood facing me. Again I never saw them appear or move since the one in my bedroom, but I could always feel their gaze on me. No matter where I went, the city or the countryside, even so far as to mountain campsites far from civilization, I could feel their eyes, and catch sight of them through the trees. As time went on I began to realize that it was my own gaze that seemed to draw them in. I could feel their attention magnetize stronger when I looked directly at them, and so for several years I began to live my life as best I could while ignoring them, but it was of little help. They became so numerous I could not drive, for they stood everywhere blocking the road, I could scarcely leave my home, and at times entire rooms would be blocked off to me. It was maddening, and finally one day in a fit of fear and desperation, as awful as it sounds, I meant to gouge out my own eyes.
For better or worse, I failed to blind myself. But while I was recovering from the attempt, my eyes and face were heavily bandaged. Living as such, essentially blindfolded, I found some semblance of comfort. I could still feel the presence of the dark figures around me, but it was muted. No longer did I attract their attention so vividly, yet I knew as I passed by them they were always still facing me, never quite letting me go.
I stayed like this for another year. My eyes recovered quickly and my vision was fine, but still I stayed blindfolded, only ever removing it on occasion when absolutely necessary. And then there was a day, while I waited for a ride somewhere, I felt better than I could ever remember.
My strength seemed to seep back into me as though I was warming up after being out in the cold for a long time. I marveled at this peculiar comfort until I realized that is was actually the absence of a feeling. I wasn’t being watched, or at least for once there were no dark figures near me. For the first time in a long while I removed my blindfold completely, opened my eyes to the bright outside world, and breathed a deep full breath as a man reborn. It felt amazing, how long had it been since I felt this way? Since I had last felt simply normal? Laughter came easily as I turned this way and that, stretching my body and eyes, admiring the clear view free of the dark figures, until I felt the slightest twinge. The smallest, most minuscule pain of discomfort. I turned towards the feeling, and there, a long ways off across a several roads, a field, and parking lot, was a dark figure, tall stiff and upright, facing me.
By the time I realized I was staring at it, it was too late. The figure jerked and spasmed strangely, and I felt the air ripple around me. There was no sound, but I could feel it in the same strange way that only I could see these creatures. It was screaming. Howling. I tried to turn my gaze from it, but before I could look away it seemed to collapse onto the ground, no longer screaming, like a puppet with its strings cut. And then one long arm came up and pressed stiffly into the ground, and then the other, and then a leg. It pulled itself along like in a hideous broken way, each limb refusing to cooperate with the others, yet still it tumbled and crawled and ran and continued building up speed towards me. I stood for another brief moment watching the creature advance, and then I screamed.
I fled and ran, all thoughts of peace having left me, I dared not look behind me at the creature shambling towards me with extreme speed. I simply ran away, turning down roads and alleyways, but everywhere I went, they were there, more dark figures running towards me, scaling down walls or scrambling over cars. I shrieked and ran still, oblivious of the ordinary people I pushed past, ignoring the honking cars as I raced through traffic. They were everywhere, the weight of their gaze crushing me. They closed in from all angles, pulling over one another, screaming their soundless scream, and finally as I stumbled down the stairs of a walkway, I fell into the ones coming up from the other end. I passed through them, numb, and my body slammed hard into the cold concrete below them with a dull thud. My head hit the floor last, and the world went black.
I was told it was psychosomatic blindness. That my eyes were perfectly fine, and the loss of vision was caused by stress or trauma. I had been taken to a nearby hospital after my fall, and stayed there for several days recovering. My body healed up well enough, but no light could reach my eyes, no matter how close it was shined. I no longer saw a difference in the hazy purple black of the dark figures or the darkness that took over the entirety of my vision. Their presence, the feeling of being watched, also felt muted. I could no longer tell if they were near or far, it became a dull background noise to my very being. My strength too, never fully recovered from my wild flight through the city where I eventually fell, but all-in-all I felt, perhaps not good, but at least somewhat relaxed. There was no longer anything to fear as I turned my head, no blindfold to secure, no sense that I might walk through a dark figure with every step. My life gained a semblance of normalcy that I wasn’t sure it ever had before. And so as sad as it sounds, I was blinded, weak, and happy.
And perhaps that’s as happy as I would have been for the rest of my life if not for the events of this morning, when I boarded a plane headed for a country a long way off. I was to be studied at a medical facility there, and in exchange I would be granted a place to stay and taken care of. I had been moved from my wheelchair to a fine first-class seat, and I braced myself there, feeling the plane lurch and take off for the twelve hour flight. As the plane lifted, I soon felt my own spirits lift, I felt wonderful, nearly manic, and as my ears popped from the altitude, I blinked, and the darkness fell away from my eyes, quite literally.
I was stunned. I could see. I looked around, bewildered, and towards the back of the plane could see the violet-black darkness falling away like water down a drain. A flight attendant came over to me as I undid my seat belt, but I shoved past her to the window, my face pressed against the glass. Below me was a mountain range of blackness, almost touching the clouds, growing smaller as the plane continued to climb.
I could see them, the dark figures, hundreds of thousands, no perhaps millions, billions of them. They crawled over one another like ants in a pile, screaming, reaching for the sky. They spilled into the water around the end of the runway in massive amounts, completely covering the airport and surrounding area. Even as we lifted higher and higher still I could see the huge mass of them, it was very possible I could have seen it from space. But we continued to ascend, and eventually they were gone, I was away from them. I realized had never been blind, I had for all these years, simply been surrounded.
My heart pounded in my ears, and it wasn’t until I felt the flight attendant’s hands on me that I heard her voice. I laughed easily. I was standing, I even managed to walk the few steps back to my seat. I felt amazing. I apologized, stammering excuses as to why the formerly blind and wheelchair-bound passenger has run to the window, but it mattered little to me. It was several hours into the flight when I felt I had finally calmed down. After having read all the safety pamphlets and magazines tucked into the seat, after having walked back and forth to the bathroom just for the thrill of it. It was then, sated and relaxed, I let the little nagging feeling have its say.
Whether I had imagined it or not, when the plane climbed higher and the dark figures became almost indistinguishable, I felt it. Like a taught rope suddenly gaining slack. Several of the dark figures, maybe ten, maybe a hundred or a thousand, it was hard to say, had looked away from me. They had, together, looked in a new direction. Were it not for my many years of seeing the figures, of knowing them, feeling their gaze and movements so keenly for so long, I likely would have thought nothing of it. But even so, at the risk of sounding crazy, at the risk of jeopardizing my own credulity, I write this story and warning.
To you, the one that they now see, should you ever read this, I urge you to learn from my experience. When you see them, do not meet their gaze, do not touch them, do not give them the attention of your thoughts or actions in any way. While you may not be able to escape them, I pray that with this, at least, you can delay them much longer than I had. I wish you luck, as that is all that I can offer you aside from my advice.
My plane will soon land, and though it feels cruel to say it, I hope that they prefer your sight to my own, so that they are not waiting in that writhing pile that is likely even now below my plane, following and waiting for me. I hope you can forgive me that thought at least. Until today there has been little joy in my life, though I expect you to soon know my feelings all too well.
My apologies, and best of luck then, to the both of us. May we never see each other for as long as we live.