“From midnight of any given day to the next, you may only open your eyes for sixty seconds. Until your dying day, this law shall pertain.”
The thunderous voice rattled the very foundations of my house, but I disregarded the crystal-clear warning. Stupid, given how uneasy I felt. It was the most lucid dream of my life. That should have told me something. I should have realised it was more than a nightmare.
When I awoke, I carried out my ordinary daily routine. I ate breakfast with my girlfriend, and we both went to work. My day seemed mundane. Just the way I like it.
Towards the end of my working hours, whilst I was in the office bathroom, I noticed something strange. As I was washing my hands, something peculiar caught my attention in the mirror. The reflection revealed a pair of crisp, white brogues, which were protruding through the gap beneath a cubicle door. Until that moment, I hadn’t seen or heard anybody else in the room.
When I turned to face the cubicle, I was horrified to find that the reflection had deceived me. There was nobody in the cubicle. There were no bizarrely-out-of-place white shoes. Nothing. Shaking it off as a trick of the light, I returned my gaze to the mirror.
That was when I screamed.
Well, I tried to scream, but I was horrified to find that my voice-box had failed me. Petrified, and mouth agape, I gawped at the man who was standing in the now-open cubicle doorway. Well, he had the shape of a man, but that was all.
He was some sort of macabre mannequin. The creature had a hairless head made of stone, and its eyes looked like small, grey pebbles. A razor-sharp, horizontal slit served as a mouth on its white-skinned face. By that, I mean it was as white as a sheet. The same could be said of the stone man’s attire. The thing wore a white, collared shirt, white trousers, and white brogues.
The haunting entity raised a finger to its lips with purposeful poise. It soundlessly shushed me. At that moment, my reflection moved, even though I did not. My Mirror Self smiled demonically, before producing a saw. My reflection leant forwards, placing its left arm on the sink counter, and it began to saw at the wrist.
I attempted to produce tortured sounds, but my throat felt as if it had been strangled. I silently bawled as an invisible tool severed my real-world hand from the wrist, mirroring what my reflection was doing. A torrential shower of blood poured from the wound that my Mirror Self had created. In a matter of seconds, it was all over. My lifeless, detached hand was lying in the sink, and I was tightly clutching my wrist, attempting to stem the bleeding.
I hazily stumbled into the communal office area, making good use of my voice, which had finallyreturned. As my colleagues rushed to me, I fell to the floor and faded away. Whilst tumbling through some black chasm of an unconscious realm, that same disembodied voice spoke to me.
“Non-compliance must be punished. One strike per day. The first strike is physical. The second strike is emotional. The third strike is final.”
I opened my eyes to a hospital room. Streetlights shone through the window, and I was surrounded by doctors, family members, and friends. I concocted a story to explain my severed limb. It was a clunky fib about a mishap with a machine in the warehouse. My tall tale could easily have unravelled if anybody had asked questions, but I think my friends and family were simply glad that I was okay.
After a solid hour of talking to a room full of people, I was depleted. I must have dozed off, and I woke to find that everybody had left. I was lying in a darkened hospital room, contemplating the horrors that had befallen me. I wasn’t planning on questioning the featureless demon ever again. The first strike had been gruelling enough. I squeezed my eyelids together, and a single tear trickled down my right cheek. I had never considered the pain that would come with a life of blindness.
I jumped in horror at the return of my tormenter. This time, it did not come to me as a vision.
“Too late,” A sourceless voice taunted. “It’s Tuesday.”
No, I internally despaired. A day has passed? How?
I assumed it had still been Monday. I should’ve kept my eyes closed. I had been high on all manner of medicine, and I thought I was safe. I thought it was still the day of my incident.
“I only kept my eyes open because I thought I’d already been dealt a strike for the day,” I sobbed.
“A new day,” The voice whispered. “Second strike.”
Suddenly, the lights in my pitch-black room sprang to life. And what I saw was so horrific that I’m struggling to put it into words. I’ll try. In the chair to the side of me, I saw my girlfriend. Lucy. She hadn’t gone home.
She was still smiling at me, frozen in the position she had assumed earlier. Lucy’s skin was lifeless, and her clothes were soaked in blood. The bottom of her shirt had been lifted to reveal her disembowelled corpse. I wasn’t sure how my tormenter had inflicted such a dire, excruciating death without altering the contented expression on her face, but I didn’t want to know.
Yet again, I struggled to make a sound. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream louder than I’d ever screamed before. I’d never felt such sorrow. I hammered the emergency button beside my bed, and staff rushed to the scene.
The days since that night have been a blur. I’ve faced so many questions from detectives, but I can’t give them the answers they need. They wouldn’t believe me, would they?
I refuse to open my eyes. No matter how many times people encourage me to look at them, I keep my eyelids firmly pressed together. During the day, it’s fine. I don’t want to see the world, anyway. It’s at night that the ghastliness truly begins. I’ve been hearing things. Barely-audible scuttling noises ricochet off the walls of my box-room. Miniature footsteps, I think. When I open my eyes, the sounds stop, but I’m too scared to open them for more than a few seconds at a time.
What are they? What do they want?
I’m currently typing with my eyes closed. I hope the autocorrect function has been working. They’re about to discharge me from the hospital. I don’t know what to do. Even if you were to try, I don’t think you could help me. I just thought I’d tell my story.
This post is a warning. If the monolithic stone creature speaks to you, do as it says. I can’t offer more help, I’m afraid. Obeying its request might not even save you. After all, I still don’t know what I’m hearing in the dark.