Sorry for posting this so late, but it took me a while to find somewhere I could hide. A place that no one else could get hurt.
I first noticed the light one day when I was in school.
I was working on a classwork assignment for math, struggling to figure out how to do a problem. All of a sudden, a light shone on my paper, illuminating my work.
Usually our teacher kept the lights off in the classroom, only allowing small string lights to light up the room. But when I looked up, no one else had noticed the new light turn on. That’s when I realized that the light was coming from directly behind my head.
I turned around to see it, but there was nothing else. Only a faint light coming from somewhere in the back of the room. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I thought maybe it was something in the wall, a reflection, or even my mind paying tricks on me.
It was a few days before I noticed it again.
It was at night, and I had a friend over from school. Her name was Lanae, and we had been in school together ever since we were in kindergarten. Life had gotten busier for both of us, so we didn’t get a chance to hang out as much as we used to. But luckily today we had a day off due to the snow, and since she lived close by she was able to come over.
Today, we were playing a video game on Lanae’s new Switch that she got for her birthday. I never had one, and when I found out she did I was ecstatic to have her over. For hours into the night we played various different games, including Mario Kart and Mario Party. I really liked Mario Kart even though I wasn’t as good as her.
Everything was going smoothly. During one game I was really close to winning. I was right about to take a shortcut off of one of the pathways that Lanae had shown me, but right as I was about to make the jump a flash of light illuminated the room, momentarily blinding me.
“What the fuck?” I yelled out, throwing the controller down to the floor as I rubbed my eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Lanae had paused the game and was looking at me.
“That flash, it blinded me.” I looked to the screen noticing that my character had fallen over the edge of the map and was in the middle of being lifted back up to the track. So much for winning.
“What flash?”
I turned to her, twisting my head in confusion. “Didn’t you see that flash? It was so bright. It filled the whole room.”
She turned back towards the screen, but I could see a flash of concern on her face. We continued playing for another hour, but I couldn’t really concentrate anymore.
How could she not see it? Did she do that because she saw I was about to win?
I shook my head at the thought. Her character had still been moving on the bottom of the screen, so I didn’t know how she could use her phone to create a flash while also playing. Plus, we were sitting next to each other. I feel like I definitely would have noticed her.
Lanae excused herself to go to the bathroom, so I took my chance. I turned my head backwards slightly, trying to see if there was anything behind me. On the gray wall of my bedroom, there was a small yellow dot in the top corner.
What was that?
I strained my head, trying to get a better look. Was it a bug or something? It didn’t seem to be moving at all. I was about to stand up to examine it further, but Lanae returned. We finished a few more games, but all I could think about was that dot on the wall.
When she finally left, I stood up to inspect it. Every time I tried to touch it, the light would disappear. But when I removed my hand, there it would be again.
I looked around my room, finding a piece of paper and a roll of tape. I folded the paper several times over itself and taped it up against the wall. Satisfied that the light was completely covered, I got ready for bed and fell asleep shortly after.
I woke up, rubbing my eyes. Had it already been morning? I grabbed my phone. 1:43 AM.
That’s when I realized that the light wasn’t coming from the window. In fact, it was still completely dark outside. I looked up above my bed. The light was shining through the paper and illuminating my bed.
“Hey honey, have you been feeling okay? You’ve been looking tired the past couple of days.” I looked up to see my mom looking over at me from the opposite side of the table.
“Yeah mom, I’m fine. Things are just getting a little busy at school.” This was a lie, but otherwise I didn’t know what else to say to her. How was I supposed to tell her that a mysterious light had been following me wherever I went? No one else seemed to notice it.
She didn’t even seem to notice it now, with the light shining directly on to her face.
“Okay, well if there’s anything I can do to help…”
“Thanks mom.”
She grabbed our plates form the table, walking behind me to set them in the kitchen sink. I heard a gasp from behind me. I turned around to see her staring at the back of my neck, wide-eyed.
“What’s wrong?”
She stepped forward, holding her hand out to touch my neck. It burned.
“Ow, what was that?”
“I don’t know, but have you been outside a lot recently? It looks like you have some sort of… sunburn on the back of your neck.”
Sunburn?
I reach around to the back of my neck, feeling the skin flake beneath my fingers. Was this from the light? It’s not like I had been outside much recently, and even if I had been the skies had always been cloudly recently. There wasn’t much sun at this time of the year.
“We should take you to the doctor’s office right now. This burn looks really bad.”
I wanted to argue, but I didn’t know what to say. Maybe the doctor would be able to help. Or at least tell me I wasn’t going crazy.
The drive to the doctor’s took less than half an hour, and luckily not too many people are in the waiting room. When they finally called my name, my mom walked me up to the front desk.
“I’ll be right here when you come out.”
After the nurse brought me to the room, I felt the hair standing on the back of my neck. Somehow, I knew that the light was still there with me. I didn’t know how bright it was in the brightly lit doctor’s room, but it was there.
“Hello Jin, it’s so nice to see you today. How is everything going?”
“Things are going well.”
“Your mom tells me that she’s worried about some kind of rash or skin issue on the back of your neck? Can I take a look?”
I turned my head around so that my back was facing her. There it was. It’s faint, but it’s right there on the middle of the wall.
After I felt her hands leave my neck, I turned back towards her.
“When did you first start noticing this happen?”
“I don’t know, not until today at least.”
“Today? Were you outside a lot recently?”
I shook my head.
“Do you go to tanning salons or something similar?”
I shook my head again. I wanted to tell her what was happening, but what if she didn’t believe me? Or what if she thought I was crazy and had me sent away somewhere?
“I mean, looking at this it looks like a classic case of sunburn. Too much sunlight. I just don’t understand how this would happen at this time of the year.”
She looked up from his clipboard, eyebrow raised at me. “Do you have any other ideas about how this could have happened?”
I paused for a few moments, before finally deciding. “I’m not sure, but I’ve been seeing this light.”
“Light?”
“Yeah, it started a few weeks ago, but there seems to be this bright light following me around. I’ve seen it on -“
Before I could finish, Doctor Paisley had pushed up from her seat and backed up against the wall. I stood up, holding my hand up towards her. “What’s going -“
“You need to leave, right now.”
“Wait, but I thought -“
But she had already opened the door and ran out of the room, leaving me standing dumbfounded. What was going on?
I turned back to the light on the wall. It seemed brighter now.
After a few weeks of this, I started to learn to live with the light. I started wearing a scarf all the time to cover up the back of my neck, and whenever I slept I always used a eye mask or covered my face with a pillow. It didn’t completely block out the light, but it helped.
I was walking towards the library. Lanae and I were supposed to meet up to work on a group project for our History class, and we needed some extra time outside of school to meet. With the constant light on me and anything in front of me, I was having trouble working at a fast enough pace during class.
I saw Lanae sitting on the steps leading up to the library, typing away on her phone. It was hard to see her from this far, but I yelled out to her to get her attention.
When she looked up, I gasped, dropping my phone and book to the ground.
Her face looked… different.
The skin on her face looked red and inflamed, and some of it was even peeling off. She noticed that I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and started to walk towards me. As she got closer, her facial features became even more visible.
And it looked even worse than I first thought.
A few feet away and now I can see that the skin on her face has started to peel off enough that long, flaps of skin were hanging off of her cheeks. Long flaps dragged down from her forehead, partially covering her eyes. On her nose, I could even see exposed bone.
“Hey Jin!” She smiled at me, waving her hand back and forward.
How can she act as if everything was fine?
Now that she was close up, the light behind my head shined even brighter on her face. I watched in horror as the flap on her cheek peeled off, falling down to the floor.
Her gaze followed mine, and she looked down at the same spot where her skin had fallen to.
“What are you looking at?” She looked back up at me, curiousity filling her face.
“I… uh, nothing. How are you doing? Are you feeling fine?”
She looked from side to side, tightening her hood on her jacket around her face.
“It’s been getting a little too cold for me, but other than that I’m good! Are you ready to get started on the project?”
What was I supposed to do? Was this all part of my imagination? She seemed fine even though she didn’t look fine.
“Yeah, sure.”
After we checked in at the front desk of the library, we made our way to one of the conference rooms in the back. I took out my notebook and pencil, trying to ignore everything that was going on with my friend.
I wanted to say something, but what was I supposed to say? Hey, don’t you notice your face is falling apart? She would have thought I was going crazy.
Maybe I am. That would be the only thing that could explain what was happening.
I blinked a few times, trying to read the information she was writing on the whiteboard. I think she was trying to schedule out what we could do next, but the intensity of the light was growing. The glare from the whiteboard blinded me, and I struggled to keep my eyes open.
“Hey, are you doing okay?”
Lanae reached forward with her dried, inflamed arm. Now it was puffed up from all the light that it was nearly twice the size it was before. I flinched from her touch.
“If you’re not feeling well, do you want to meet up another time instead?”
I was about to decline when I saw her hand and the rest of the room start to light up even brighter. Now the light was completely filling the entire room. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I couldn’t see for a few seconds. When the light finally died down, I wiped away at my eyes with my sleeve.
There Lanae was, standing right in front of me. Her arm was reached forward still, face twisted. But instead of her arm reaching out towards me, it looked like it had been ripped from her elbow. I screamed. Her wrist and hand were shriveled up on the table, nearly burnt to a crisp.
“Jin, what’s going -“
Before she could finish I was already shoving my way out the door. I didn’t even stop to say anything to the librarian, who had overheard the commotion from the conference room. I couldn’t be around anyone right now.
I ran all the way back toward my house. I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t know what would happen if I did.
The light started to shine brightly as I made my way through the rest of town. In my confusion and haste I failed to notice an older man standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Sorry!” I yelled out as I shoved my way past him. I heard him fall to the ground and heard a loud pop. I desperately wanted to turn back and see how he was doing. But I couldn’t.
I felt an arm grab my by the shoulder, twisting me around. A younger woman was glaring at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I looked back to see a small crowd had gathered around the old man on the floor. His cane had snapped in half, and he was grabbing at his hip.
“I’m sorry I just really need to -“
“Look at what you did! How can you be so reckless. And to try to run away like nothing happened?”
I tried jerking my arm away from her grasp, but her grip on me was too tight. “Please, I really need to -“
“No, you need to stay here and wait for the police. Someone’s already called them and they’re on their way.”
“Please, you don’t understand!” The light started to get even brighter now. Brighter than it had been in the library. When I could finally see again, I stared in horror with my mouth wide.
The woman and the people that were behind her were all gone. All that remained were the charred bones. The snow around them had melted, leaving the bones floating in a puddle of water. The only thing that remained at my feet were ashes.
I brought my hands up to my face, and I couldn’t stop them from shaking. They were reddened and burnt, but I couldn’t feel any pain.
I ran. I ran without stopping all the way back to my house. I didn’t know where else to go, but I had to go somewhere where no one else would be.