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Yellow Eyes (Pt. 1)

Pt. 1

By Clarissa JoycePublished 6 years ago 13 min read
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I could see it sitting there, waiting, its yellow eyes staring into mine. The shadow that lived within the shadows. I didn't know what to make of things when we had our first encounter. Was he a friend, or was he a threat? That was something I had yet to figure out, even after all this time. He was always there, but never dared come into view. That is, until he did.

I had happened to be getting off from the night shift at work that day. The alleyways were darker than usual, but that wasn’t something out of the ordinary. The street lights aren’t all that bright, so why would the alley lights behind the bookstore be? Answer, they wouldn’t. Besides, I liked the dark. I liked to think of the darkness as my own personal invisibility cloak, hiding me from unwanted attention, smiling strangers, or having to decide whether to acknowledge a passerby or stare straight ahead at the ground. The dark hid me enough to where I didn’t really need to worry about those types of things. It was, for the most part, my safety net.

I wasn’t really paying much attention as I walked down the alleyways, so I didn’t see him at first. The man had practically appeared from thin air when I did notice. One second, I was walking with music playing softly in my ears, the next I was sidestepping over the man who had appeared to be sleeping on a pile of broken down boxes. This late at night, it wasn’t something all that uncommon. Boxes did make a better bed than the ground after all, and this was not the best neighborhood.

I must have taken about seven or eight steps before I felt something grab my leg. I practically jumped out of my skin at the feel of its touch. The feel of something that wasn’t quite human. It was much too cold, and way too soft, but it still had wrapped around my limb like the curling fingers of a hand that was in fact human. I stumbled forward and turned around to see what exactly it was that reached for me, but all I saw was the man I thought to be sleeping, now crouching on his feet as if he was a predator, and I his unsuspecting prey. My first thought was that it had to have been him that grabbed my leg and that he had stepped back once I had gotten out of his grip. As soon as the thought popped in my head, I just as soon realized that couldn’t have been the case, for he was much too far for that to have been able to happen. My next thought was whether or not to run. So, I did what anyone would have done. I ran.

I took a few backward steps, swiveled on my heel, and bolted as fast as I could. My heart had felt as if it was about to burst through my chest, my windpipe like it would collapse any second, my music ripping from my ears and dragging on the ground. Even though I had a lot of practice running, having grown up running on track, the adrenaline and the fear were enough to weigh me down beyond belief. It was as if my own body was trying its hardest to betray me, trying to freeze itself while my mind was shouting for it to go faster. But no matter how much I pushed myself, the streets were empty, and I was an easy target for this man. He must have also run track in his day because he wasn’t far behind me, even after all the streets I had ran down. Not even by the time I turned a corner, to a street that I could only describe as pitch black. I could see even less than before and thought there was no way I would be able to figure out how to get away. With every step, I pushed myself harder and harder, faster and faster. The next thing I knew, I was getting ahead, getting away from the not-so-asleep man. I pushed myself to the point where it felt like I was flying, and then I was flying... hard and fast, straight into the ground.

That fall cost me a lot of momentum. The distance kept closing, getting shorter and shorter. The meters I had laid between us all of a sudden turned into a mere few yards. But those few yards turned into a few feet even quicker than I would had expected them to. The next thing I knew, I was on my feet again, but he was practically on my heels. That was when my yellow eyes decided, for the first time, to interfere and introduce himself.

I was barely out of reach of the chaser when I saw those amber yellow irises. They were closer than they had ever been. As usual, they followed me, but then took a turn and were watching what was behind me. They were watching the man now as well. By the time I realized what was about to happen, I was under the only street light I had seen for who knows how long. I was tired, and I was scared, and I was completely frozen with fear for the first time in a long time. The only sounds I could hear standing there was the heartbeat in my ears and the quickly faded scream of the man who could no longer have bad intentions.

Although my body was now frozen still, my mind continued to run as fast as before. What happened? What was it? Would I be next? A trillion questions flew through my head, but only a few seconds had passed in the world of reality. I tried to focus my breath, slow down my heartbeat, listen and observe my surroundings. But I was dead center under the only street light around. I couldn’t see anything outside of the ring of light marked on the ground, but whatever was in the dark could see me. It must have realized this just as I had, because suddenly, the yellow eyes had appeared, just before the edge of the light. After all this time, it was in this moment its curiosity must have gotten the best of it. With the light so close to it, I could finally see the form the eyes had belonged to. The longer I watched the newly formed figure that watched me, I realized that as I looked into those eyes, I saw a nightmare so familiar, they started to make me feel almost safe.

The yellow eyes then decided to slowly step forward, moving in what seemed like slow motion. I had never seen this watcher of mine before, and the sight of him was something straight from books. Although his eyes were something not human, the rest of him could have fooled anyone not paying close enough attention into thinking he was. With skin so pale it appeared to be made of snow, he appeared almost translucent in the little bit of light he allowed to touch him. But once you looked closer, you would realize his skin was not white at all, but a grey so pale, it appeared to be so. His tar, black hair was unusually long, and loosely hanging down to the middle of his torso. Although he had stepped forward and was mostly in the light now, he had still stood halfway in the shadows, as if his face was to remain hidden. He must have wanted to try walking into the light more and took another step forward, but just barely before he spoke.

“What madness you get yourself into. After all this time, should you not have learned to change the habits that hurt you?”

His voice sent chills down my spine. The sound was something of a gentle monster hiding in your closet. Terrifying, but curious. The shadow he had been was no longer a shadow. It had a voice of chilling ice, and no longer wanted to hide in the everlasting darkness. It was a voice that became increasingly more intriguing. But it still managed to strike me silent. That is, until he spoke again.

“I said, have you not learned to change your harmful habits? You create something of an impossible chaos, over and over, but you never learn. You have repeated these scenes and dramatics countlessly but they all play out almost entirely the same. Has the chaotic roaring in your heart and your head become so magnificent that it clouds your sense of the good and the bad?”

This time, I could hear the taunting and the antagonizing, seemingly changing my fear into a mixture of astonishing anger, and profound annoyance. This thing, those eyes that had watched my struggle for countless day, months, maybe years, dared to throw the madness in my face and say I was to blame for it all? What’s with the crazy talk? What was this thing, and who is he to say anything to me? Amid my confusing rage, I finally unfroze and managed to speak back at him.

“What a twist this is. Am I to be your toy, your entertainment? What have you been watching me for? Because unless you’re here to lay out some incredibly life changing information for me, I don’t have time for your judgment, yellow eyes. This so-called chaos you say roars in my head and heart is what has made me so numb to most everything. It may not be the best feeling, but with all the shit I’ve been through, numb might just be the best thing to experience right now.”

The anger that had come out of my mouth must have intrigued my watcher because that was when he took another, final step forward, placing himself entirely in the light. He had a face that did not match the yellow eyes I had come to know. While his eyes were those of monsters and demons, his face was one of an angelic sculpture. The angles and hollows so sharp, he almost appeared to be a walking statue himself. On his face, a smirk was displayed. Although the words he had chosen had been those that sounded like taunts, it had appeared to be that he was trying to be friendly, but still, my anger seemed to be amusing.

“Chaos, my blue eyed dear, is just an angel of good, who fell for a demon of not. For you are the good that attracts the bad, and that is not something that can be helped in the end. We cannot change what we are, nor can we confuse our actual selves with what we want to be. Pretending does not make it real, no matter how much better it may seem to be,” he said.

His words were strange, but he did seem to be trying to make sense. But if the good attracts the bad, and I am apparently the good-

“What does that make you then? If I am supposed to be some sort of good that unintentionally attracts bad things, does that also make you bad, since you are the one who has been watching over me for, well, only you would know that.”

He seemed to falter at this question, because all he had tried to respond with was a swivel on his heel, and a motion to follow him back into the shadows. But he had yet to still answer my other question.

“Before I follow you anywhere, tell me, what exactly are you? Why have you been watching over me?”

“If I told that I wanted to learn from you, to learn how to give my solitude its’ own power, and that because of the person you are, you would be able teach me. Me, a creature that is known as angel to one set of people, demon to another, but friend to none. What would you do?”

It was a complicated answer that he gave me, but the question was a simple one. So, even though every instinct in me said not to follow him, this statuesque angel with yellow demon eyes, I stepped into the darkness after him.

That’s when my world filled with light again. I opened my eyes, and lay there, staring at a white bubbled ceiling. The yellow eyes I had seen once still haunted my dream, constantly changing the purpose for showing up. The only constant was the eyes and their attachment. No matter how long I stared at my ceiling, I could never figure out why they were always the same. Maybe there was a reason and I just had yet to find out.

The doorbell had rung, so I went to go see who it was. Since it was a late noon, I would guess someone had made a pizza call or something. No one ever admitted to it, but I always managed to be the one who paid for it. But, this time was different. No one came out of their rooms. No one stuck their heads out or shouted, “dibs on first slice,” or anything. This time, it was quiet.

I went to the door and tried to look through the peephole to check it out. No one appeared to be there, which is why it was so weird that the bell had rung again. I took a step back and waited a few seconds to see if it would be rung a third time. It wasn’t. Instead, there was a knock. I took another step back. Was the porch haunted? Was there a person standing to the side, trying to pull some sort of prank? I waited again, but nothing. I shouted, asking if anyone was expecting anything to show up, but apparently no one was home either. The dream fear was starting to feel like something slightly familiar again. We didn’t get unexpected packages or visitors at our house. There was never a time where no one was left home by themselves, although the reasons for both of those heavily correlated with one another. In the past it would usually be because of strangers in suits, or people from the schools. It became a new rule in our house that no one was to be by themselves.

The knocking on the door started again. This time it sounded like a restrained banging, rather than a friendly knock. I walked over to the door once more, and that when I finally got the nerve to open it. At first, no one had appeared in front of the slight crack of the door between its frame. I opened it a little more since it appeared no one was there. I stuck my head out, and that was when I saw him. He stood at the far end of the porch, his back towards me. I was positive that he couldn’t have been here, so I called out to get the attention of this impossible stranger, and when he turned and faced me, I had frozen once more.

“How are you blue eyes? Dream nicely?”

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About the Creator

Clarissa Joyce

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