The Eye, Chapter 4

Izzy woke up and her professor was standing over her. His vest was normal, and his pale blue eyes remained in his head, with sign of neither blood nor tears. They were concerned, instead.

“Are you ok, Isabel?” The Spanish accent he spoke her name with was well-practiced. She released the breath she had been holding and nodded. He nodded back, and with a quick smile turned away and resumed his lesson on his way back up to his lectern. Izzy watched his retreating back, but then looked down at her doodle when his pale blue eyes were suddenly floating just behind his back. They were looking at her.

The rest of the lesson passed, and she escaped into the cool October air. She soon disentangled herself from the press of students, and then began to walk. Walking aimlessly was what she did to clear her head, and she did this every Friday at the end of class. She knew it was only Thursday, but she was shaken up. ‘Eyes… What could it mean?’ she asked herself as she walked, looking down at her feet.

She remembered when her father died. He was a hardworking Latino man, collateral damage in a gang-related drive-by. He had appeared to her that night, blood dried around his bullet holes. He had told her that he was proud of her, and that he loved her, and that he didn’t know what would happen to her now. Then, as she was bawling and wishing that she could hug him, or touch him at all without breaking the illusion, her mother had glided through the wall that separated Izzy’s room from her parents. Izzy had screamed while her parents took each other’s hands and moved on through the western wall, next to Izzy’s window. She ran to the window and peered into the alley, and watched the ghostly forms of her parents gliding away, hand in hand, three stories above the ground. Then, she left the room and peeked into her mother’s room. It stank of coppery blood, so she went to the kitchen without entering and called the police, then curled up on the floor and waited for the ambulance.

Izzy wiped away a tear as she remembered. She missed her parents, but they were proud of her, she knew. She knew that, if they could see her or not, the best way to make them proud was to graduate and be there for her own kids. Remembering this, she put on a grim smile and lifted her eyes. The sun was still up, but the shadows were long. She stopped suddenly.

There was a house to her right. She turned to face it, and her spine began to tingle. In the center of the door, an ornate-looking dagger held an eye to the wood. Eyeball fluids drained, and were dripping down the peeling paint of the door. This was not the worst, however. The front windows of the house were eyes, and one was on each side of the door. They were centered upon her, almost glaring. She shivered and stared, unable to look away. They were bloodshot, and the one on her left was a pale blue, while the other had a fiery red iris. The door opened, and smoke poured out, along with a familiar scent that haunted her to her core. It smelled like matches. Not fire, but sulfur. Brimstone, if you will.