[Short Story] Hidden Colors and His Eye (Patreon)

I first met Him on the way home. It was well after night had fallen, but not in some dark alley. In fact, it happened in a well lit convenience store. He was the only other person besides the cashier, so I decided to avoid Him. Apparently that just wasn’t in the cards though, as we both ended up in the fridge section.

I had been looking for something fresher to eat than a cup of noodles or some such. No clue why He ended up there, except maybe He had been targeting me from the start. Glancing over at Him I didn’t see much at first. With the big C and what not, we were both wearing masks. Or rather, that was why I wore one. He had a different reason.

At that moment, though, what drew me in was His eye. He had two, but the left one was normal enough. No, His right eye dragged my attention away from anything else. It was black like the night sky, distant stars included. That starry void took over my entire world for a moment and then like a bubble, my awareness popped. The world dissipated around me and I was back in the store.

He wasn’t though. And His existence wasn’t my imagination though. When I brought up the dinner I picked to the register, the cashier informed me the other guy paid for it. Definitely weird, as I hadn’t picked it out when He was in the store and He got the amount exactly right. Still, not like I made the most money with my job and the food was something I picked out myself and was still sealed, so I shrugged it off.

After that I didn’t see Him again for over a month. I can’t remember the exact amount of time, though. Nothing to do with the weirdness, I never was able to keep track of stuff like that.

This time I saw Him during the day. Even though I had my availability start in the afternoon, they sometimes try and schedule me really early. I normally stick hard to my availability, but we recently had a wave of walkouts and they needed someone to cover the morning shift.

Only way I managed to stay awake for it was to not sleep the night before. I was a bit loopy once the shift ended and so took the shorter way home. Still not a dark alley, so don’t you get any ideas about that. I just normally try not to cross the field during the summer. Kids are always out there hitting or kicking some ball or another around. Good way to get beamed by a stray shot since they aren’t exactly careful.

Anyway, there He was. Standing on the edge of the field. The kids had ended up playing more towards the other side of the field. Fair enough, even without the strangeness around Him the kids know enough to not be near a man loitering nearby. If He had been there for longer, I’m sure some cops would have rolled up to harass Him.

I, of course, ended up passing by Him to avoid the kids. Don’t want to get mixed up in that kind of mess. Of course, it just got me into another mess. This time His eye was like the sun itself and unlike in the store, it caught me for a good bit longer.

I don’t know what went on for us to stand there for so long. But by the time I returned the sun had started to set. Worse yet, it isn’t like that was some replacement for sleep. So still loopy from sleep deprivation, I stumbled home.

As soon as my head hit the bed I fell asleep. Is what I would like to say happened. What really happened is beyond me. While I wasn’t conscious, I definitely wasn’t sleeping. Like when I was caught in His gaze the night passed me by as scenes of the brightest stars and the darkest void cycled with an orb of colors I can’t describe yet looks like the sun. As if there was a gauze veil over my eyes during the day and finally it had been ripped away to reveal the truth.

Even now, I still don’t know if that is reality from when that term had meaning to me. But it is all in the past. Ancient and dusty by any standards because the next time I saw Him things had changed. The time between the second and the last meeting ended up longer than not. The thing is, my life was destroyed during that period.

I had already been working a dead-end job, but even that fell away. My sleep was no longer restful as the sky took on a new meaning to my fevered dreams. Luckily, I didn’t have to move back in with my mom. But it was close. Though looking back, I don’t know if that would have been a bad thing. So much might have gone different if I had removed myself from the area. Or maybe He would have followed me? Just another thing I’ll never know.

But there I was. Jobless, sleepless, the only money to my name slowly draining away as family only goes so far. The first month went by fine, I had enough to last me that. The second was iffy but manageable. Then I fell into relying entirely upon my family for financial support as I looked for a job.

I would try and do my best for the interviews, but nothing worked. No matter what kind of sleeping medicine I took, I would not be able to sleep. As swirls of color blinded me to reality, my fevered mind stayed up pondering on what it shouldn’t. By the time morning rolled around I would find myself outside my apartment staring off towards the horizon as specks of purple would dance across the edge of my vision.

After that it was a miracle if I could even find the place I applied for, let alone manage the interview. I’m sure if I had gotten that far the interviewer would have thought I was either high as a kite or zonked out with a hangover. Once again, maybe things would have been different if my family had helped in a more physical sense instead of just financially.

Doesn’t matter though, as right when my family planned to cut me off, I saw Him again. Fear of covid had reduced no matter how stupid I thought people were about it, so masks started to disappear. Don’t get me wrong, many people still wore them. If only because grocery stores and such nagged people to do so. But just walking out and about? It wasn’t ever really too much of a thing, and now almost non-existent.

Then as I walked home from a grocery trip, there He was. I honestly thought He was still wearing a mask at first. That isn’t what a face looks like and despite His eye I hadn’t thought Him anymore than a strange human. Oh, how wrong I was.

The colors reached out from a gash across reality that attempted to mimic a mouth. All I can tell you is the purple I had been seeing on the horizon was there. Nothing else made sense and my knees buckled. Without crossing the distance between us, He invited me in with a gentle pat on the shoulder. A hand without substance!

I tried to turn away, but this was what I was meant to do. What I had been meant to do, now realized? No, even now I can’t let this happen. I was chosen, but not by some cosmic fate. I was chosen by the Being on a whim. In this I must keep it straight, for I don’t know how much of me is left. That hand!

Like a surgical glove filled with water and cornstarch. Solid to pressure, yet giving if you eased in. Yet it didn’t have substance! I felt a gap unrelated to distance or time between my shoulder and that hand.

My eyes were drawn away from the hand and back to the face. His, no, Its “normal” eye was now glassy and withdrawn. But the other eye! It stared into not my mind or soul, but some more primal layer of who I was, for there was no keeping secrets from it. Colors of the sun yet unseen washed over my body and I noticed the first steps of my end and current being!

I tried to close my eyes. How silly of me to think such a pitiful tactic would work! My eyelids faded out. As far as light was concerned, they didn’t exist. Yet I could still feel them. Clenching them shut only hastened a change unwanted as they fused together. Forever shutting my eyes to that which was and opening them to what truly was not meant for human minds! Can I even be called that anymore though?

Through invisible eyelids I witnessed the facsimile of a normal eye be fully subsumed by the face as the other took prominence. A second sun and yet I could stare at it forever and I fear that is now my curse. If only it stopped there! If only I had stuck to the surface!

No, my eyes saw further. Through the physical qualities of that eye and deep into a nonsense realm that We Should Not Know Of! A place that can’t exist and yet my existence is now worshipful proof of it! Why must I see all?

Much too late by that point to change anything, but still I foolishly struggled! If my eyelids couldn’t keep the images out, use my hands to block it out! How obvious? Why didn’t I try that first? Maybe it would have delayed things, but much too little, much too late!

My eyes didn’t see through my hands. That would be too easy. I could see when my hands weren’t there. Not as in I was able to see when my hands weren’t in front of my face. No, I could see to the when, the time and place that my hands weren’t blocking the way. Not through time and yet the past played out before me as my hands seemed to jerkily stutter as they would raise up to just before they would have blocked the sight and instantly back to my sides.

And I saw it All! My head did not stray a single bit, nor did my eyes try to avoid the sight of the Thing. Yet still I saw my hands at my sides and even the back of my own head. I wish I could say that at this point I blacked out. No man is meant to see a full view of his surroundings. Our brain has all these little tricks to make it seem like we see so much more at such a better quality than we actually do. Now, though, the floodgates had opened!

I watched as my hands and feet lost their bones! I saw my own nose melt away as unneeded, while the mass flowed down my face and onto my neck to add onto my vocal cords. Human speech is so easy! Languages are such a thin veil across human expression. It gets harder and harder for me to remember why learning a new language was supposed to be hard. I can speak all of humanities tongues but would never attempt it anymore.

But none of that matters, for I entered that rip in reality. That gash upon the fabric of space and time masquerading as a mouth, it expanded? Not expanded, it was already of infinite size! How can I know that? Even now infinite is beyond me yet promised. Oh, how the promises come! Don’t worry though. This is my burden now, so I hope humanity never finds my writings!

But you’re reading this? I’ve been within that space without distance or depth. I’ve been there without time for who knows how long because even the concept of taking time means nothing! Yet you’ve read this? Are you me? At first I might have told you to avoid this, but if not us then who? You can’t be me though. I was promised!

Yes, you aren’t me. Please don’t judge me too harshly. I want out! If only what was wanted of me was something simple, like worship or my soul. There are no words to describe my tasks. Duties that you will hear of! I didn’t betray you, humanity? No, please? Finish this now.

He took me In and now I am part of not Him. Something else, but His. Reading this does not doom you, I’ve been promised. Just know, I want not. Not. I can’t say it! With time maybe I will falter, but I was promised that after this no more asking. No matter how much I want you to join. No! I’m sorry. I’m sorry! You can’t have anymore, let this be the end of me. Don’t search for my name because it can’t exist in your world anymore. Reading this doesn’t endanger you! Yes, it does. I’m sorry. But Maybe I Can Get Out?