An Unseen Eye

An Unseen Eye

Page 1

It has been a really tiring day for Peter, the working hours, the minimal rest and his long screen time, especially today, has completely wrecked him. "All I want right now is to flop on my bed after I reach" muttered Peter as he is on his way home. What is unbeknownst to him is that something is keeping an eye on him.

Peter reached home late at night. He is too much tired now. He flopped on his bed, exhausted from his shift. As he is on his bed, he felt a cold breeze hitting his neck. The cold weather is quite cold outside, not very much, but moderate. Peter remembers locking in the window pane but the situation right now is otherwise. "Maybe I was unmindful" he thought to himself, as he locks the pane, this time making it sure, the click of the latch cuts through the air of the room.

As he turned about to turn, he noticed something very subtle, maybe an illusion of his very mind, or a shadow too fast to be named, he saw something pass through the corner of his eye. "What was that" muttered Peter. Sometimes consciousness is the friend we forget. Our brain is a master of creating the very horrors it fears the most.

Page 2

His eyes catches a sharp detail, like a field in the slip. The door is ajar. He perfectly remembers the thud of the door when he entered with a layer of frustration. Sometimes an exhausted brain can be a man's worst enemy. Unconsciousness grates up when consciousness is merely the last refuge a man can really afford when exhaustion is your mate.

The door was open. Not wide. Just enough. Peter is currently staring at the door. His eyes, weary, his brain, beggin for mercy, but his curiosity, sparkling enough to burn down a forest. He opens the door and starts to move. But here right now, his feet are denying the very responsibility they actually do. Nevertheless Peter thought it wise to retreat back to bed, because a tired mind when fueled with curiosity produces things even a consciousness brain doesn't.

Peter is not sleeping. He is wide awake. The misalignment of his things certainly kept him awake. He is staring at the ceiling, recalling his past events. Memories are certainly the most vivid lies we tell to ourselves. Sometimes the false statements comes out as the standing truths, he thought to himself. The room is silent, the door is still open because Peter's mind is too lazy to quit, but Peter's body is responding otherwise. The air in the room is thick with tension yet unspoken.

Page 3

Peter is curious how are these things happening. Yet he doesn't have a gist of these things. He will certainly try to find it out either by hook or by crook. The atmosphere of the room started to neutralize, Peter started to calm down and the next instant, he is asleep. Sometimes the chaos begins in the peaceful tranquility of the mind, which often unfold terror.

The next day when Peter is about to leave, a sudden, almost impulsive thought came in his mind. "If my door was ajar the last night, let's keep it open today" he said to himself, and he kept the door open, not wide, but enough. "If the door was ajar when locked the opposite has to happen" articulate Peter as he leaves.

In his workplace, he shares his ambiguity with Kevin. Kevin listens to him mindfully, absorbing every word with a peculiar calmness. Sometimes calmness doesn't always lean towards clean intentions. It's just a mask before revelation. Kevin replied back by saying "It can be your hallucination mate, a tired mind does it quite often". Peter also thinks it's an ignorance of his mind. But later on, on his way back home, he is still stuck on that thing. He is looking at the nonpariel city as he passes by. The tranquility of the city, the silence, the lit neon lights made him feel peaceful. But peace is a vivid lie we often tell to ourselves.

Page 4

He enters his house, light turned on, and the next thing his eyes spots, is the door — locked. He has the keys with him. The only thing in the room right now is the vociferous silence. He is staring at the door like the last night. The reason, yet unknown, the terror, successfully unfolds. He enters the room, and finds out, everything is normal. That's when he remembers something, the time is same.

Peter is feeling as if a deep paranoia is slowly setting in him. On the surface of his perceived normality, the word normal is merely an internal illusion. Normality is a temporary truce we sign with our shadows, and right now Peter has this experience. He is doing everything, check closets, searching under his bed, but everything is abnormally normal.

Sometimes the fear is not about someone is in front of you, but when you are feeling the paranoid chill, even when things are normal. Peter is sitting on his couch, when he decides to check once again. He opens the closet once again, it is empty. He sits once again. The room is smelling like terror, panic struck Peter badly and his mind is seized by terror. At that instant Peter remembers a vivid but salient contrast. He remembers how people frantically reacted when Peter, and the calmness of Kevin and his sly smile when he reassured Peter.

Page 5

Peter now has started to connect which may or may exist, like the handle of the door is still warm. "It is warm, it implies it is done by someone, not something" he articulates as he tests a few things. As the warmth persists, on the closet handle, on the window pane, he noticed that the misalignment is consistent. He notices his tumbler lies shattered on the floor, his wooden floor has cracks all over, as if, someone is trying to disrupt his demeanor. Now that his sanity is losing over his confusion, he really thinks that it is done by either someone or something.

Now that the misalignment is seeming quite intentional. "I don't know why but it feels intentional" Peter asks himself. He moves to the couch. The cushions are slightly shifted, as if, it has been tried to be realigned. The book he left on the table — not where he placed it. He is now feeling like a batsman constantly facing swingers in different lengths. His fingers trace the spine. Nothing. No fingerprints. The faint hum of the city feels louder somehow. It contradicts with Peter's internal dilemma. Every shadow seems to stretch just a little longer than it should. Peter inhales slowly. He doesn't know what's watching. He only knows its there.

Page 6

He sees another thing, that is, there are certain marks, not just random, but they feel as a trap or a setting. Peter looks confused, but he feels that these eccentric markings may lead to somewhere. Now, the air of the room has completely changed from terror to tranquility. The paranoia is replaced by a thing more dangerous, curiosity, and Peter is determined to find the root of the cause. Sometimes the righteous acts are wrapped in mistakes, we only uncover when we unwrap.

The time, is frozen at 2 a.m., and Peter steps out of the house. The marks are kind of chalk marks to somewhere it may make no sense. "Sometimes, the senseless things makes way more sense than the sensible" Peter mutters as he walks along. The chalk marks seems pointless to the ordinary eye, but to Peter, this is the labyrinthine to the final destination. He follows the trial with his very consciousness and his intrinsic nature.

He goes on following the trial. At one point, he feels that whatever he is doing is a waste of time and energy. But time reveals, though slowly but surely. Peter continues walking, when he sees that the marks lead towards an abandoned, grave, underground parking lot. He is apparently confused, but he notices a man with the same sly smirk as of Kevin. Good intentions rarely arrive clean.

Page 7

He sees the silhouette of the man, stretching a little bit more than it should. The smile is the only thing visible. Peter is currently standing some feet away from him. The man is wearing a hoodie. The atmosphere is perfectly breezy, light, almost romantic, but the tension inside the parking lot it has got more thick with the meeting of the two people. This is now feeling as if, two captains of archrival teams are standing in front of each other.

"So you finally came here, Pete" spoke up, the man finally speaks. "Who are you and why are you calling me Pete?" replied Peter. The man removes his mask — "KEVIN". Peter shouts as he sees him. "Let's just say, Pete, you had made a very bad mistake" replies Kevin. "I don't remember making any" replies back Peter. "Peter, I must remind you this don't you remember you cheat me up and then insulted me, you are an equation of quick action, I slowly burn, then dismantle" grits Kevin.

Kevin circles him, slowly but deliberately. "The door, you double lock them, but don't check when tired". Peter's jaw clenches. "The window latch," he continues "is loose, Peter you never care about small things". "The clock, is stuck at 2 a.m., because you are too active to replace them". "The cushion, you never arrange them". "Stop this, Kevin, be on the topic" shouts Peter. "Topic? I'm just describing your very behavior" adds Kevin.

Page 8

Silence. "Why are you behind me, Kevin" mutters Peter. "Humans own the lie of their nature, but never the truth" Kevin articulates.

"You are talking about beating Kevin, but you forgot you touched my wife's skin" shouts Peter. "Really Kevin, you broke my nose, not for her, but to show your so called dominance" adds Kevin. "I have never touched your wife again" adds Kevin. "I really see it now, you call it protecting your wife, I call it enjoying control" says Kevin cynically. "You think you know yourself, Pete. You don't" continues Kevin, "the truth is you are a reactor, you react, never thinking, never questioning the importance. You only acts like you are omnipotent" articulate Kevin.

"I really feel sorry for you father" Kevin adds. "Nevertheless I didn't touch your wife again". "But what are you talking about?" asks Peter. "Your father, he shouldn't have been alone that night". Peter clenches his fists hard enough that blood starts to drip slowly. "Why my father" Peter asks cynically. "You decided to take away my dignity, show yourself stoic, so I decided to take the engine instead of the gear" adds Kevin. "You are playing a very dangerous game, Kevin, and there is no turning back from this. When you decided to take the engine, be prepared to face the blast" Peter adds.

Page 9

Peter, the ever reactive, is silent now, his eyes are stygian and empty. Kevin, however, is feeling his control loosening its grip. He had always seen Peter make the first move, but an opposite picture is being portrayed. Kevin loses control, he strikes, his fist meets the pillar. Silence builds what words can't. For the first time, Peter didn't react, he anticipated. Peter strikes on his back, a sharp cry escaping from Kevin. Kevin strikes a blow on Peter's neck, making him a temporary puppet.

Kevin takes the advantage of the situation and whacks Peter relentlessly. Peter lies on the floor, but stands up at the next instant. This shocks Kevin. He didn't expected this from Peter. Peter strikes again, this time on Kevin's ankle. Kevin collapses on the floor, but he sweeps his leg and as Peter is about to fall over Kevin, he lands a brawny punch on his ribs and later grabs his collar and whacks his head against the wall. Peter, however, regains his feat and starts to land blow after blows, as if he is taking every bit of revenge of his father's murder.

Kevin lies on the ground, utterly powerless. Through the fight, neither of them exchanged a word, because the actions have spoken enough. Finally Peter shatters the silence.

Page 10

"I already warned you not to touch my family, and I didnt knew the unsalubrious secret that you murdered my father" Peter says cynically. "Now, I just waited for your move, because your sly smile in the office told me everything. Now the ledger is balanced" says Peter, as he leaves a lifeless Kevin behind in the parking lot and walks his way home with his heart heavy, his mind fighting to steady the storm inside.