Its Eyes Are Staring from the Dark

Jurnee Evans

Dusk blanketed the entire town, thick and warm aside from a faint snowfall and the harsh orange glow of streetlamps, headlights, and humming factories. The light pollution made the darkness less suffocating but hid most of the dazzling stars from the view of the people below.

An agender college student named Baz Sparrow was staying up late. They were up late enough to see the clumps of snowflakes dance through the orange haze when they glanced out the window in a distracted daze while they got ready for bed. As Baz stared out the window, they stretched their aching neck muscles by rotating their head in a circle about their shoulders, causing the tips of their long black locs to tickle the base of their spine through the thin fabric of their T-shirt. They slowly sighed and began humming along with the melody of “Focus” by H.E.R. playing from their phone’s speaker.

If they weren't so stressed about a psychology exam in the morning, they might have found the snow beautiful or calming or capable of eliciting an existential crisis about how infinitesimal they were by basically being a snowflake-sized fleck on a floating rock in the endless void of space. But all Baz could think about was how obsessive personalities vary from addictive personalities and how these types of personalities can affect people's lives in both the long and short term.

As H.E.R.'s enchanting voice died out to be replaced with the bassy percussion of the intro to Lorde's “Perfect Places,” they decided they should get back to getting ready for bed. It was already nearly two when they had decided to quit studying and just go to bed, seeing as their class started at 10 a.m. and Baz wanted enough sleep to be able to focus on the exam.

Thinking about possibly falling asleep during an exam caused them to run an aching umber brown hand over their face in worry, after which they mentally thanked their past self for removing their makeup before studying. Falling asleep during an exam would be decidedly and horrifyingly worse than falling asleep during a boring lecture.

“Okay, okay, time for bed,” they muttered to themself under their breath, as if there were another person in the room who might overhear them, but Baz lived alone in their dorm, so there wasn’t even a sleeping body to bother with their verbal reminders.

Baz stood in front of their closet, the door still open. They had already changed into an oversized tee shirt with faded art from Spirited Away, which their mother bought them after they watched the movie together for the first time, and a pair of grey shorts. They finally grabbed the edge of the panel and pulled the sliding door to a close.

As the full-length mirror hanging off the front of the door came into view, Baz’s eyes reflexively darted quickly across the reflective surface. Something cast in shadow moved from one side of the room to the other. It moved so quickly from the desk to the tall bookshelf at the foot of the bed that Baz questioned if they had even seen anything to begin with. But they knew what they saw. They didn’t just imagine a figure in their room. Something in their gut told them they weren’t simply seeing things.

Baz’s mind jumped to thinking there may be someone hiding in their small dorm room with them, waiting to murder them in their sleep; it was a ridiculous and paranoid thought, but it was still a possibility.

They whipped around to look at their room. Immediately, Baz squinted with scrutinising eyes, both concentrating and confused. They stepped away from the closet and walked deeper into their room. Without thinking, their fingers grazed cold glass as they picked up the heavy dolphin figurine decorating the short bookshelf against the wall beside the closet, the figurine acting as something sturdy and heavy to arm themself with. While Baz may have earned their blue belt in karate when they were fifteen, they trusted a blunt object to disarm any threats more than their combative skills.

They walked slowly, quietly, carefully. They clutched the dolphin in their right hand, slender fingers wrapped around its tail in a vise-like grip. Their narrow shoulders were squared and their muscular legs, toned from the arduous work of being a barista at the on-campus coffee shop, were still moving slowly toward the window at the back of the room as well as being in a widened, defensive stance. Despite Baz knowing they were probably overreacting, they still didn’t want to risk there being someone in their room.

Baz unknowingly held their breath as they moved through the middle of their room, their bed on the right wall and their desk and drawers on the left. Eventually, Baz reached the gap between the bookshelf at the end of their bed and the dorm room’s back wall. Nothing was there but dust and a singular cobweb, which still made Baz worry about a spider crawling around in their small dorm with them. But they still searched—scoured, even—for any evidence that something much bigger than a spider had been there.

When Baz was satisfied and reassured that they didn’t see anything dart across their room, they sighed. Their legs and shoulders relaxed instantly, and they brought the dolphin to rest against their exposed thigh.

A relieved and slightly embarrassed laugh slipped out of their lips. “Wow,” they said to themself as they sauntered right back over to the closet and set the dolphin down where it belonged. No sooner had they let go of the cool and smooth glass, they heard a distinct thud behind them.

Baz spun around, picking the dolphin right back up, their entire body going into attack mode. “I swear to fuck,” they called harshly to the empty room.

When they saw the trigonometry textbook on the floor at the base of the tall bookshelf, Baz groaned—more at their jumpiness than the fact they must have unknowingly knocked the book off on their way to the other end of the room. They immediately relaxed and put the dolphin down before they walked over to the bookshelf to place the fallen book back.

They huffed, placing their hand on their hip, scanning the various belongings on the shelves that ranged from textbooks to DVDs. The titles and names on the spines began to blur into incomprehensible characters.

“Jeez,” they mumbled, rubbing their eyes with their fingertips.

They failed to wipe the tiredness from their eyes, causing them to make an even more determined attempt to get to bed. They turned on their heels and headed back to the mirror on the closet door.

Staring into their own eyes, they saw how black their irises were beginning to look in comparison to the dark bags under their eyes that stood out against their already dark skin. Baz let out another huff of minor frustration before reaching behind their head with both of their hands to start gathering their locs together in order to tie them into a bun for sleep; the on-campus coffee shop required that Baz keep their hair up, so they typically kept it down when not working to give their scalp some rest, but having long locs practically required Baz to put their hair up again for bed to prevent frizziness or damage while they tossed and turned in their sleep. Taking their velvet scrunchie off of their wrist, they instantly tied their hair up into a high bun toward the top of their head.

A yawn slipped out of Baz's mouth. They would have gladly fallen asleep on the floor right then and there if they didn't know that they would experience a tremendous amount of back pain in the morning if they did. Instead, they shut their dorm light off and made their way to their bed, sliding their body under the blankets and falling almost immediately to sleep.

The dream Baz had then was one that was recurring. It was neither terrifying nor pleasant but rather something that felt familiar and uncomfortable.

In the dream, Baz would sit on the couch in the living room back home, their Bernese Mountain dog named Stardust curled up beside them with her head in their lap. They would hear the bustling traffic and loud noises of the city as they mindlessly pet Stardust’s head, something that happened so often in real life it became innate, even in dreams. Suddenly, their parents would burst into the room, their burly and boisterous father coming from the right and their lithe and soft mother coming from the left. Baz's father was tall and physically capable, which Baz inherited, but his deceptively stern face was something they hoped to never develop. Baz’s mother had a kind smile and the very same beetle-black eyes that were in Baz’s own skull, yet her sharp fingers could be threatening when she wanted to make sure she got her point across.

When they appeared, stomping into the living room as if Baz had just broken their great aunt’s china as they had when they were twelve, Baz would jump, something that scared Stardust. The dog would stay beside Baz, but they no longer had the comfort of her head in their lap.

Baz’s parents would never say anything. They just stared. Stared until Baz asked, “Why?” and waved their hands in front of their parents’ unblinking eyes.

Then the two parents would dissolve out of existence, and Stardust would be quick to follow.

Every time this happened in their dream, Baz would be so shaken they would wake up, confusion and worry riddling their thoughts along with a feeling of unease settling in the pit of their stomach because the dream would force Baz to have the harsh and distinct sense they had been imagining their parents’ support of them since they came out to the two of them. The way their parents stared at them in the dream made Baz think they felt no emotion, no love, no support for their child who found out they were bisexual at thirteen years old and nonbinary and agender at sixteen. This idea went directly against what Baz knew about their parents’ constant reassurance and support. They took to the pronouns right away, they bought them a chest binder the second Baz suggested they might want one, they laughed the same when Baz joked about “their future girlfriends” as when they joked about “their future boyfriends.” Yet the dream still managed to get under their skin and trick them into thinking their parents’ support was just all in their own head and not in reality.

Not allowing those thoughts to weigh too heavily on their mind, as they had that dream on a nearly weekly basis, Baz checked their phone on the nightstand behind their head. The blinding white numerals told them they still had three hours before they had to be up to get ready for class. They set their phone back down and curled back up under the covers to fall right asleep again, despite the feeling of anxiety in their belly.

When Baz woke up again, it was much more gradual and teasing. It was like a fishhook had gotten caught in their consciousness before yank yank yanking on it to pull the nineteen year old out of the weightless space of their dream. They kept their eyes closed, feeling that they were slipping in and out of slumber. Considering how lead-heavy their limbs felt with exhaustion, they knew they were about to drift off again.

Except they didn’t.

The longer they waited to fall back asleep, the more they stayed awake and became more conscious. When they tried to move their right arm to grab their phone—a quick and easy motion they had made probably a hundred times since moving into their dorm—they found that their arm would not cooperate. No matter how hard they strained against the sinking feeling that kept their arm glued to the mattress, it stayed. That was when they realised that they couldn’t move their body at all. Their legs, their arms, their neck, their fingers, their toes, even their mouth. Everything was numb to all neurological electricity their brain was setting off in an attempt to get their body moving. Baz was motionless and couldn’t do anything about it.

Sleep paralysis, they thought with sudden fear.

Baz just had a brief lesson over the affliction in their Common Disorders class. However, they had never experienced sleep paralysis themself before, and it was making them panic, even though they knew they were safe and all they had to do was wait for the episode to pass.

You’re okay. Just breathe. Just try to go back to sleep. It’s okay. This is just temporary.

But no amount of mental reassurance could calm the thoughts that they were stuck like this, frozen on their dorm mattress indefinitely. In spite of not being able to move, they began to sweat, either from straining to get their muscles working again or from the sheer trepidation that they were powerless and succumbing to one of their biggest fears in life: the unknown. The unknown’s suffocating darkness was swallowing them up and crawling along their skin in licking blazes and stinging frosts, pricking and digging.

Baz tried to rip their arms from the stillness they were stuck in. They even groaned from how hard they were straining to move, but nothing worked; the anxieties that rushed through them only made the sleep paralysis worse. They knew there was no use in resisting, and the rational part of their brain reminded them that all they could do was wait for the paralysis to subside before they could go back to sleep knowing they weren’t permanently stuck in a complete paralysis where no-one would find them for days.

They sighed in frustration and surrender.

“Shhhhh…” a voice hissed from the darkness.

Baz felt a shock of electricity burst from the base of their spine and run along the entirety of their back. It was burning and freezing at the same time in a sense of perpetual and erratic danger. The sudden fear sent a thousand red flags and warning sirens erupting throughout every sector of their brain. If they weren’t already paralysed, the all-encompassing panic would have held them petrifyingly still.

The voice was quiet but harsh, like a parent trying to tell their loud child to quiet down during their favourite part of their favourite movie, something Baz’s dad did every time they watched Die Hard on Christmas. But the tone of the voice wasn’t why Baz felt the burning cold slide and shiver across their entire body, it was the fact that there was another voice in their room.

They lay there, still from both the sleep paralysis and their fear.

Sleep paralysis, they thought, that’s all this is. It causes you to hallucinate. Auditory and visual. Baz’s breath caught deep in their throat at the realisation. I can’t open my eyes. Fuck knows what I’d see. Just… Their mind paused, trying its best to think of the most sure-fire way to calm itself down. Think happy thoughts. Yeah. Like flying in Peter Pan, just think happy thoughts. It'll go away quicker. Happy thoughts and calm breaths. It’ll be okay. It’s okay.

Baz subconsciously squeezed their eyes even tighter, as if that would force the auditory hallucination to see there was no way it could gain a physical manifestation and make it leave in defeat. No matter how much they wished that would happen, that it would just go away, something gnawing deep inside Baz told them it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Quiet,” the voice said.

It was borderline guttural, like it was speaking from as far within its body—if it had a body—as it could, but there was something else. Something wet and dripping about it. That part made Baz think of someone trying to enunciate their words around something in their mouth, like food. Except the way this voice sounded, it was almost as if it was trying to speak around a tongue too big and slithering to fit inside its mouth comfortably.

The thought nearly caused Baz to gag, but the idea that there could be something in their room, lurking in the shadows, that could harm them while they were paralysed in their bed, made them twist their face up as a means of suppressing the adverse reaction.

“No sssssound. No noissssse. Shhhhh…”

Don’t say anything. Don’t breathe too loud. God. Stay calm. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

Something rustled in the darkness. Baz immediately recognised the sound as something heavy dragging against a soft material; it sounded like someone moving across the shaggy carpet in shuffling steps. It was something Baz did when they were tired, something they had done just a few hours ago. Whatever was in the room with them was moving closer to them. Closer, closer, closer. The rustling, the dragging, the shuffling only stopped when Baz felt like something was standing right beside their head.

They could feel eyes staring at them. It was the same unnerving sensation they felt when they wore a suit out in public with makeup on and their locs tied up with silver bands and ribbons; people staring to the point of crossing numerous personal boundaries that were individual to trans people. The hallucination was doing just that, staring at Baz to the point of extreme discomfort. Pins and needles poked and prodded at Baz’s skin just knowing that something was looking at them so closely while they were in such a vulnerable state.

Go away. Go away. Go away. Goddamn it, just fucking leave, Baz cursed in bared teeth and fractured anxiety.

The room stood stagnant and deadly quiet as Baz continued to beg inside their head for some peace. They wanted the prickle of disgust erupting from their every pore to go away, and they wanted to go back to sleep and escape the feeling that this was real when it couldn’t be. Baz always could trust their mind, but now, they were beginning to wonder if they really could. Thinking back on the first dream they had tonight, they questioned if they could really trust what their brain told them about gawking parents and gawking monsters in the dark.

But that was something even scarier than whatever could possibly be lurking beside them as they remained stuck and helpless.

Baz’s thoughts, however, were interrupted by something pointed jabbing at the soft flesh of their left forearm, which was one of the few parts of their body left exposed. The pointed tip of whatever was prodding them quickly turned to light scratching, like a cat trying to get their attention. Then the scratches of almost curiosity and experimentation turned to a slicing with the pointed tip burying itself into Baz’s wrist and slashing upward to their elbow, the back of their arm opening up to the air around it.

Baz’s mouth sprang open to scream but no sound escaped, almost like their voice had grown frozen with their body, even though they had just been making groaning noises moments earlier. The searing of their flesh simmered in their arm as their mouth fell closed. Then Baz’s mind went somewhere else in dissociation, and the pain in their forearm felt subdued like a distant memory as something moved closer to them.

Baz could almost swear they felt a hot, heavy breath caress their face, and as badly as they wanted to open their eyes to see the hallucination—or even, hopefully, nothing at all—they kept their eyes snapped shut. The sleep paralysis was already scary enough that Baz did not want to risk making it so much worse by seeing something horrifying. Maggoty and rotting, slimy and oozing, glitchy and blinking, twisted and uncanny, anything. Anything their mind could come up with, Baz did not want to see it right now, especially not hovering above their face. The fact there was nothing they could do about its presence kept the burning and freezing electricity coursing through their body. That’s why they kept their eyes closed and mouth shut. They just wanted it over, wanted it gone.

But it was still staring. Baz could feel it still glowering in the total darkness, peeling away every bit of logical reasoning and informed debate Baz possessed to shake this experience right off of them. It was almost like it knew it was driving Baz to question everything they knew or thought they knew, what they could trust in themself and what was bullshit, what was an actual monster threatening to slice more parts of their body open and what was just a bout of sleep paralysis.

And it was succeeding in breaking Baz down because they were beginning to wonder if what they were experiencing was actually sleep paralysis or some sort of real-life monster that was working its way up to killing them, to tearing their body apart to eat every last tendon and sinew of their flesh. Because it was still staring in a way that was practically palpable.

Then Baz felt a part of the entity—hallucination or not—move above them in quick, serpentine movements. Baz came to the conclusion that it was either its head or torso—if it had either of those things. It was looking for something. Something that it could grasp onto and sink its teeth into like an apple so it could suck on the juices. It wanted something from Baz—that much they knew from its searching movements above them—but they still weren’t sure what. All Baz knew was that it was doing a great job of scaring them into being willing to give the thing anything it wanted short of their own life. So long as it would stop tormenting them and keeping them from rest and peace and trusting their own mind, Baz was thinking they would be willing to do anything and everything the creature wanted.

The quiet consideration filling the small dorm room was foam in Baz’s ears. Their heart was pounding out a meaty and furious beat against their ribcage so hard and long that there was a deep-seated hollowness being carved out in their chest.

Suddenly, the monster in the shadows began sniffing Baz’s face and they could feel the light breath touch their skin again. There was something deeply disturbing about something that had already sliced your arm open sniffing your face as it lingers above you while you’re in bed. Baz was beyond keenly aware of that.

“Voiccccce.”

What? It doesn’t want me to make noise, but it wants something to do with my voice? What the hell?

“Brave. Ssssstrong. Proud.”

Baz’s heart beat harder and harder and harder against their chest. The entire cavity of their chest was beginning to feel like the organ was trying to dig its way out. It was too afraid to stay dormant in the ribcage where the monster could easily feast upon it. It wanted to run away just badly as Baz wanted to.

What do you want? the voice in Baz’s head was begging at this point.

A silent tear of frustration and fear rolled down their cheek and to their earlobe, tickling the hairs and skin there. Baz cried even more at the thought that they couldn’t wipe their tears away because they physically couldn’t and they couldn’t even make a sniffling sound because that would, supposedly, anger the monster.

A wet, sloppy sound emerged directly above Baz’s face. Then the long, warm, damp muscle of a tongue lolled itself over Baz’s cheek, reminding them in some twisted way of Stardust licking their cheek any time they returned home. But this tongue was nothing like a dog’s. It was twice as long and smooth, and it moved in side-to-side motions down the length of Baz’s face, from temple to jaw. Baz grimaced as the bizarre tongue lapped up the tears that had been falling down their face just seconds prior.

Subconsciously, the breath Baz had been holding shook out of them in a sigh of revulsion and terror. A mistake Baz regretted immediately.

“Ssssstop.” Its harsh voice had turned even shriller and sharper, cutting through the air Baz was breathing like a serrated knife or a talon ripping into flesh. Wet droplets landed on Baz’s face, and they felt the warmth and solidness of its breath brush over their skin once more.

Cold appendages, almost like fingers or what aren’t fingers anymore, pressed themselves against the side of Baz’s face. Five sharp points dug against the flesh of their cheek. Their face burned, a stark contrast to the cooling effect the creature’s saliva had on their cheek, as the sharp points pushed further against their skin. The pressure began to grow so intense it became painful, then it became so painful that Baz felt a scream crawl its way along the lining of their throat, but they forced it down.

“Ssssstop. Now.”

Baz could only figure that it wanted them to be silent, so they just bit back their screams and swallowed their tears as the sharp points got to the verge of breaking skin and drawing blood. Their chest heaved with their rapid breathing, their lungs barely keeping up with their near-hyperventilating pace.

And Baz could feel that it was still staring. Eyes pushing against Baz to worm their way into their mind and twist their entire reality around its fingers. As it was slowly attempting to cut their face open, it was still staring intently and curiously and disgustingly at Baz, the staring growing too unbearable. Baz imagined this was how spontaneous combustion must feel.

“Sssssto—”

“It’s not the wakin’, it’s the risin’. It is the groundin’ of a foot uncompromisin’.”

The music came from somewhere above Baz’s head. The song became a sense of reassuring and reliable calm that soaked up all of the chaos and darkness surrounding Baz and what had been happening.

“It’s not forgoin’ of the lie. It’s not the openin’ of the eyes. It’s not the wakin’, it’s the risin’.”

As the song continued to play, a loud and seething roar exploded from directly in front of Baz’s face. Then the very presence of the monster over them slinked to whence it came as quickly as it could.

“It’s not the shade we should be casting. It’s the light, it’s the obstacle that casts it. It’s the heat that drives the light. It’s the fire it ignites. It’s not the wakin’, it’s the risin’.”

For the first time since they woke up again, Baz found themself able to take a deep breath and release it without any inhibitions. Their chest felt lighter, and their body didn’t feel like lead. Even when they moved their arms to grab their phone and turn off their alarm, they found that they could actually move. And now that they could move, they were no longer afraid of opening their eyes, so they did. Their eyes were dry and itchy, but Baz was so incredibly happy to move their body and look at the world around them that it didn’t matter. Blue-white daylight was peeking out from the curtains; they could even see dust particles floating in a beam of the light.

They smiled at knowing they had survived and were okay.

They glanced at the forearm the monster had slashed into and only saw a long pale scratch that they may have easily done to themself in their sleep.

Yeah, let’s go with that. Phantom scratches. Those are seriously normal. Everything’s okay. You’re okay.

After sighing in relief, they reached behind them, which caused them to groan from their muscles aching. Straining against the sleep paralysis was probably more than enough to make their body sore for a few days. Baz managed to pick their phone off of the nightstand and turn off Hozier’s “Nina Cried Power,” which they had set as their alarm the evening before. They promptly dropped the device to their sternum, sighing in absolute relief.

“I’m okay. Whatever that was… I am okay,” they said. They had to make sure they could still talk, still use the voice the monster had seemingly called brave and strong and proud.

Baz chuckled half-heartedly. “Maybe it was jealous that I have a brave, strong, proud voice and it has trouble speaking.” They laughed a little louder and shook their head. “Stupid.”

There was still a nagging feeling in the back of their mind, though. Was that just sleep paralysis? Or was that real? They couldn’t tell, and that might have been the scariest part about everything they just went through.

What finally pulled Baz out of bed was the realisation that, no matter whether that was real or not, it was definitely real that they still had class. Reluctantly, they pulled themself out of bed, slid their slippers onto their feet, and grabbed their keys off of their desk. An air of apprehensiveness coated their skin as they moved, fearful and paranoid that the creature would make another appearance. When nothing showed up, though, they padded their way to the door. Then they left their room to head down the corridor to the communal bathroom, glancing over their shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.

In their paranoid looks, though, Baz failed to notice that something was still staring.

A b o u t

Jurnee Evans is an English major concentrating in Creative Writing with minors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Film Studies graduating from Eastern Illinois University with their bachelor's in May 2022. They have been writing fiction since the age of 10 and discovered their passion for poetry through their time at EIU. In addition to being a writer, Jurnee is also a visual artist, avid reader, tarot enthusiast, drag performer, animal lover, horror connoisseur, and activist; all these passions, but especially the latter two, tend to bleed into their writing. Jurnee is @silhouettecrow on all social media platforms.