In her head she began to count, 5…4…3…2…1. She squeezed her eyes tightly together. They were there, the eyes, vivid in her memory. Slowly she began to open her eyes, in her heart she hoped and prayed that she would not see in real life what she saw in her mind.
At first, she thought her prayers had been answered, but then through the silence, there was a moderately loud crack. It was the snap of a pencil. Probably from the pile on the floor she thought. She had always wondered what was attached to those eyes, she had imagined some horrifically deformed body, covered in boils and foaming at the mouth. Such thoughts made her shake harder, the fear taking the sobs away. She knew the creature was in the room with her, but she couldn’t see the eyes. She could feel her heart beat, so loud it was like the thudding of a hammer on a nail.
Then a thought entered her mind…where were the eyes? If the creature was in the room with her then the eyes must be there, but where? She searched the blackness of the room almost hoping now that any moment she would see the eyes.
Hours seemed to go by but Ruth kept telling herself it was just a few minutes. Then, very slowly she discerned the appearance of the eyes. A dim green light spread around the room and Ruth squinted as her eyes began to adjust to the new light.
Ruth took some deep breaths and tried to pluck up the courage to clear her throat. As she did her voice cut the silence like a knife, “I want you to go away and leave me alone!” She tried to sound assertive, but was unsuccessful in hiding her fear. There was a long pause.
“Why do you shake in my company?” the voice was deep and hoarse, it was the first time Ruth had ever heard the voice of the creature and on hearing it her sobs returned.
“Do you fear me?” the voice gave an evil chuckle. It sounded almost human like. “Why be afraid of the dark when the light is so much more frightening?”
Ruth was once again silenced and she stumbled out a word.
“What?” she was curious what the voice meant by this statement.
“Why be afraid of what you can’t see?” As the silence returned to the room Ruth felt the edge of the bed dip as though someone was sitting on it.
“I’m, I’m not afraid of you or anything else for that matter!” Now her voice too, began to shake.
“I you have no fear, then why not switch on the light? With a curiosity like yours I’m surprised you haven’t done so already.”
In the dim light Ruth could see the shape of the lamp outlined, at her side. Her hand rested on the switch while she thought for a moment what she was doing.
Eventually her curiosity got the better of her and she decided that if she didn’t face this now she’d have to live with it for the rest of her life. She wanted to be able to turn on the light slowly but as her sweaty palm clutched the stem light filled the room in an instant, making Ruth squint again. She looked towards the end of the bed. She could see the eyes but there was no human form as such, however she couldn’t see the desk behind where the eyes were, nor could she see the end of the bed very clearly. Then there was a movement in the room. Ruth could once again see the end of the bed and part of her desk had now re-focused, but in the process her wardrobe had become only semi-visible.
The shape of this ‘nothing’ was almost human, male. The creature had its broad back to Ruth and as it turned she how sad the eye had become and she thought she saw tears in its eyes which now seemed smaller than they were in the darkness. A curiosity hovered in her breast, a desire to understand had replaced the fear.
“I’m Jim, weird isn’t it? I mean the way I look, no body just…nothing,” his voice seemed to have changed, it was more gentle but Ruth didn’t take any chances. She hesitated to trust him in any way.
“What do you want?” Ruth had stopped shaking now and was sat up on her bed.
“I want to be free, nothing more, nothing less,” Jim returned calmly and once again sat at the foot of the bed, “touch my hand, I’ll show you.” He reached out his hand towards Ruth, who moved backwards trying to avoid the hand.
“I can’t trust you!!”
“Why not?”
“You’ve haunted me every night for weeks on end and you expect me to hold your hand, for anything?
“I had to do it,” ho lowered his voice, “I care about you.”
“No, no you don’t, you wouldn’t do this if you did. You don’t even know me.”
“Please! Just touch my hand.” There was desperation in his voice. Ruth thought for a moment, what harm could just touching his hand do? She leaned forward and held his hand. She tried to let go but he gripped her hand tightly.
Jim began to laugh “Fool!” Ruth looked down at her hand. It was turning into nothing just like his, but his now looked like hers once did.
“What are you doing to me? Let go! This isn’t what I want, I thought you cared!”
“I didn’t want it either but he didn’t give me a choice then.”
“Who didn’t?” her fear was rising in her throat, she could taste the bile that threatened to choke her. Desperately she lunged for the door. Jim’s grip was painfully tight.
“I’ve been waiting too long to lose this chance.” The hoarse, hallow voice in which Ruth could now hear his own desperation mingled with a cold determination had returned.
For a moment Ruth thought it had all been a dream, a nightmare, but then at then end of the bed she saw the figure of a male, real human, with flesh and blood and teeth. She looked down at her feet, nothing, her hands, nothing. She had taken Jim’s place; she was the nothing!
She walked over towards her mirror, all she saw was a shape, her figure, no colour just a transparent, blur of an outline, except her blue eyes, they remained in the middle of her rounded face. She turned to look at Jim, he sat there looking at his hands as though he had never seen such a thing in all his life. He was wearing a long black leather coat and he had soft ginger hair. She turned back to the mirror and as she once again saw the outline of her once pretty figure she felt pain in the heart, like someone stabbing her. Then she felt the familiar tightening in the chest but instead of her usual sobs her reflection in the mirror turned yellow. Then from the background she heard her bedroom door close. She turned to see Jim gone, but on her bed she noticed an ink stained piece of paper and half of a snapped pencil. She walked over to it and picked up the paper. She unfolded it and read the words scribbled on it:
Good luck Ruth. You know what you have to do.
Maybe we’ll meet again someday.
Jim
XXx
_
