Eyes In The Night

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It was morning.

Laura stayed up all night. Deacon tried too, but crashed on the chair in the waiting room about two hours ago. They waited for John to finish in surgery.

Laura looked at herself. The dry blood on her arms seem to be fading. She rested her hands on her legs that shook. She continuously thought about the night; Face Mask and all he did.

The police broke into the house after hearing the screams coming from it and no responses from the knocking. Laura explained to them it was a killer. She didn't go into more details than that. Afraid they wouldn't believe it was some kind of demon after them for a contract made by her child.

John's shoulder surgery should almost be done. He's allowed to go home once treatment is finished. He'll need a minimum of six weeks recovery. He's down to half vision. The damage he's received has been severe, but Laura's happy he's still alive.

But she knows in order for it to stay that way, she's going to have to step in. They only have three days before he comes back. John was in no condition to try and take Face Mask on his own again. He's shown that he is serious and they cannot take him lightly. They needed to find this girl.

A nurse came out and told Laura John was out of surgery and in his room. She took a deep breath and and got Deacon and went back.

His eye was patched up. His left eye still closed sleeping off the anesthesia. His arm was in a sling. She noticed his leg was also patched up.

"Mom," Deacon was looking at his dad. A sight he never imagined seeing. "Face Mask has to be stopped. He's here because of me. And now dad is like this. We have to do something."

Deacon put his arm on the bed. He wanted to touch him, but was afraid to hurt him more and withdrew his hand. Then John moved his right arm over to grab Deacon.

"We'll get him Deac, don't worry." John spoke softly. His eye barely at a crack. He seemed half awake when he looked over to him. Laura moved closer to the bedside.

"John, I will not allow you to get hurt anymore than this. The police are on watch of the area. They will be on standby if anything else were to happen, so with that back up, I will take over from here. I'm going to get on the game and find this Ella he wants.

"You can't. What if he tries something?"

"And just what are you going to do about it if he does? Your arm is broken and so is your sight. As long as we get what he wants, I think this should be fine. And if we can't, I'm wondering if we can find another solution while searching for this girl." Laura thought while searching for Ella, they may find someone else who knows who Face Mask is or maybe who Ella could be.

"Okay Laura. You take over. But when you go online and play with those other players, be careful. Some of them are rough. These gamers are pretty intense."

"Did you forgot I work in a hospital? I deal with people everyday. I think I can handle some video game players." Laura was up for the challenge. Nothing was going to stop her from getting the answers they needed.

John was discharged shortly after waking up. They went home and remembered the power was still out. They had no choice but to call an electrician to see what Face Mask actually did.

They had to wait around until everything was fixed. It was already evening before they were able to sit down and turn on the Xbox. Just about a day was already lost to recuperating from Face Mask's first visit. They were down to two days to find this girl.

"So, dad wore the headset and I played the game since a lot of people get mad if you suck." Deacon told his mother as they sat on the couch. John was on the recliner trying to watch. He had just taken another dose of his medicine that was making him sleepy.

"This game is so popular amongst you kids. I should've been paying more attention. From my research, anybody can play, and apparently, anyone can hack it." Laura said. She put her full attention on the loading screen.

The game started and all the player's usernames were on the screen.

CWELLS9742
XXNANA12
LOVELYME

Laura remembered that John said Face Mask appeared as a numbers users. She was also keeping her eye out for that as the game started.

"So, any of you long time players?" Laura jumped in. She watched the screen and saw two people had their mics on. She could even here someone's dog barking from one of them.

"We don't get these levels sitting around honey." One of the players spoke. Laura raised an eyebrow. This is what John was talking about when he warned her about the online players.

"If you play so much, you know anything about fac- eyeless man?" She had to remember the first name John used. It was that Ella girl who told him his real code name.

"Eyeless man? Oh the hacker guy everyone talks about?" The other player chimed in.

"I've heard of him. They say he finds you and kills you."

"You know anything else about him?" Laura asked them. She didn't think she'd find someone with knowledge already.

"You think this guy is real or something? You need a strong man to protect you? I can help you." The same guy who made the honey comment told her. The other guy laughed. Laura wants to say something but is holding her tongue. She needs to get answers, not angry.

"What if I told you that guy is after me? I was hacked and he's coming for me."

"Woah, for real? How'd he found you? How does he do it?" The tables have turned and they started asking her questions instead. They were getting down to the last 20 players and time was running out.

"I need you to tell me what you know about him. Do you know any of his secrets? Who told you about him? Answer me please."

"You're freaking out over there. This guy isn't even real, calm down."

"He is real and I need to know what to do!" She started losing her patients.

"Uh... call 9-1-1?"

"No, they got me!" Deacon was down, and before he could crawl away, another player took him out completely.

"You're too busy thinking about the wrong things girl. Now you're out." The guy told her. She obviously wasn't going to get anything else out of them.

"Start the next round Deac." Laura didn't want to waste any time. She looked over to John who passed out. He looked so helpless. She turned back to the game hoping this round had better results.

The next game started. Laura observed the screen. The usernames for this game looked normal. She waited to see if anyone would speak but the game started silently. Deacon's player was moving when he slowed down.

"We Gatta keep moving if you don't want to get caught, what are you doing?!" One of the players turned on their mic and spoke. This guy sounded angry. Laura looked next to her and saw Deacon's eyes were low. He was getting tired.

"Sorry, I uh, got spooked from my other round. I saw that eyeless guy there." Laura responded to the guy.

"Wow, if you suck, just say so. If you really saw that guy, you wouldn't still be playing." He made a point. She might have started this round off wrong.

That's what she thought until she saw lagging. The game appeared to glitch. One of the players seemed to have left, but another one showed up. She could tell because the name was different. It was all numbers, and they had their mic on.

"Have you found her yet?"