The Lycan

The eyes

I arrived home. Somehow I was able to see far enough to go home. Or at least the house I stay at. This place never felt like home. Throughout my life, I've learned to never call a house a home. Because home is where your love is. Where your trust lies. Where you'll always return no matter what. But I never had a home, only a house.

I pulled into the perfectly clean-cut driveway. Only to feel the piercing gaze of the people living next to us. They live in the big house beside us. By us, I mean the people I live with and myself. It was a gaze I'd grown accustomed to these past few months. But their gaze reminded me of something. Never could pinpoint it because their emotion seemed to be masked.

As if they were looking for something but more relaxed. But it seems familiar.

Wait, that thing in the road.

They seemed almost as if they could read my mind and avert their eyes. Went back to packing their car. Filled with black plastic bags. But I couldn't see through the rain. But before I could think any more of it, a deep thunder roared across the sky. Causing me to jump and run inside. When I got inside, I was wet and shivering from the outside. My mind couldn't wrap itself around this as my fingers were slowly going numb and aching.

This town is so weird. People stare instead of waving. Now that I think about it, they use it too. The first time I got here was from my foster care or as I like to call it my torture. They spoke to me. Saying hi or hello until one day it suddenly stopped. No more "wanna be our friend" or "spend a night at our house." But now it's a blank gaze. Full of words they wished to say but wouldn't. Full of emotion they tried to convey but couldn't. Kind of like that pull that didn't allow me to leave.

Even though I did. What were they even doing in weather like this? I wonder what they could be doing outside with the weather like this. And with big black plastic bags?

They looked like they were looking for something that wasn't there.

My mind was just as scattered as my heart. Trying to pick up the pieces of it, rearrange it, and make sense of it. So there I sat. Still, as I was. On the kitchen floor. Listening to the rain. The rain is listening to me. Making sense of something beyond the mind.

I opened my eyes to darkness and the sound of tweeting birds. Realizing I fell asleep on the kitchen floor, I quickly stood up and made my way to my room. More like it stumbled because the entire house was pitch black. Darker than night itself. As if it were knights protecting queens until their last breath.

Swiftly I entered my room. I was greeted by the cool blue illuminated room, by my old computer. The draining sound of "pitter-patter" of the rain against the window was slowly putting me in a daze with each step. 

The floorboard creaked with every step. My mind was still in a haze. The memories. Pour into my mind faster than a smoker opens a pack of cigarettes. My room was the only one with a window without a thick curtain.

The window fogged over. Fall is near. Papers. Scattered across the room. Pinned to the wall. Highlighted. Color coughed. Not a space. Except for the ceiling. My feet slide across the floor, and fallen papers filled with useless words, slide under my feet across.

Felt as if weights were tied to my eyelids. As if I have never slept at all. Falling straight into my cold bed. Like a single drop of rain falls into a puddle.

Rippling

But peaceful. My eyes close as if I feel every muscle release. Slipping into a sleep full of locked-away memories. Memories hid deep in my mind. Some would believe I was buried at the bottom of the ocean.

Somewhere so dark and quiet.

Silent.

And to come out when my nightmares no longer bring fear. Dragging me down with them. But this dream was different. No, not a dream, a nightmare. This nightmare was different. My heart is pounding against my skin. 

Hair raised on the back of my neck. Nerves completely on edge. The room was big. Nothing out of the ordinary. But fear was rushing to every inch of my body and never leading up. Not even for a miller second. 

But nothing came. It feels like the feeling you get when a jump scare is out to happen. You don't know when. You don't know why. After what felt like hours of agonizing fear, I saw it.

I saw it.

Again.

Those eyes.

The ones I just saw. But not a wolf, not a man. Just eyes. Panic rose in my mind like an overflow drain in a storm. So calm. So unmoving. My breath rattled as it tried to escape my lungs. Slowly. The eyes changed. Not moving but changing color. Too green. Not just any green. But a green, from within the forest. Brighter. And brighter.

It grew. Like a match in a grave. I sat at the counter of the room. Each breath felt like an eternity. The pale walls haunted my mind. Felt like prey to a circling vulture. A ball. I stayed in that position. 

My knees hugged up to my chest. Head hung low in between. Not ever daring to look whatever it was in the eyes. Pitch black surrounded it. Like a full moon with no stars at night. Or a fallen leaf in a puddle.

A dream.

I had to keep reminding myself of that. But it didn't feel like that. But it didn't feel like that.

It moved.

Fast. Far too fast for my mind and eyes. Swallowed the ground. Eyes. Drowned in tears. Tears drowned in me. This wasn't just some normal nightmare from which the self-consciousness reveals itself shows its true form.

_______

1030 words