The heavy footsteps down the hall. The click of the locks as my father struggled with the door. “What are you doing here?” he slurred. The intense smell of vodka hit me with a rush.
“Marianne. I need to see Marianne!” choking my words out, angrily swiping at tears. “Please, Father! Please tell me she’s alright!” I whispered.
My father laughed. A great, menacing laugh. He raised his hand as I had seen him do many times before and I flinched in fear, ready for a sting on my arm, but it was only to support himself against the wall. I caught a glimpse of the figure at the end of the corridor. I began to hyperventilate. My wife lay lifeless behind my father, still clutching her poisoned wine glass. I trembled, backing off the front doorstep. I swiveled, but before I could take a step, a rough hand snatched my shirt and pulled me forward. My father sneered, revealing his crooked, yellow teeth.
“Don’t go yet, Dom,” he purred, “the show’s not over.”
He reached into a pocket and from it emerged a glassy, bloodshot blue eyeball, with veins hanging off it in strings. I shook my head frantically.
“Father, Father, tell me you didn’t.”
I looked to Marianne’s body and back to the wet sphere in my father’s outstretched palm.
“Lighten up, Dommy. You know I’ve always loved Mari’s face… very pretty eyes, you see, and I simply couldn’t resist just, you know…”
He glanced down at his hand. A sickening feeling rose in my stomach, but I pushed it back down.
I rose to my full height, towering over his stout figure.
“You’re sick, Father. You know that? No wonder no one loved you.”
I can’t believe I just said that. I finally stood up to him. All my years of insecurity vanished.
A gruff hand grabbed my neck and I was met with his face. His eyes hardened and his voice came through low and dripping with menace.
“Look here, Dom,” he growled, “I don’t really care what you think of me because the only thing that concerns me is… well.”
His voice trailed off as he removed a pair of bloodied tweezers from his shirt. While still caught in his tight grip, my eyes darted around, searching for an escape route. When my gaze finally landed back on my father, the tweezers were inches away from my left eye.
Without thinking, I lifted my foot and drove it into his knee. He dropped the tweezers and reeled in agony. I watched my father with disgust as he swayed, attempting to regain his balance with the help of the walls. My eyes widened in horror as he stood back up. I had about two more seconds if I wanted to get out of here. I saw my window and took it. I didn’t look back, my feet pounding the road, my chest burning. I ignored my father’s cries of fury and looked straight ahead to the forest. I didn’t want my memories of that man, that house, not even my wife. The deeper I got, the faster I ran. I couldn’t risk stopping.
I entered a cave, doubled over and gasping for breath. My brow lined with sweat, I collapsed onto a rock. My head started to swim; visions of my childhood home filled my head as the cave walls crumbled away. I lay on the damp floor, spiraling into a trance, forcing me to relive my father’s unsettling experiments and eerie rituals. Every shelf, cupboard, surface, filled with rows of eyes, settled in glass jars with liquid. But unlike my childhood, I found myself drawn to the haunting stares, peering at each eye, each story behind it.
There was one sphere in particular which contained a tale, most dear to me, my mother, Anne. Anne was beautiful, sweet, caring. Anne was the light of my life. Anne’s eye was the light of my father’s life. Without it, she was worthless to him. I snapped out of my trance.
Anne didn’t deserve to die. Anne deserved to be here, with me. Anne deserved to be buried with all her body parts.
Suddenly, panic began to rise in my chest. I lifted my hand to support my head and felt something strange and soft. My left eye? What was it still doing there? That, that didn’t feel right. I wasn’t supposed to have that eye. That eye was with my father, wasn’t it? I shook my head as it suddenly dawned on me that if I still had my eye, then my father still wanted it. He was after me. I covered my eye protectively with one hand, weighing up the situation. I figured it wasn’t safe for me anywhere if I still had two eyes.
I looked around the cave, taking in its surroundings. It was a big enough space, but the walls felt like they were closing in on me the more I looked. It smelt damp, but also smoky, as if a fire had just been put out. Thoughts rushed back to my father. I couldn’t be here. I needed to…
I peered down at my outstretched hand. My fingernails were long and unkempt, yellowing at the tip. Actually, they were quite a good length to…
I brought my fingernails up close to my left eye and curled them. My eye felt soft. It would be so easy to—
A burst of pain shot through me and I gripped the rock for support. Panting heavily, I stared down at the bloody mess in my hand. The hazel-brown iris contrasting with the black pupil stared back. I turned the thing over in my hand. Perhaps my father had been right; it was quite beautiful, reminding me of a flower in some ways, yes, a freshly picked flower straight out of a garden bed.
The only rational thing to do was to pocket it carefully and protectively. I once again lifted my hand to the black hole where my eye had been just moments before and felt… nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Peace at last.
While I will admit that my father had an unhealthy obsession with eyeballs stemming from an early stage, my situation was completely different. I was only a child when it began, innocently waiting to fall victim to his malevolent schemes.
The end of my journey became inevitable. I would carry on my mother’s story. I would search every unforgiving person I could get my hands on if it meant finding her eye, getting revenge. I slinked out of my cave and into the bush. I crouched behind a tree and lay in wait for my first victim.