Chapter 9: Beautiful

The room was dark. I sat at my desk trying to do homework, but I couldn’t read the words. I randomly scribbled answers. I had no idea what I was writing, but I hoped it was correct.

I looked at the back of my hand, and the skin started to bubble. I stopped, dropped my pencil, and watched in horror. It made popping sounds as a large lump began to swell, and then the skin burst open. Underneath had been an eye, which now stared at me with its glowing black pupil. My hand shot out, stretched as far away from my body as I could get it, and I noticed three identical eyes spread across the length of my bare arm, all watching me. I looked to my left, and saw another four eyes there as well. Eight spidery legs sprouted from the skin around one of the eyes, and it tore itself free from my body leaving a gaping hole in its wake. Out of the bottomless pit of my arm crawled countless smaller eyes. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. The other large eyes had followed suit, and now an endless tide of ocular spiders swarmed out of my skin and up my arms, headed straight towards my face. I put all my strength into my lungs, doing everything I could to cry out, but not a single voice escaped my lips. The eyes. They were aiming for my eyes. To devour them and bury the whole swarm in my skull. I was paralyzed, helpless to stop them.

I sat up in bed and screamed. I grabbed at the sheets, my body, and it all felt real. I ripped my sleeve up to look at my right arm, groping at the skin to make sure it was solid. It was. I reached for my left sleeve to do the same but stopped. I was frozen, staring at the back of my right hand. I didn’t dare to turn it over. I knew what I would find resting in the center of my palm. I didn’t want to look at it. But I couldn’t look away from my hand; I didn’t know what would happen if I did. So I just watched it in terror. Trying not to think about what it meant. What it made me. What it would mean for my future.

Suddenly, there was a knock at my door.

“Becca, is everything okay in there? Can I come in?”

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

I wasn’t okay.

The door opened, and Dad’s worried face came into view.

“What happened? I heard screaming.”

“It’s nothing… just a bad dream.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll be leaving for work soon, but let me know if you need anything, okay?”

I glanced at the clock; 5:42. I guess it would need to be that early if he hadn’t left yet.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Dad.”

With that, he carefully shut the door. I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard his heavy footsteps go down the stairs. But the tension didn’t leave my body. I looked back at my hand, still suspended in the air. I couldn’t let it touch anything. I tried to suppress the creeping feeling circling my palm, and the phantom sensations of bugs crawling across my skin, but it was hard to reassure myself when this was reality. My hand was tainted.

I needed to wrap it in something. To keep it contained. Stop it from spreading. But that wasn’t realistic; people would notice. I had to do something about it though. Did I? No, I didn’t have to. It’s just an eye. Filthy, grotesque, horrid, but not infectious. That dream wasn’t real; it couldn’t be. But I didn’t know that. I didn’t know how any of this works. I had no way of knowing.

“Lord Shiquoth, what’s going to happen to me? Is it going to spread?”

I sat there in silence, staring at my hand, waiting for a response, but my fearful question was left unanswered. That wasn’t good. None of this was good. I made a mistake. I was done for. No no no no no no no no. Was it too late to fix this? I had to undo it. Get the knife again and… no. That wouldn’t work. The eye was already inside me. If it would infect me, then it was already too late. Besides, it didn’t even matter; the god was already inside me from the beginning. There was never any escape.

Slowly, I lowered my hand to rest it on the sheets. I still didn’t dare to look at what the palm was hiding, but there was no point in trying to run from it; it was part of me now. I looked at the clock again. I was tired, but couldn’t bring myself to go back to sleep. I couldn’t stand another nightmare. So instead, I got up and went to go wash my face.

Creeping down the hall, I made my way to the bathroom. I looked into the mirror, and a hideous visage stared back at me. My eyes were puffy with dark circles and my skin was ghastly pale. I almost seemed afraid. I was afraid. I turned on the sink and started reaching to cup the water with my hands, but stopped. Did I really want rub the eye against my own? Would it hurt to pour water over it? I lowered my right hand to my side and instead tried to just use my left to splash water on my face. It didn’t work well, but it was better than nothing. I dried off and went down to the kitchen.

I was starving, but Mom wasn’t up to make breakfast yet and I wasn’t in the mood to cook, so instead I just poured myself a bowl of cereal. I sat down and stared at the bowl. I didn’t have an appetite. But I needed to eat, and if I didn’t it would just get soggy and go to waste. I forced a spoonful into my mouth. It was dry and bland. The hard grains made me think of bugs and the chewing made me think of tearing flesh. I gagged, ran to the trash can, and spit it out. I took a minute to compose myself before going to the sink to rinse my mouth, but then thought better of it and grabbed a glass of water instead. Maybe I would have to make due with a liquid breakfast. I sat back down and drank the milk out of the bowl. I thought about blood, but I was able to keep the impulse down; this didn’t taste metallic. I dumped the rest of the soggy cereal in the trash and covered it with a few paper towels. That should stop anyone from noticing, right? While washing my hands, I was careful to keep the soap away from my right palm. I didn’t know if it mattered, but I didn’t want to find out. At least the water was fine. I dried them off with more paper towels, and headed back up to my room.

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Shutting the door, I pondered how to pass the time. Sleep was still out of the question, and I had an hour until I needed to get ready for school. School. I didn’t want to go to school. I was in no condition to go. But I didn’t have an excuse to stay home. Mom would make me go. Maybe school would be a good distraction. No, that’s what I thought yesterday, yet I couldn’t even make it through to the end. Today would be worse. But home wouldn’t be any better. Here I’d be stuck in my thoughts. Even if school was bad again, being alone would be unbearable. At least at school I could pretend to be normal. So I would go.

I stepped over to my pile of unread books. Sitting at the top was Lord of the Flies. Definitely not that. Not now. I put it aside and looked at the next one: 500 Pictures of Birds. Good enough. The cover featured a bird. I couldn’t tell what kind, but maybe I would find out. It was grey with white patches on its wings. I opened to the first page and there was a picture of a bird. It looked nice. Pages two and three also had birds, but they were different from the previous two. Why did I buy this book again? I forgot, but right now I didn’t mind it. Page four had two birds on it. They were both yellow. Fancy little birds. The one on page five was grey, but different from the cover. I think page four overshadowed it. Pages six and seven had owls. Did those count as birds? I guess they did. Page 8 had a raven on it. I closed the book.

Breathing out, I placed the book back on top of the pile and sat on the edge of my bed. I stared at the back of my right hand. I couldn’t ignore this forever. I wanted to. I really wanted to. But if this was my weapon now, I would need to know how to use it. I was a weapon. A magical girl. Once upon a time the thought might have filled me with excitement, but now it was fear and disgust. Slowly, I turned over my hand and looked at the palm. I held my breath and watched as the once familiar skin revealed itself. It was… normal. I hesitantly poked at the edge, but nothing happened. No, this had to be wrong; I knew there was something there. I placed my finger at the bottom of my palm and pulled down on the skin. I noticed the slightest line reveal itself across the middle, and I flinched my left hand back. It was there. I considered poking at it, but did not want to know what it would feel like. I needed to figure this out though. Surely it didn’t need to be now though, right? No, this had been tormenting me all morning, all night, and it would keep doing so unless I actually looked at it. Understood it.

It’s just an eye; it can’t hurt me. It won’t grow legs, or shoot lasers, or… fuck. It does shoot lasers. This was dangerous. I was going to get myself killed. One wrong twitch and a beam of searing light would burn through my skull and no no no no no no no. No. Don’t think about it, Rebecca. It was my eye, I could control it. I knew what it felt like to fire it, so all I had to do was… not that.

So I focused on my palm; not channeling some mysterious energy into it, but instead just feeling the muscles. I spread my hand open, but nothing substantial happened. I focused on the center. My nerves tingled. Slowly, I tugged on muscles I had never used before but instinctively felt were present, and for the first time that morning light seeped into my vision. My sight was still blurry, and I watched in perfect clarity as the skin in my hand split open to reveal the once hidden sphere with its grey ring and black center. Its wide pupil rapidly constricted and my face came into view with two familiar, green irises staring down at me. My breaths quickened. No, not this again. I snapped my head away from it and watched as the back of my hair turned to face me. Not like that. That’s not what I meant. I twisted my hand down, and my vision shifted as I was suddenly staring at the floor. But that wasn’t right; I was looking at the wall. This was all wrong. I felt dizzy. I shut my eyes, but the carpet continued watching me from below. I tried closing my hand, but light still seeped between my fingers. That’s not it! That’s not it! I shut my hand harder, tighter; putting all of my focus into making sure that disgusting eye would close! Eventually, it worked.

I flopped down on the bed, keeping my eyes shut, all of them, and controlled my breaths. I needed to stay calm. Nothing happened there, but I lost myself. It was disorienting, so I panicked. That was bad. I could tell how to control the eye, but I wasn’t used to it yet. I would need to focus. All it was doing was letting me see; that’s what eyes did. I just didn’t normally see two different things at once. Didn’t normally see myself from an outside perspective. I had no idea how Nightingale could handle so many of these at simultaneously. Maybe it was a matter of practice. I needed to get used to the new organ, and then I could move on to multitasking. I hated the thing, it was repulsive, but it had yet to actually hurt me, though it just might if I didn’t learn how it worked.

So, propping my right elbow against the bed, I raised my hand into the air. Carefully, I monitored the sensation of my muscles, and opened the eye while keeping the ones on my head closed. My room came into view. I slowly turned my arm to the left and my vision moved with it, looking past the bookshelf, and staring straight at the door. I twisted my arm the other way, my vision following it back to the center and then across the window until my hand couldn’t turn any further. I felt… fine. Looking like this was almost natural. I wanted to look at the back wall though, but I couldn’t turn my arm any further without moving the rest of my body. I was about to give up, but then I realized I hadn’t been turning the eye itself, so I tried to do so.

My hand twitched, but my vision didn’t move. I tried again, but the result was the same. I tried moving my regular eyes back and forth behind the lids, trying to understand the feeling of the motion, but it didn’t quite make sense while they couldn’t see. I was hesitant to open both sets at once though. I focused back on my hand, on the lid at its center, and carefully closed it. Sheets of darkness enveloped me, and soon I saw nothing. I opened my eyes, the head ones, and sat up. I looked around without moving my neck and payed close attention to the sensation, memorizing it.

I checked the clock; 6:44. Mom might try to wake me soon, and I didn’t need her seeing what I was up to. More practice would have to wait for later. I think it worked though; I felt calmer. Like I had regained control of my body. I still wasn’t used to it, but the eye was starting to feel like my own rather than a foreign object ravaging me. Like the contamination had lessened.

Maybe there was hope after all.