Closer

You first started to notice it a few months ago. You got some dust in your eyes and after blinking a lot and rubbing them, there is a fuzzy black spot you could see in the distance. You blink a few more times and its gone, nothing to think about. It was probably just a piece of dust. You do not think about it more.

Not until a few weeks later. This time you rub your eyes after yawning, blinking away the unshed tears that form in the corners of your eyes. You have been awake for far too long already, but by sheer stubbornness you will get this part of your essay done before going to bed. Again, you see the small fuzzy spot, it kind of reminds you of a piece of dust. A very dark piece of dust. After blinking a few more times its gone. You chalk it up as a trick of your tired mind and drag back your focus to the essay at hand. Again, it slips out of your mind for a few weeks.

The next time is when you really notice it. it slipped your mind before but this time as you catch it in the corner of your eye, its not that small anymore. Roughly the size of a rabbit, from a few meters distance away. Rather than becoming bigger, it feels like its coming closer. It is still fuzzy and dark, the shape not becoming any clearer. This time it stays in the corner of your eye for a few seconds before slowly fading away.

You start noticing it more often now. Whatever it is, you see it in the corner of your eye every now and then. It shifts in sizes, more often than not becoming bigger, or maybe closer. The shape is still the same, or, still impossible to distinguish as anything. There is no specific shape it takes, the outline being fuzzy as if it is still too far away to see it properly.

The more you notice it in the corner of your eye, the more it feels as if it is observing you. You do not know why, but whenever you notice it, you get the feeling that you are being watched. You try to push back and ignore the feeling, its only a trick of the mind or the light hitting your eyes weirdly. No need to worry. You should try to sleep more, get your body into more of a proper routine, that will help.

You work on your sleep schedule and it works. A few months later and no sight of the fuzzy thing. You start to forget about it as your life picks up with new opportunities. You still feel like someone is watching you at times, but that is probably nothing, you only get that feeling when in public, so chances are that its just some random person looking your way.

You can hardly believe it when you see it again. First you feel something looking at you, you ignore it as usual, its nothing. This time however, the feeling does not stop.

You see it in the corner of your eye. You quickly close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and then open them again, now looking in the direction of the thing.

Its still there. This time it takes a little while to face away, and it seems bigger again. You can now see an outline of it. it reminds you of a doll but stretched out. The two legs and four thin arms were not visible when the thin were so fuzzy before. You are not sure if it being clearer is an improvement. You stare at it until it fades away.

From then on you see it more often, you catch glimpses from the corner of your eye, in the background of your reflections, when your eyes travel through a room quickly. You see the thing in the distance… or distance is maybe not the right word anymore.

Its closer. Not close to you or anything, but not as far in the distance as before you realize. That was why it had been fuzzy before; it had been in the distance. Now its closer, still a few meters away through.

You start to surround yourself with others, spending every minute you can with someone else. It does not stop the feeling that somebody is watching you, but you only see the thing when you are alone. It leaves you when you have company.

Slowly but surely, you start to learn its patterns.

1. It observes from a distance (it has never been closer to you than three meters, however, it seems like it tries to reach you constantly, you wonder what will happen if it does)
2. It will leave you alone when you have company (it comes back rather quickly when you are alone though)
3. It does not show up on pictures (you tried once when you caught a glimpse of it in the mirror)
4. It barely moves when you look at it (however, look away and it might have moved to the side)
5. It can move through solid objects (locking doors and windows does not work)
6. No one else seem to see it (you have seen it stand within the sight of others without them noticing)
7. It does not respond when you try to interact with it (you even threw a stone at it once, it just stopped and fell to the ground before impact)
8. It harms things close to it? (You are not sure about this one, but you have memories of a bird flying close to it just falling down, dead. It had been quite upsetting. You had later seen the same thing happen to butterflies and insects. You were glad it kept a bit of distance from you.)

You also get used to it seemingly following you now. Catching glimpses of it in reflections or the corner of your eye do not startle you anymore. At times you see its spindly arms try and clutch at things in the supermarket, or its mouth moving without sound. You try to ignore it as much as you can. Spindly arms seemingly reaching closer and closer but never quite touching you.

Your family appreciates you visiting a lot, you are there almost every night by now. At work you are never alone. You make sure to walk home when there are a lot of people out. It works. You keep like that for a few weeks, nearly forgetting about the thing following you. You work on yourself at this time, trying to be more friendly to your co-workers, being the one cooking food and setting the table at home. You take up a new hobby, swimming, and make sure to go whenever the swim school are at the pool. At first you think the sound of children are a bit annoying, but after a few times, it becomes a welcome background noise. They keep at their end, their marked-out lanes at the pool, and you keep on the exercising lanes on your end of the pool. At times you share them with a few older people, but it is okay. It works well for you. You think about maybe entering an evening-class, maybe painting or sculpting. You look up a few different classes that seem interesting, try out a few more, but none interest you enough to continue more than one or two occasions.

When autumn arrives, one day you notice the thing again. It startles you for a second, you had not seen it in weeks. You see it out of the corner of your eye when walking home, it seems closer that you have seen it before. You must crane your neck to look up at it. “Please just leave me alone”, you plead to it before shaking your head, turning around, and walking away, trying to ignore the feeling of it staring at you.

You make it home to your parents’ house, letting yourself in with a spare key. Strange, usually they would be home by now. You walk a bit further into the house and find a note on the kitchen counter. ‘We are having dinner with some friends; we’ll be backlate’ – Mom. You put it back down and go to the fridge to figure out what to eat for dinner. You stare into it for a little while before you notice a box of leftovers, you can heat them up later, good. Maybe start a movie or binge-watching a series tonight, both options seem good, you feel quite tired so nothing that demands a lot of concentration this time, maybe some cooking show.

You walk to the living room when you catch something reflected in the hallway full-length mirror. The thing stands behind you, its arms stretching out, as if reaching around you.

You feel a breath on your neck.