Part one. in which the uncle dies.

[little ms unicorn]

As the elderly man pulled the yellowed cotton sheets back on his bed, he couldn't put to rest a certain unease. The large, empty halls and the wide, cavernous rooms, all lay still under a blanket of thick dust. Nothing seemed to stir. Not the creak of an old floor board nor the groan of a decrepit joist.

As he crawled beneath his thin shield from the draft and pulled it up to his chin. He could feel his old bones settle against the springs of the mattress as he lay there. He kept the light on for a few moments, letting his eyes reassure him that all was in its place. Nothing in the house seemed strange, and that was precisely the problem.

The house had never been quiet. There had never been a night without the banging of a pipe, the rattling of a loose shutter in the wind. It felt like the still and quiet moment before a lion leaped from its hiding space to latch onto the throat of its prey. Something was wrong in the house. He knew because there was nothing wrong.

And then there, in the dark, there were eyes.

[Enigma Mystery]

They seemed far away at first. Just barely seen past the cracked open bedroom door. A single pair of iridescent eyes glowing in the darkness, lit by the waning moon out side.

The old man pulled the covers up to his nose, his failing eyes never leaving the sight of the two eyes. He tried feverishly to keep himself from blinking but he could only strain them for so long before he gave in.

Those glowing eyes seemed closer when he opened them. Not by much, but ever so slightly. Inch by inch the eyes grew closer with each involuntary blink that the old man made. The glow flickered the longer he looked at it, like a cat sitting in the shadows and waiting. Stalking it's prey as it drew closer.

He knew it would only be a matter of time when he gave in to the next blink of his eyes. Whatever was watching him, stalking him, pondering his existence, was standing at the crack in the bedroom door. The old man could see the outline of the thing, one single glowing eye pressed in to the crack and starring directly across the room at him.

It never blinked even when he couldn't help but blink again.

[little ms unicorn]

In an act of childish self preservation, he reached over to the night stand and yanked the cord to the lamp. The soft yellow light of the bulb shown out and illuminated the room. The house was quiet again. No eyes to be seen. With his weary heart still hammering in his rib cage, he half thought, no, more accurately he half hoped, that the horrific sight had been a trick of his elderly eyes.

He watched the door and swallowed dryly. He tongue felt thick and dumb in his mouth and his body too heavy to move as his sweaty palms gripped the fabric of the sheets. His dry knuckles gripping white as wrinkled skin stretched tight over arthritic knuckles.

He just wouldn't turn the light off. Like a little boy hoping in the strength of a blanket for safety and a light as a guardian. He reasoned that if he could not see the eyes then the stalker was not there. After a time he settled back against the pillow and sighed. Sweat soaked night shirt cooled against his relaxed body.

He looked down at the foot of the bed and the last thing he remembered with any shred of sanity was the sight of a clawed hand reaching over the end of the bed.

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