"Do you see them?" - Original Writing

“Do you see them?”

I already know the answer to my question. The answer is always no.

I am the only one who can see them from the corner of my sight. I am the only one that can feel their gaze on my back. I am the only one who knows their will.

Thinking back on it, I do not know if they had always been there and never noticed or something within me changed and then they appeared. Whoever they are, they are always there, watching. That solitary eye is always watching.

They never speak just stand there on the sides of my vision. I can see them looking at me as if I am the center of the world. What do they want? Why will they not go away? What do they direct me to with their gaze?

Whatever the answers are, I have only more questions. The only way to find what I am looking for is to follow their gaze and see where it leads.

It seems like half a lifetime ago that I began to see them. It all started one morning in my village I set out to climb to the cliffs of the mountain to obtain the rare mountain plants. My picks in hand and my satchel at my side I set off.

Each climb up the mountain was the same. I could read the flow of the stone and ice to make sure each strike with my pick was true. I always had an eye for such detail. This trip was different though. I set off higher than normal on the cliff face to reach the spot where the Old Ram’s door had been. Up there new flowers bloomed that the medicine man said were especially good.

High and higher I climbed up the ice covered rock face. The ground was a distant memory by this point but that did not frighten me. Such things seem tame compared to their gaze now. I reached up with my pick and struck against the ice as I had a thousand times before. The ice did not give beneath my pick and my foothold gave out beneath my foot in the same instant.

I plummeted toward the ground. I could recall the seconds it took before I hit ground. The fall was almost pleasant, a few fleeting moments of true freedom. I woke up several days later, broken.

It was there in my bed I saw the first one. Standing just outside of my vision I could feel it there. It’s cyclopean eye looking down at me. I called for help but no one came. It was just me and the creature. I called out again and finally my wife came in.

As beautiful as the day I married her. I asked her, “Do you see them?”

She shook her head and told me to rest. I did not sleep at all, not with the creatures staring down at me.

Every time someone came into my room I would ask them, “Do you see them?”

Each time the visitor would say no. Some began to worry that the fall knocked my sense out of my mind. I knew what I could see; I knew what was there even if no one else could. It took no time for rumors to develop about my condition. I paid them no mind. I just wanted answers.

As time passed and I recovered the creatures grew bolder. I could see them looking in far off places. I could see them urging me to go on and move. I just wanted peace. I just wanted to hold my wife and children. The endless staring put me on edge though.

Weeks passed. Everyone I knew grew distant from me. They could not stand me looking over my shoulder all the time. My wife grew cold to me; my children looked at me like a voidborn. My life was falling apart while those things kept looking at me. They watched as everything I had became lost to me. I wanted answers. It was not long after that the village asked me to leave. They said I was a danger.

Through tears I pleaded, “Do you see them?”

That was the last day of my life. Now I follow their gaze. I follow their will into the great tundra’s of the Freljord. I will find what they want me to. I will do what they wish of me. I will do whatever it takes for them to stop looking at me with that cold ice blue eye. Let them watch.