Eyes in the Dark

***

The heavy clang of distant metal echoed down the narrow hallway, swallowed quickly by the suffocating darkness. A lone guard moved slowly, footsteps deliberate and cautious. The flickering fluorescent lights barely cut through the shadows, casting jagged shapes on the cracked concrete walls.

His breath came steady but shallow, eyes darting to every barred cell — some empty, some holding silent prisoners with hollow eyes. The air was thick with forgotten secrets and a chill that seemed to seep into his bones.

He gripped his flashlight tightly, knowing this prison held more than just inmates — something unseen, watching, waiting.

The hallway narrowed the deeper the guard walked, the ceiling lower, the air heavier. At the very end, half-swallowed by shadows, was a small iron door — 

the bartolina.

At the end of the hall was the bartolina — a small, cruel cell used to punish prisoners with total isolation

 No lock. No light. Just cold steel and the weight of something watching.

He paused outside.

Then, with a scoff that tried too hard to sound confident, he spoke.

“Enjoy your last night, freak.”

His voice echoed off the stone walls, but the silence that followed felt louder.

From the darkness inside, something shifted.

A figure moved forward, just enough for the light to catch a pair of eyes — wild, sharp, and gleaming with pure bloodlust. The man’s long, greasy hair hung in tangled ropes over his face. He wore a stained, threadbare orange prison uniform. Filthy. Damp. Like he’d been rotting here for years.

He didn’t speak.

He just stared.

The guard stiffened, jaw tightening. He raised his flashlight slightly, but not enough to reveal the full face — maybe he didn’t want to see it. Maybe he already had, once, and never forgot.

Still, he turned away first.

“Tomorrow,” he muttered. “Then it’s over.”

But even as he walked back down the hallway, trying to steady his breath, he could feel the prisoner’s eyes boring into his back — and he knew that what waited behind that door wasn’t human anymore.

A sudden, ragged laugh tore through the stillness — raw, wild, and unhinged. The prisoner’s voice bounced off the cold walls like a twisted melody of madness. It echoed longer than it should have, as if the darkness itself was laughing with him.

The guard didn’t dare look back. His footsteps quickened, but his breath hitched with every step. He kept walking, eyes fixed ahead, though the weight of those hollow, bloodshot eyes burned into his back.

There was something in that laugh… something not just deadly, but deeply broken. The prisoner’s eyes, wild with bloodlust moments before, now shimmered with a strange sadness. A storm trapped behind bars, raging and weeping all at once.

The guard’s bravado crumbled with every echo of that haunting laugh, but still he kept moving — away from the bartolina, away from whatever nightmares lurked within.

***

She ran.

The ground was uneven, slick with mud and dead leaves. Branches tore at her arms. Her dress — once soft, now filthy and torn — clung to her skin like it didn’t want to let go. She had no shoes, no direction, just fear carrying her deeper into the dark.

The trees were huge — towering like giants, their trunks thick and dark as charcoal. Fog crawled between them like ghosts. Every step sounded louder than the last.

Behind her: footsteps. Steady. Unhurried.

And laughter.

That voice—

Rough. Sharp. Choking on something between pleasure and rage. It echoed through the trees and stabbed at her ears.

She dared a glance back.

He was there.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in a gray tank top, stained and stretched. His dark hair stuck to his face with sweat. His eyes locked onto hers, and he didn’t blink.

There was no expression on his face — not anger. Not joy. Just... obsession.

She tripped.

He reached her in seconds.

He pinned her down, hands tight, breath hot. The sound of her crying filled the space between the trees, but no one came. No one ever did.

His hand gripped her dress, tugging at it, tearing. His mouth twisted into a grin.

And that laugh — louder now. Unhinged. Triumphant.

But beneath the madness — for the briefest second — his eyes looked… sad.

And then—

She woke up.

Gasping.

Her hands clenched soft white sheets. Her skin is sticky with sweat. Her chest heaving.

She was back in the bedroom — bright, elegant, too clean to be real. The chandelier above her sparkled quietly.

She sat there, frozen.

She couldn’t remember the man’s name.

She couldn’t remember where the forest was.

All she remembered…was running.

***