Sapphire Eyes

• Catherine Mcqueen, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2021

Your journey always begins the same, falling asleep only to wake up in a dream. The world stands in darkness with only a single candle to light your way. The lifeless trees hanging above you, with barbed branches, soon lose their scare. The howling wind now resembles faint screams. Your fingers are now numb to the once searing pain of the flame, burning your fingertips as wax drips down. Your body shivers and shakes as the icy wind blows past you, threatening to kill the flame.

The crunch of leaves are now a background noise, but sharp-pointed bones dig into the souls of your feet, cutting deep into the flesh. The feel of the warm, wetness of the blood with its metallic tang fills your senses. You don’t need to see the carcasses on the side of the path to knowing that the animals here are long gone; the smell of their rotting flesh fills your nose. Flies buzz around the decaying corpses, and they pick at the sour meat as they struggle to survive the forest.

While the forest may tweak or change its appearance, one thing always remains, and as you approach the silhouette figure, you feel his sapphire eyes stalking you through the forest. He stands in the same spot, every time, with the faint smell of the cigarette he’s always smoking. Despite his docile nature, you fear what he might do even with nights of no change.

When approaching him, your heart thumps in your ears and you panic in a frenzy of fear. He watches you, silently judging your every move, but this time you’re determined to stay and study him. Looking into the darkness, you see them, his sapphire eyes staring back at you. The smell of the rotting animals is long gone and replaced by a heavier smoky scent and the metallic taste of blood. His pitch-black hair looks silky soft, and the closer you get, the more you can taste the cigarette in your mouth. The air is still; the wind is gone, silence consumes you, and his eyes glow a bright blue as the moon’s light hits his face.

You move closer, ignoring the jabbing pain in your feet, but once again, the moon goes away, leaving the world in darkness. In your desperation to get to the man, you drop the candle igniting the leaves on the path below you. The crackle of the fire as it slowly begins spreads. Coughing and choking on the smoke that fills your lungs and burns your eyes, you fall to the ground struggling to move, but you still attempt to reach the man. Crawling on the bone shrapnel that cuts and digs into your skin, you desperately try to reach him. He shakes his head and leaves, disappearing into the darkness. The flames roar and wind howls fanning the fire as your skin begins to melt. It would be the last time you see those sapphire eyes.