I lost my left eye when I was only seven years old. It was a stupid way to lose an eye, but luckily most people tend not to ask how I lost it, I think the majority worry it might be insensitive. It’s not a story I like to tell. Not because it’s upsetting or brings back bad memories. I just feel embarrassed by it.
Growing up my brother and I were obsessed with Robin Hood, the outlaw of Sherwood Forest, who would take from the rich and give to the poor. I’m not going to pretend this heroic saviour of the poor was our hero because of his good deeds, we simply liked him because of his legendary skill with a bow and arrow. Our father, a keen gardener, had lots of bamboo sticks all piled up beside the shed which he would tie plants to, in order to stop them from drooping when they grew. It was my brother’s idea to take one and attach a length of string to both ends to create a bow. I thought he was an absolute genius.
When we had finished making the bow we made an arrow, simply by using a handsaw to carve a small groove into one end of an arrow sized piece of bamboo, which would act as a nest for the string to sit.
‘I’m first!’ My brother said.
‘Nooooo!’ I cried.
‘It was my idea, so I get to shoot first.’ And that was that.
At one end of the garden there was a little wall which surrounded one of my father’s flower patches. Upon the wall we placed an empty plastic bottle to be used as our target. My brother, of course, then took the first turn, missing wildly and falling far short of the bottle on the wall. Next it was my go and I also missed.
It took about an hour before we had both knocked the bottle off the wall once.
‘Right, now you stand in the middle and I’ll shoot over your head at the target!’ Another genius idea by my brother.
I didn’t argue. I thought it was a cool thing to do and if I did it then my brother would have to let me have a go shooting over him.
I don’t believe he meant to do it, it was just a careless accident, but the arrow never made it past my body. It struck me hard and deep in my left eye, straight away blood poured down my cheek and I screamed in agony.
I spent a couple of days in hospital before the doctors decided they would have to remove what was left of my eye. Until I was twelve I wore an eye patch, but when I moved into secondary school I decided to get my first glass eye to try and put an end to the pirate jokes. It might sound weird, but I loved my glass eye and by the time I was sixteen and leaving school I had collected dozens, all different colours and designs. My missing eye stopped being something I tried to hide and in a strange way became my kind of signature. Kids would say, ’have you seen the boy with a spiral in his eye?’ or ‘have you seen the lad with an eye like a cat?’ I enjoyed this, it allowed me to embrace my injury and make it part of my identity.
I carried on collecting glass eyes for many years, always on the lookout for new designs or something different to what I already had. When I was twenty-five I discovered the Dark Web. A friend from my Dungeons and Dragons club told me about how he had used it to buy some sort of hallucinogenic. I didn’t plan on using the Dark Web for anything like that, I was just intrigued by the idea of it. Once I was on I started looking for stores. It was amazing and disgusting, people selling guns, drugs, services and even other people. It made me feel a little bit ill knowing I was now a part of this strange illicit world.
I went on to one store page which called itself ‘Mr Bubble’s Objects of Trouble’ which was the first store I had come across which had a search bar. So I thought, fuck it, let’s see if they have any?
I typed in the words ‘glass eye’. I didn’t expect anything to come up and I was rather surprised when a match popped up on my screen.
The item was called ‘The Sight of Sin’ which was simply a black eye with a small red number seven on it. It pulled at my fancy so I decided to buy it. I didn’t truly expect it to show up, but one week later a package arrived and there it was. As customary with all my new eyes I washed the eye in a solution to make sure it was clean. When washed I put it in a case with the rest of my eyes and went back to watching television.
The next morning when I woke up I thought I’d test out the new eye, to see if it was a good fit, to check how comfortable it was. It went in with ease and felt absolutely perfect, so I decided to leave it in for the rest of the day. Nothing strange happened at first, it was just my usual daily routine of having breakfast and doing some work on my laptop, but then the doorbell rang.
As I opened the door I immediately knew something wasn’t right. I had double vision all of a sudden, there was only one man standing on my front doorstep trying to sell me solar panels, but I could see him twice. One image of him was completely ordinary, just the bloke dressed in a suit holding a brochure and telling me about how he can save me money on my electricity bill. But, the other image… well, it was him, but dressed up in a gimp suit cracking a whip against the floor lustfully.
I don’t think I said a word to him, I just stared transfixed by what I was seeing. Eventually I closed the door and stood there for a moment trying to understand what had just happened. I passed it off at the time as just my mind playing tricks on me and that I must be over tired. I decided to have a nap. I was woken by a telephone call from my father asking if I was still coming to his house for dinner, I looked at the time and realised I was running late, so I grabbed my coat and flew out the door.
On my way to my father’s house, which is just a ten minute walk down the road from mine, I walked past just one person, a lady, walking her dog, but again, I was seeing double. In one image she was completely ordinary, apart from being overweight, she was wearing a pink coat and beside her a dog trotted along minding its own business. But, in another part of my vision I could see her again, completely naked, eating tinned dog food with a fork. Jellied meat dripped down onto breasts which she licked ravenously. I was almost sick.
I thought about just going home and going back to bed, still trying to convince myself I was simply tired from working, but my father missed not having me at home and I didn’t want to let him down. Though now I wish I did. Now, what happened next won’t make much sense unless I explain something… When I was two years old my mother died. I say died, she was killed whilst walking home from work one night on this very estate. Nobody has ever been caught in relation to her murder, but now I know exactly who took my mother from me.
My father opened the door with a large grin on his face.
‘Come in, son!’ he said cheerily, but I did not move.
Besides the image of my father standing in the doorway was another vision of him holding a knife and laying beneath him on the floor was my mother, soaked in blood, eyes vacant and still.
I took a step back from my father and did not stop running until I had reached the front door of my house. Straight away I went on to the Dark Web and searched for Mr Bubble’s store, but it had gone, vanished, like it had never been there.
I didn’t leave the house for a few days. I didn’t answer the door, I didn’t even pick up the phone. What I did was sit by the window looking out onto the street, watching the people walking past…
I think I know what I am seeing now, it makes little sense, but it’s the only thing I can think of which almost explains what I am seeing. Firstly, when I remove the glass eye I no longer see two images of everyone, I only see one just like I always have, but when the eye is in I see two visions of every person I look at in the flesh. Secondly I think I know what I am seeing… I am seeing their sins. I know that sounds utterly mad, but it’s the only thing all this seems to point to. The name of the glass eye, the red number seven and the grotesque and disturbing images I see. I believe it’s their sins I am seeing with my new eye. I see the true hideous nature of people, the part of themselves they hide from everyone else.
I know I could just take the eye out and forget about it, but I just can’t bring myself to do this. I can’t trust anybody without it… I can’t see the real them. But seeing people’s darkest secrets also leaves me alone, for once you see the hidden nature of someone you never want to be close to them again.
Many questions remain…. Why does this eye allow me to see these things? Who made it? How did it end up on the Dark Web? I need to know the answer to these questions!
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/et3fuo/i_bought_a_glass_eye_off_of_the_dark_web_i_can/