Out of Sight...

[WP] You are the test subject for an experimental surgery to see wavelengths of light that humans normally cannot see. As you adjust to your new vision, you see one person in the corner furiously taking notes. "Who is that?" you ask. "Who is what?" asks the doctor, looking at the empty corner.

*****

"All five fingers," I said to him with my new eyes. Everything still looked the same.

"Good. Now try to focus on my light."

Doctor Evans pulled out a penlight and held it in front of my face. That's why I hated these optometrists, they always asked me to do the impossible. I don't know about you, but one of the first things my parents taught me was to not look directly into the sun. Maybe his folks weren't as smart.

He put the sun away and I blinked a few times, clearing the blurry mess of tears. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something that wasn't there before. Or rather, someone.

A woman was seated in the chair that was empty just a few moments ago. She had long, dark hair and thick red glasses. She was furiously scribbling something down on her notepad. For some reason, I couldn't take my eyes off her. There wasn't anything exceptionally entrancing about her, but still I was locked onto her like a heat seeking missile. The more I stared, the more I felt like something was off, but I couldn't pin down what.

"What are you looking at?" Doctor Evans asked me.

Ah, there was my answer. I pulled my eyes away from the woman.

"Nothing," I said. "There was some dust floating around. That's all."

The girl looked up from her notepad and smirked. She held it until she was sure I saw her, and then she went back to scribbling, even faster than before.

The doctor furrowed his brows while looking into the corner behind him. He looked straight through the woman. Satisfied that I was really seeing nothing, he turned back to face me.

"Okay, well, if you do notice something strange don't hesitate to tell me. This room is specially designed to not have extra wavelengths, but when I let you into the outside world... There's no telling what you'll see."

He didn't know the half of it.

I was discharged, the surgery having been a success, and as I left the hospital I heard the click of her heels following me. A green metal bench stood conveniently close. She took a seat next to me.

"Why didn't you tell him?" she asked.

"Straight to the point, huh? I like that." I turned to face her, and her eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors I'd never seen before. "I thought I'd be more fun that way. So what are you? A ghost or something?"

She sighed. "No, not a ghost, or something. I'm a living, breathing human being just like you or Doctor Evans. Just, I'm a little harder to see. It comes with the territory." She pointed to her eyes. "There's a lot of people like me. Like us. You're the first one to have been created artificially, though."

"Yuck, don't say it like that. Makes me feel like a robot or something." My whole body shivered. "I needed the money, you know. The superpowers would be just a welcome side effect."

Suddenly, she looked down at the ground. "It's not a superpower," she whispered, getting up from the bench and walking away. "You'll learn that soon."

Click, click.

On the way back to my apartment somebody bumped into me. He apologized, saying he didn't see me there.

"Hi honey," I said to my fiancee, Jane. "Same time, same place?"

"Of course," her voice came through the phone, "I'll head there straight after work. Make sure to get us our usual table."

"Sure. See you there."

The best part about Lorenzo's on 68th was that it was self seating. No awkward exchange with a hostess, no waiting around for the understaffed joint to get its act together. You didn't go to Lorenzo's for the service anyways, you went for the delicious food.

Fifteen minutes past seven she finally showed up. Her one vice in a sea of virtues. She looked towards the table, towards me, and tilted her head. I waved, but she didn't seem to see me. Standing next to the door, she pulled something out of her purse.

"Hey, where are you?" she asked over the phone.

"You're kidding, right? Look! I'm right here!" I waved to her again, looked her straight in the eyes. But still she couldn't see me.

"No... there's nobody sitting there."

I got up from the table, fed up with the game. I marched across the restaurant and stood right in front of her.

"Hello? George?" She said into her phone.

Her entire body jumped as I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Holy shit! Where'd you come from? And what's wrong with your eyes?"

Maybe the girl with the red glasses wasn't lying.

"I was gonna tell you tonight. I signed up to be a test subject for a procedure. They did something to my eyes. Let's sit down."

"It's weird," she said at the table, "if I let my concentration fade for just a moment I know you'll disappear. You're in front of me, but it's like you're one of those Magic Eye books where you have to consciously adjust your focus to an exact point to see the image. Just a lapse of judgment and you'll-..."

She turned away as the waiter came to take our order. He began to walk away, but Jane called him back.

"You didn't take his order," she said, pointing towards me. But, by the look on her face, I knew she had lost me.

Vision was just one sense. He'd be able to hear me still, wouldn't he?

"I'd like the tilapia," I said, a booming roar in the otherwise quiet restaurant. No dice.

The waiter calmly turned around as I tapped him on the shoulder. The ghost materialized.

"Sorry, I was in the bathroom," I said, returning to my seat. "I'd like the salmon."

The food was spot on, as expected. My situation, on the other hand, was not.

"I don't like this, George," Jane said. "You can't live like this, having to remind people you exist. How are you going to work if you can't talk to people? I think you should go back to the hospital and have them undo whatever they did. Please?"

The thought of losing the money was painful, but living as a phantom seemed worse. "I agree. They're closed for the weekend, but I'll go first thing Monday."

"And one more thing," she said, closing the door to her car, "they freak me out. Your eyes, I mean."

She drove away, and as I bent over to look at myself in a side-view mirror I heard a familiar sound.

Click, click

I shot up and she was standing next to me.

"How are you holding up?" she asked. God, her eyes were beautiful.

"Not good. I'm gonna try to get them to reverse the procedure. I can't live like this, like you do, as a ghost. How do you do it?"

She shrugged. "I don't have a choice. Humans adapt to all sorts of things, like missing a finger or an entire leg. This is like that. It's what makes us special."

"She said my eyes freak her out, but when I look at yours I think they're possessive. Why's that?"

The woman frowned. "Tonight, go into your bathroom and look at yourself. Use a candle to light the room, not electricity. Your eyes are still so fresh I think you'll be able to see it. To people who can't see what we can, our eyes look... well, you'll find out."

She slipped me her number before walking away.

"If you need help with anything, don't hesitate to call."

Click, click.

My heart froze. Goosebumps found their way onto my entire body. The back of my neck tingled with rising hairs.

As I looked at myself in the mirror I wanted to throw up.

My eyes... my eyes...

I didn't know if they could still be called that.

They were midnight black, two void orbs implanted on my face.

But their color wasn't the worst part.

As I looked into them, through the soft glow of the candle, I felt despair take over my body. I could hear screams of people suffering. I felt flames and a whip lashing against my back. I smelled burning flesh and rotten meat. I saw the image of a man with ropes tied around every limb. Following the ropes I found four skittish horses, and after a shout they all ran in opposite directions. The man screamed for a long minute before finally dying.

Click, click.

In the mirror, over my shoulder, I saw her. She didn't have her glasses now, and there were two horns coming out of her head.

"Sorry," she said. "A correction. Before, I said I was a human just like you. It would be better to say I used to be human."

She opened her mouth. Thirty two long, white spikes.

Then, the myriad of colors in her eyes slowly dripped away until they looked like mine: empty.

Something blew out the candle. Darkness surrounded us.

I screamed as I felt her hot breath against my cheek, but I knew nobody would be able to hear me.

*****

THE END