The Camera’s Third Eye

The autumn leaves were a riot of burnt orange and crimson, and Lena couldn’t resist capturing the fleeting beauty on her phone. She snapped a few shots of the fiery maples lining the gravel path, then pocketed her device and continued her walk through the old arboretum. The air smelled of damp earth and decay, a pleasant melancholy that matched her mood.

That evening, curled up on her worn sofa with a mug of chamomile tea, she opened her photo gallery to sort through the day’s images. The tree pictures were as lovely as she remembered, but then her thumb froze. There were three additional photos at the end, ones she had no memory of taking. The first was mostly black, a void with faint, distorted shapes. The second was a blur of motion, as if someone had swung the camera around a room, capturing a smear of wall and ceiling. The third, however, sharpened her blood to ice. It was a close-up of a boy, maybe sixteen, with jet-black hair plastered to his forehead and eyes so pale blue they seemed to glow. He was staring directly into the lens, his expression not one of surprise but of deep, unsettling curiosity.

Lena dropped the phone on the cushion, her heart hammering. She’d been alone in the arboretum, she was sure of it. The path had been empty, and she hadn’t seen another soul. She picked the phone up again, zooming in on the boy’s face. There was something wrong with his eyes – they seemed to hold a depth that made her feel like he was looking at her at that very moment. She quickly closed the gallery and set the phone on the coffee table, trying to convince herself it was some kind of glitch, a corrupted file from a previous photo, or maybe a prank from a friend. But she knew none of her friends had access to her phone. She took a long, hot shower, letting the steam wash away the unease, and then went to her bedroom.

Her bedroom was at the top of the stairs, a cozy attic space with slanted ceilings. She flicked on the light and froze. There, in the middle of the wooden floor, lay her black Xbox wireless controller, its thumbsticks slightly askew. She knew for a fact she had left it in the living room, connected to the console, after her last gaming session two days ago. She hadn’t been in the attic since. A spark of annoyance replaced the fear. She crouched, picked up the controller, and marched it back downstairs, placing it firmly on the coffee table. ‘Stay,’ she muttered, as if it were a willful pet, and returned to her room, double-checking the lock on her door before getting into bed.

The next morning, sunlight streamed through the small window, and Lena stretched, her brief spiral of dread from the previous night feeling like a silly dream. She pulled on a hoodie and padded downstairs to make coffee. As she passed the closed door to the guest bedroom, something made her hesitate. She turned the knob and peered inside. The room was mostly bare, with a single dresser and a stack of boxes. But there, in the center of the floor, lay the controller. Her breath caught. A chill ran down her spine, and the anger returned, sharper now. She grabbed the controller, ready to toss it into the basement, when she noticed something stuck to the thumbstick – a single strand of black hair.

She replayed the photo in her mind: the boy with black hair. She held the strand up to the light, but it looked ordinary enough. Still, her skin crawled. She took the controller to the basement, a cold, unfinished space with concrete walls, and threw it on a shelf. She locked the basement door and returned upstairs, but the feeling of being watched only intensified. She avoided her phone for the rest of the day, but she couldn’t shake the image of those blue eyes. That night, unable to sleep, she crept downstairs, hoping to find the controller still in the basement. It wasn’t. The lock was still engaged, but the controller was on the kitchen counter, and a message was scratched into the wood of the kitchen table: ‘See me.’ The scratches were deep, as if done with a knife.

Lena grabbed her phone, intending to call her friend, but the screen illuminated with the photo gallery open to the third picture. The boy’s eyes seemed to flicker, and she could have sworn she saw the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile. She threw the phone across the room, and it clattered against the wall. She stood there, trembling, the word ‘See me’ burning into her vision. Then she realized the controller was gone from the counter. A soft thump from upstairs made her freeze. It sounded like it came from her bedroom. She swallowed hard, and with a trembling hand, she reached for the phone. The photo was still there, but now the boy’s face was slightly turned, as if he were listening. And she heard it – a faint, rhythmic scratching from above, like nails on wood. She had no doubt that when she went upstairs, the controller would be waiting for her on her pillow, and the boy would be waiting in the shadows, his blue eyes bright with anticipation.