The Glass-Eyed Man

The summer I turned seventeen, my family moved to the town of Marrow Falls, a place where the trees grew too close to the roads and the locals had a habit of not talking to strangers. I’d never seen anything like it, the way the fog rolled in off the river every dusk, coating the streets in a gray that made the streetlights look like drowning stars. My father had taken a job at the paper mill, and my mother was busy unpacking, so I was left to wander the town alone, exploring the abandoned railway tracks and the overgrown lots where wildflowers grew through rusted car parts.

It was on one of these walks that I met Mr. Pelham. He was an old man, thin as a rake, with a face like crumpled newspaper and eyes that were too clear, too still, like glass marbles that had been polished until they caught the light. He sat on his porch every evening, rocking in a chair that creaked in rhythm with the cicadas. He never waved, never smiled, just watched me with those glass eyes as I passed. One day, he spoke. ‘You see them too, don’t you, girl?’ I froze. ‘See what?’ I asked, though I knew. I’d always known, the way some kids know they can hear colors. He nodded slowly. ‘The ones that don’t belong. They come to me at night, tapping on the windows. You should come inside before it gets dark.’

I didn’t listen. That night, as I lay in my new bed, I saw a shape pressed against my window. It wasn’t human, not quite, too tall and too thin, with limbs that bent in angles that shouldn’t exist. Its face was a blur, but its eyes were the same glassy clear as Mr. Pelham’s, and they were looking right at me. I pulled the covers over my head, praying, but I could feel it watching through the blanket. When I finally peeked out, it was gone.

The next day, I went back to Mr. Pelham. He was waiting for me, a cup of tea in his hands. ‘You didn’t stay, did you?’ he said, not a question. I shook my head. ‘What are they?’ He took a long sip. ‘They’re not ghosts, not spirits like you’ve heard. They’re more like… echoes. Reflections of people who were never truly there. The town was built on a place where the veil between worlds is thin, and they leaked through. They don’t mean harm, but they don’t understand us. They just… watch.’

But as the weeks passed, the watching became bolder. The shape at my window started appearing in my room, standing in corners, its head tilted at impossible angles. I started sleeping with the lights on, but that only made it worse, because I could see it more clearly, its skin the color of old bone, its mouth a slack line. I tried to ignore it, but one night I woke up to feel something cold pressing against my forehead, and when I opened my eyes, its face was inches from mine. Its breath smelled like wet earth and something sweet, like rotting fruit.

I screamed, and it vanished, but I knew it hadn’t gone far. I started doing research, reading the town’s history at the library, and I found an old newspaper from 1923, a story about a man named Silas who claimed he could see the dead. He had glass eyes, they said, because his real ones had been gouged out by something he’d seen. He was found dead in his cabin, his body twisted and broken, his glass eyes shattered. That night, I went to Mr. Pelham’s house, desperate. I pounded on his door, but no one answered. The porch light was on, and through the window I saw him sitting in his rocking chair, his back to me. I called out, but he didn’t move. I went around to the back, and through the kitchen window I saw him, his face in profile, but his eyes weren’t glass anymore. They were dark, empty sockets, and there was a thin line of blood running down his cheek.

Then I realized the man in the chair wasn’t Mr. Pelham. It was the shape from my window, wearing his skin. I ran, but the shape was faster, and I felt its hand on my shoulder, cold and sharp. It whispered, and its voice was like the sound of glass breaking. ‘You see too much,’ it said. ‘But you don’t see enough.’ I closed my eyes, and I prayed with everything I had, and when I opened them, I was standing in my kitchen, the sun streaming through the curtains. My parents were yelling about burnt toast, and for a moment I thought it had all been a dream.

But then I looked at the window, and there was a smear of something dark on the glass, and when I wiped it, it smeared red. I never went back to Mr. Pelham’s house. But the shape still comes to me, sometimes, and I don’t know if it’s real or if I’m losing my mind. All I know is, I can’t look at glass anymore, because sometimes, when the light hits it just right, I see a face in it that isn’t mine.

I’ve started wearing sunglasses everywhere, even indoors, to block out the reflections. But yesterday, I caught my reflection in a spoon, and the face staring back at me was smiling, and it had eyes like glass marbles. I dropped the spoon, and I haven’t eaten since. My parents are starting to worry, but I can’t tell them the truth. They’d think I’m crazy. But maybe I am. Maybe that’s the real horror, not the shape, but the knowledge that I can’t trust what I see anymore. And that’s the scariest thing of all.