The Hollow Strobe

I never thought much about the old lighthouse on the bluff, not until the day I moved into the keeper’s cottage. The place had been abandoned for decades, but the previous owner left a peculiar contraption in the parlor: a brass lantern with a cracked glass lens, bolted to a wooden stand aimed directly at the eastern wall. I should have removed it, but it looked antique, so I left it as a conversation piece.

The first night, I was reading by the fireplace when a sharp, white flash burst from the wall where the lantern pointed. It was like silent lightning, a perfect circle of light that struck my left eye and seemed to bore straight into my skull. For a second, I saw nothing but blinding white. When my vision cleared, the room was unchanged, but the lantern’s lens seemed to glow faintly, then faded. I chalked it up to a reflection off the bay through the window, though the curtains were drawn and the sky was overcast.

The next morning, it happened again. I was at my desk, typing, and the flash came from the same spot on the wall—no source, no sound, just a searing orb that hit my eye and vanished. This time, I inspected the wall. It was solid plaster over brick, no holes, no cracks. The lantern was cold to the touch. Nothing could have reflected that.

By the third day, I was starting to doubt my sanity. The flashes came at odd hours, always from that wall, always aimed at my eye. I tried covering the lantern with a cloth, but the flash still came. I hung a mirror over the spot—no change. I even sat in the room with my back to the wall, but the flash came from the opposite side, as if it could turn corners.

Then, on the fourth night, I saw something in the flash. It was just a flicker, but for a split second, I saw a face—gaunt, hollow-eyed, staring back at me from the light. It was my own face, but older, wracked with fear. And then it was gone.

I started keeping a journal, noting each flash, the time, the duration. I counted twelve flashes in one night. Each one left my eye aching, and by morning, I noticed a faint, milky spot in my vision—like the afterimage of a camera flash that never faded.

I went into town to ask the locals about the lighthouse. An old man named Marsh, who ran the bait shop, went pale when I mentioned the lantern. ‘They used to say the keeper went mad,’ he said, ‘blind in one eye, talking about lights that followed him. He’d stand at the top of the tower, flashing a signal lamp into the fog, saying he was calling the dead home.’ He wouldn’t say more, but he gave me a look of pity.

That night, I decided to confront the light. I sat in the parlor, my eye level with the lamp, and waited. At midnight, the flash came—but this time, I didn’t blink. I forced my eye open, staring into the blinding orb. And in that instant, I saw a corridor of stone, walls slick with moisture, and at the end, a figure holding a lantern just like mine. It was me—not my reflection, but a version of me that had been standing there forever, waiting for me to look.

Then it spoke, not in words, but in images. I saw myself walking into the lighthouse’s spiral staircase, climbing to the top, and looking out over the sea. I saw myself pointing a lighthouse lamp out through the glass, sending a beam into the mist. And I saw the beam hit the shore, where a woman stood, waving. But as the beam touched her, she didn’t shatter—she dissolved into mist, and the mist swirled up and flew back into the lighthouse, into the lantern, and into my eye.

I snapped out of it, gasping. The room was dark, but my eye throbbed, and I could feel something crawling behind it, like a worm of light burrowing deeper. I stumbled to the window, and in the glass, I saw my reflection. My left eye was glowing faintly, a pinprick of white light in the pupil.

Now I understand. The flash comes from me. Every time I catch a glimpse of it in a reflection or a polished surface, it strikes back at me. And each flash, I lose a little more of my sight, but I gain a memory of that corridor, that lighthouse, that woman. She’s calling me. And I think I’ve been standing there, watching myself, all along.

The lamp is still in the parlor, aimed at the wall. But now I know the wall is a door. And one day soon, when the flashes stop, I’ll walk through it.