Shadows Cast No Eyes?
Arga had always known that his family was different. From an early age, he could see the shadows that lurked in the corners of their home, the whispers in the wind that no one else seemed to hear. His mother would fall ill without reason, his father’s temper would flare unpredictably, and misfortune seemed to follow them like a shadow.
As he grew older, Arga began to see a pattern. The misfortunes were not mere accidents; they were deliberate. And all signs pointed to his father’s family—a family that had long resented them, a family that had embraced something dark to satisfy their jealousy.
One night, Arga woke up to the sound of his mother gasping for air. Her body was drenched in sweat, her face twisted in pain. “They won’t stop,” she whispered hoarsely. “They won’t stop until we’re gone.”
It was then that Arga decided to uncover the truth.
Arga’s investigation led him to an abandoned house at the edge of the village—his paternal grandmother’s old home. The villagers spoke in hushed tones about the things that happened there, about the rituals performed in the dead of night. Armed with nothing but a flashlight and his pounding heart, he stepped inside.
The air inside was thick, suffocating. On the walls, symbols had been etched in dried blood. At the center of the room was an altar, covered in burnt offerings and framed photographs. Arga stepped closer, and his breath caught in his throat.
There, among the photographs, was his own family—his mother, his father, himself. Each image was punctured by deep needle holes, their faces scratched out.
A rustling behind him made his blood run cold.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Arga spun around to find his father standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable. But there was something different about his eyes, dark and hollow, held no trace of the man he once was.
“I know what they’ve done to us,” Arga said, his voice trembling but firm. “I know they’ve cursed us.”
His father stepped forward, shaking his head. “You don’t understand, Arga.”
“Then make me understand,” he demanded.
A long silence stretched between them before his father finally spoke. “I tried to escape them once. I tried to build a life away from them, with your mother, with you. But they always pull me back. They don’t just curse those who leave—they make sure they suffer.”
Arga clenched his fists. “Then we fight.”
His father let out a bitter chuckle. “You think it’s that easy? Once you’re bound to darkness, it never lets you go.”
But Arga refused to accept that. He had seen too much, lost too much. If his family was doomed, then he would fight until his last breath.
That night, the battle began—not just against the unseen forces that tormented them, but against the chains of fear that had bound them for years. Whether he would succeed, Arga did not know. But as he stood against the darkness, he realized one thing:
The eyes of evil never close, but neither did his own.
THE END…
