Empty Eyes

10 July 2024

It’s watching me. Most people probably wouldn’t even have noticed it. Most people don’t. It’s the eyes of random strangers following me in the street for a split second longer than normal; the barista holding my eye for just a moment too long as he handed me my decaf latte—the smile on his lips not reflecting in the emptiness of his eyes. As I was walking through Hyde Park today, the man who always has his nose buried in the latest Daily Express glanced up, our eyes meeting for a brief second as I walked past his bench before they flicked back down as though nothing had happened. Rodger tells me I’m imagining it—claiming my research is playing tricks on my mind. But he doesn’t know the true nature of my research. Of what my work entails. Of what we’re actually doing at the Institute. I know what I’m seeing… but what if Rodger is right? What if I’m just paranoid?

15 August 2024

It tried to follow me home from work today. I had to circle around South Bank, weaving through back alleys and random roads, circling back on myself and taking detours at random just to throw it off. I refuse to allow it near my home, near the girls. I was eventually able to lose it in the bustle of Waterloo Station, but I fear it’s getting stronger...

The glances I once thought were random are not. It’s learning my routine. It’s been in the eyes of far too many people along my route home, meeting my eyes just before I get to them… like it’s been waiting for me. It’s getting bolder too; no longer just glancing, a quick flick of the eyes. No. No. Now it’s holding my eyes—the emptiness lurking—like it’s telling me it’s watching. It wants me to know. It’s trying to unnerve me. I need to be more careful.

Dammit. I should have trusted my gut. I know my research. I know what I’m studying. Rodger doesn’t know what we found, and how could he? It’s not like he can understand any of it even if I did try to explain it to him; not that I’m allowed to discuss it in the first place.

30 August 2024

I’ve been able to throw it off, to keep ahead of it… for now. Every day I’ve been leaving work at different times, never taking the same route; always ensuring I haven’t seen it for at least half an hour before making my way home. Different buses, different roads, different trains. I even did a loop around London the other day. It took me 3 hours longer but it needed to be done. Rodger wasn’t impressed. He hasn’t said anything, but I can see it in his eyes. I fear for the day I meet his gaze and his honey-brown eyes are filled with that same emptiness. It terrifies me… but it also strengthens my resolve to continue my research. I cannot give in to this thing.

23 September 2024

I’m not crazy. I’m writing this to remind myself that I am not crazy. I’m not. Rodger doesn’t agree. He says I’m blowing things out of proportion, that this is just an excuse for me to blow off my responsibilities as a mother. But how can I pick the girls up from nursery when I know it’s trying to follow me? I cannot—I will not put our family at risk but he just won’t hear reason! I know what I’ve seen. I know what I’ve heard. With each finding and failed experiment, I fear that there’s no way to stop it. But we must persist. We cannot give in to it.

16 October 2024

Madison and George are pulling out of the project—leaving the Institute entirely. I understand why. The emptiness has a way of settling in—the fear of it has a way of messing with your psyche. I won’t lie and say I’m not tempted to pull out of the research myself. Quite honestly, it would be easier if I were to just quit.

The fights with Rodger are weighing on me, getting worse with each day, with each late night and missed dinner. My routes have gotten more complicated, often circling back on myself multiple times just to confuse it. It’s taking longer just to escape its tracking eyes. Rodger says I’m overreacting. He says I’m being ridiculous. He’s even gone as far as accusing me of cheating. Of me… cheating. As though he believes our 8 years of marriage mean nought to me. I’ve caught him going through my phone several times. The ideas in his head are absurd and when I tell him as much, our conversations spiral out of control. I try to keep it quiet, but discretion is not a word in Rodger’s vocabulary. Our disagreements have woken the twins up several times, their cries immediately dousing the flames of our tempers. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make him understand.

1 November 2024

It’s worse than I thought. The data in the recent rounds of experiments have been altered. My warnings to take immediate action and ward all important infrastructures completely rewritten. I asked Steven if he had anything to do with it. He swears blind that he doesn’t. That leaves only one possible hypothesis: the emptiness has gotten into the computers in the lab. I searched through the file history only to find that no changes had been made. The only one to access the reports was me. I know what I wrote. I know what I wrote, and yet… what I wrote was not what was written in the report.

I went back to look at previous reports. I had to confirm my theory. They, too, were altered. The data is no longer adding up. Results are inconsistent. Findings have been entirely erased. Findings that I know, I know I recorded are nowhere to be found on the system with no history of being removed or even having been entered in the first place. I compared the digital reports to our original notes, scrawled in a mixture of Madison’s George’s, and my handwriting. The original findings are written there, clear as day.

Going forward, I will be handwriting all of my reports. Only those seem to remain unaltered.

4 November 2024

Rodger won’t speak to me. Even when I attempt to strike up a conversation before bed, he ignores it completely as though I were a spirit attempting to speak to the living. He’s taken to sleeping on the couch. At this point, I don’t know what is worse, seeing the emptiness in strangers’ eyes as it attempts to follow me home, or the muted contempt in my husband’s.

In the last conversation we had, he threatened to take the girls if I didn’t stop, if I didn’t get help. He argues my “antics” are going too far. That throwing the computer out with the garbage crossed a line. He wouldn’t hear my defence, wouldn’t accept that I’m just trying to protect them. He may very well be right, but we still cannot fully determine how it travels. Its presence on our lab computers seems to be isolated, but we have no way to test that hypothesis. Our identification apparatus is still flawed. It could be anywhere, despite my efforts it may be closing in. I need to remove all possibilities of it making its way into our home. Our wards not yet quite strong enough and I’ve only had success putting them up in the lab. There’s no way to keep our home safe and Rodger went ballistic when I suggested moving.

He just doesn’t understand. I don’t know how to make him understand. He won’t listen to me. More and more eyes are lingering. Yet still, Rodger refuses to listen. Why won’t he listen?

5 November 2024

The institute is trying to cancel the project, claiming my reports are unreliable—the results contradictory and inconclusive. They’re refusing to accept my handwritten reports citing “professionalism”. One of the board members even had the gall to question my qualifications and asked if I’m even taking my job seriously, as though he spent years getting his doctorate and becoming one of the top researchers in the field instead of having all his success handed to him on a silver platter. They called me delusional when I attempted to explain the digital reports are being altered. They don’t believe me. And, quite honestly, I don’t blame them. How can they? There’s no digital record of any alterations. It’s my word against my own. I must sound mad. But I cannot stop my research. I need to find a way to make them believe me before they cut off our funding and shut us down completely.

9 November 2024

I had to move the lab. There were too many eyes—too many people who knew what we were doing. I have to keep my research safe. The emptiness won’t find this place. The wards are stronger here, I think it has something to do with the ley lines but I have no way to prove that. I need to conduct further research.

17 November 2024

It’s found them. It was just a moment, a split second, but I know I saw it. I’ve been researching it for months—outrunning it for months. I know what it looks like, and I know what I saw. I had taken the girls out to the park to enjoy the little bit of sun we were getting, at Rodger’s insistence. Against my better judgment, I agreed, if only to keep the peace.

I was sitting on the bench my eyes darting, both scanning for empty eyes and monitoring the twins, while Suzie and Katie ran around the jungle gym playing with the other neighbourhood kids.

“Mommy!” Suzie yelled waving her little sand-covered hands. I waved back, and that’s when I saw it. It was a split second. Only a split second. But I saw it. I saw it and I felt my throat cinch up.

It’s my fault. I know it’s my fault. I should have trusted my judgment, even if it meant another fight, even if it meant Rodger following through on his threat to have me admitted to the psychiatric ward.

I tried to keep my head as I rounded the girls up and rushed straight back home despite their protests. There was no use in circling around to ensure it couldn’t follow us. Because it was already too late.

It is in my daughter’s eyes.

19 November 2024

I haven’t slept since that day at the park. I knew Rodger wouldn’t listen to me. I knew he would have a conniption if I even dared to bring it up. So I did the only thing I could as a mother. That night, after Rodger had gone to bed, I packed a bag. Like a robber in my own home, I crept into the girl’s room, scooped little Katie into my arms, and left.

Rodger has been blowing up my phone, demanding to know where we are. But he won’t find us here. The emptiness cannot find us here. The wards are holding.

Katie doesn’t understand why we’re here. She keeps asking where her papa and sister are. I don’t know how to tell her. She’s too young to understand. So I’ve been trying to distract her, but there’s only so much I can do. The lab wasn’t designed with a 5-year-old in mind.

I’m so tired.

27 November 2024

Katie’s crying is becoming uncontrollable. I don’t know what to do. The usual distractions are no longer working. Bluey and Peppa Pig fall on deaf ears as she throws herself on the floor screaming to go home. I know how she misses her sister and father. But her safety is more important. She’s tired herself out. Her chest rising and falling now with her little snores.

This is the only time I have to think. My research has come to a crawl as I attempt to manage her tantrums.

28 November 2024

Rodger was on the news today, holding Suzie while tears streamed down both their faces, begging for help from the people and authorities. I felt my stomach contort when I saw him, bucking over in my seat and heaving up nothing but gas. My only solace is knowing Katie was asleep and not witness my deepest fears coming true.

He’s shown my picture to the whole world, painting me as the villain. He begged me to see the light, to bring Katie home, to get the help I so clearly need... but I’m not the one who needs help.

I’m not the one with emptiness in my honey-brown eyes.

6 December 2024

I made a mistake. For once it was quiet. I could focus—work on my research. I should have known better.

I want to blame it on my lack of sleep. But if I’m truly honest with myself it was my desperation… my desperation to find a way to stop this emptiness.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to Katie.

The barricades are doing little to keep them out. Once they get in I’ll be labelled as mad.

Who am I kidding? I’m already labelled as mad. I’ve been all over the news you know. The insane woman who kidnapped her own daughter.

Katie got to my phone.

She turned it on.

I realised too late.

I can’t be mad at her. All she wanted to do was speak to her papa. I can’t fault her for that.

The one to blame here is me.

My negligence has doomed us all.