Chapter Text
Sam dragged his heavy eye lids open as he awoke, groggily rubbing at his face as he pushed himself up to check the time.
It was 11am in the morning.
He let out a heavy sigh as he flopped back onto his bed. Guess he somehow managed to sleep through his alarm clock. No surprise there since his dumb ass stayed up past midnight playing video games yesterday.
He stayed laying there for a few minutes, staring up at his ceiling, when he suddenly noticed how…quiet it was. He expected to at least hear the sounds of cars and people outside but there was just… nothing.
That was enough to finally coax Sam out of his bed. He tossed off his messy covers, swung his legs off the side of his bed and reached for the purple sweater he had left hanging on his bed frame the night before.
He had just finished pulling the garment over his head when suddenly… his eyes finally fell on his window.
The curtains were closed, but he could still see light filtering through the worn fabric. That light… he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something… wrong with it. It looked so bright, brighter then any sunrise he’d ever seen. Was it even a sunrise? It couldn’t be, it was almost noon.
Something about that light, it… called out to him. It looked… beautiful.
Sam slowly stood up, squinting in confusion as he cautiously approached his bedroom window. He was utterly enraptured by whatever was beyond it.
The tips of his fingers brushed against his ragged curtains, but then he stoped.
Something felt…wrong about this. A part of him kinda wanted to look outside, to see whatever could be producing that strange light. But there was a nagging feeling at the back of his head, a feeling of wrongness.
Something wasn’t right. Whatever was out there, he was not gonna like it.
But how bad could it be? He thought to himself. It’s not like whatever was out there could hurt me… right?
Sam slowly gripped the edges of his curtains.
Just a small peek… just to see what’s out there.
He took a deep breath… and peeked one eye out…
The only thing Sam could clearly feel after that was pain. Piercing, hot and agonizing pain.
The closest he could ever get to describing it was that it felt like someone had stuck a needle into his eye and then lit it on fire.
He was pretty sure he heard himself screaming, but it felt so far away.
He was on the ground now, clutching at his right eye. He didn’t even notice when he’d fallen down.
He let out another strained scream as the pain in his eye increased tenfold. And then that pain spread out to the rest of his body like a horrific infection.
He was violently twitching and shaking as he rolled onto his side and curled into a tight ball.
Everything hurt. It felt like his insides were squirming. What was happening? Was he dying?
And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the awful pain in his body vanished.
Sam was immediately taking in greedy gulps of air the moment he could breathe properly. He stayed like that for a while. Just breathing, curled into the fetal position on the hard wood floor.
It took him a little bit to form a coherent thought, but when he did, Sam could only think of one thing.
What the fuck was that??…
That couldn’t have just happened. It couldn’t have been real. This must have just been some fucked up stress induced nightmare.
But the lingering aches and pains all across his body told him otherwise.
No. Those sensations were too real.
“hello?”
Sam almost jumped out of his skin.
I live alone! Who the fuck!?!?
He turned around, still lying on the floor, only to see a large crack in the wall.
He was positive that it wasn’t there yesterday. But that wasn’t what he was concerned about. What he was concerned about was what he could see through the hole.
An eye. There was a person there.
“have you looked outside today?…” the stranger muttered, “it’s… beautiful.”
Whoever it was on the other side of the wall, they seemed… off. Like they were in some kind of a trance.
Sam was still panting, still coming down from the adrenaline rush earlier.
“w-what?” His voice came out hoarse, his throat was burning from a mix of dehydration and the screaming he was doing earlier.
Something in the stranger seemed to shift after Sam spoke, as if hearing his voice had snapped her out of a delirious daydream.
“hang on. Wait. No. Don’t do it” he thinks he sees the stranger shake her head. “I-I got confused. Don’t look outside, it’s bad.”
Sam groaned as he rolled himself the rest of the way over and pushed himself into a half-seated position.
“What are you doing in my wall? What’s going on?” God, he felt awful. He was sweating bullets, his eyes were trying to drag themselves closed.
“oh-we’re neighbours!” She answered casually, “I’m Sybil. I don’t think we’ve talked much before this. What’s your name?”
He took a few moments to answer, swallowing down the dryness in his throat.
“I’m… Sam”
He thought he saw Sybil’s eye crinkling up from what he assumed was a small smile.
“Sam, huh? Nice to finally meet you!”
“y-yeah. nice to meet you too…” Sam trailed off as what Sybil said earlier finally caught up to him.
“what’s… going on outside?”
Sybil made a small noise, like she was about to answer him, but then she paused. Sam saw her eye look around a bit, as if trying to find the answer in his room. She stared off into space for a few moments more before she finally spoke again.
“I-I’m not really sure? I’m sorry. My memory has been a bit hazy recently. All I really know is that I’ve been feeling… off ever since I looked outside. I’m… still not sure what it did to me. I think I might be hallucinating”
That… didn’t sound very comforting. Sam was now suddenly hyper aware of the aching in his eye, the same one he used to look out the window.
“I heard that this will all blow over in 15 days. Until then, we should stay inside and block out all the windows”
“wha- 15 days?!” Sam seemed to finally work up the energy to push himself all the way into sitting. “I barely have enough food in my kitchen to get through 2!”
“well, maybe you can ask around for some? I’m sure someone will be willing to share” Sybil suggested. And it was a pretty fair suggestion too, Sam could think of a few people on his floor who might be able to give him some stuff. But even then, he still couldn’t help throwing his head back and groaning loudly as he dragged a hand down his face.
“Jesus christ. I just woke up five minutes ago, it’s too early for this”
It wasn’t even just social anxiety at this point. He was absolutely not in the mood to talk to anyone right now. He was tired, hungry, stressed out, achy and he just felt weird all over.
“well… do you have any better ideas?”
Sam looked at Sybil for a few seconds. Then he looked at the ceiling. Then he looked at the floor.
He let out a loud, heavy sigh, “no… I don’t”
The two of them sat in silence for a little bit. This was all happening so fast. How the hell did he get here? It felt like one moment he was waking up and getting out of bed, and then the next he’s talking to a crazy woman in his wall about what was starting to sound like the start of the god damn apocalypse.
“Hey…” Sam looked back up at Sybil, he wasn’t quite sure what expression was on her face, but she felt… remorseful. “We should talk more. Y’know, since we’re probably going to be isolated for a while.”
Sam couldn’t help but give her a small, tired smile in return.
“Yeah… that sounds good”
Sybil was smiling too now. “Ok great! I’ll try to check up on you once in a while. If you need anything just knock on the wall.”
“okay” Sam grunted as he pushed himself off the ground, stretching his back and wincing at the loud crunching noises it made.
Sybil was gone from the wall now, having shuffled off deeper into her apartment.
Sam sighed once again as he placed his hand on the doorknob. Might as well get this weird day started.
The door opened to the rest of his dark apartment. His video game setup was still in slight disarray from the night before, so he decided to busy himself with picking it up a bit. It wasn’t much, mostly just putting the game disks and controllers in their rightful spots and picking up the empty bag of chips he had devoured during his previous gaming session. Once the task was done with, he finally turned his attention to the kitchen.
He… didn’t know if he really wanted to eat right now. His stomach felt soured from the… earlier incident. He was pretty sure he would’ve thrown up if it weren’t for the fact that his stomach was already empty. But… that train of thought left him with a counter argument. He was hungry, and to be fair, he did kinda sleep through breakfast. And with that knowledge in mind, he already knew far too well what it felt like to skip out on two meals in a row.
Yeah, no. He wasn’t doing that today. He already felt like shit, he did not need malnourishment on top of… whatever he was feeling right now.
He slowly made his way to the kitchen and pulled open the fridge.
It was almost completely empty. Only things he had in there was a nearly empty box of orange soda, a glass container filled with chicken, a jar of mayonnaise and a package of ham deli slices. He was also aware of a half-eaten tin of brownies and a third of a bread loaf in his pantry. He decided on the chicken and brownies, piling his food on a plate and sticking it in the microwave for thirty seconds.
It was… certainly not the best meal he’s had. Parts of the chicken somehow managed to still be cold, but the brownie was absolutely scolding. He didn’t bother to try and fix it. What did it matter? His day was already going horribly.
Sam spent the next little while after his half-assed brunch just… doing things. He was stalling, he absolutely was. He checked the internet, seeing people mostly posting about what was happening outside, and it only stressed him out more. Whatever this was, it looked to be a worldwide phenomenon.
He did not want to go outside his apartment and see the extent of what this… thing was doing to people. He couldn’t have been the only person who looked, so what could this have done to everyone else. Hell, he didn’t even know what it did to him.
The idea that looking outside could have changed him in someway, it scared him. And the anxiety it caused him only built up when he went to use the bathroom.
After he finished up his business on the toilet, he…hesitated before approaching the sink.
what was he gonna see in the mirror?
He looked normal, at least from what he could see. But… what if he wasn’t. What if it was getting worse as time went on. He didn’t feel as bad as he did a few hours ago, but he still felt… weird.
He quickly shoved those thoughts down.
No. He was not going to skip washing his hands just because he was scared of his own reflection.
Just suck it up Sam. He squeezed his eyes shut, took in a deep breath, and walked the rest of the way to the sink.
Don’t open your eyes. He thought fiercely to himself as he felt the cold water running over his hands.
Do not look. Not yet.
He flicked some of the water off of his hands once he was done and braced them on the edges of the sink.
he had to see. It’s not like he could ignore it forever.
Sam mentally braced himself for whatever he would be greeted with. And slowly…he opened his eyes.
He….. he looked the exact same. There was absolutely no change at all. He still looked like the same tired, middle aged unemployed guy he always was. Even the blue spot in his right eye was the same as he’d last seen it.
Sam let out a huge sigh of relief. He didn’t know why he got so worked up about this in the first place.
He was fine.
That gave him a little more confidence about going outside his apartment. If he was fine, then maybe his neighbours were too.
He smiled a bit to himself as he left his bathroom, he was too relieved to notice one small little detail on his face.
His right pupil, the same one he had used to witness the phenomenon outside, was ever so slightly wider then it was before.