Eyeless Jack Rewrite

## Eyeless Jack Rewrite by Doros70

Hello, I'm Mike. In the beginning, I wasn't superstitious at all. I didn't believe in ghosts, aliens, supernatural phenomena, or whatever it's called. I still don't want to believe that what I had witnessed was real, but after what happened to me and the ones close to me, I'd be a total fool to deny the truth. I get very scared and upset just thinking about it.

The reason I changed my mind was because I witnessed it firsthand, and the experience wasn't pleasant at all.

I will call it... Jack. I heard that if you give something horrifying a harmless name, such as "Jack" the fear will eventually subside.

It didn't work...

What I am about to tell you is as much of what happened as I can remember. If there are any gaps, or things that don't make any sense in this story, that's because I don't remember what happened during that time, or it's not important, so don't ask about them.

Alright, so I had a brother named Eddie, he was several years older than me and lived on his own in a small house in Connecticut. Luckily, I went to college in the same town in which Eddie lived, so I went to live with him until I'd graduate.

Eddie and I hadn't seen each other for a long time, so we were both very excited for me to move in and started catching up on all those years we've been apart.

With his help, it didn't take long for me to settle in. We managed to get everything in my room to make it look exactly how I wanted.

I'm a photography student, you see, so naturally my camera is one of the most used objects I own. I always put it on my nightstand so I wouldn't have to bother digging all over my stuff to look for it.

During the first week of living with my brother, I mostly spent my days going to school, doing my homework, and hanging out with either my friends from college or with Eddie. Eddie and I would have a bad movie night whenever we felt like it and I would get the snacks to enjoy ourselves (Don't ask my opinion about Battlefield Earth). Needless to say, it was the best week of my life.

However, during the weekend, I was prepared to go to bed. I collapsed onto my bed, eager to sleep in my new room.

Just as I was about to drift off, I was startled awake by a rustling bush coming from outside my window. I turned over to check the time on my alarm clock. It was one in the morning. I thought it was a raccoon preparing to scavenge for food in the trash, so I ignored it, thinking that it was normal since we lived really close to the woods. Just to be sure, I asked Eddie about it the next morning.

"Did you hear those raccoons last night?"

"No, I didn't hear anything. I was completely out, man."

"Should've known," I smiled. "You're dead to the world whenever you sleep."

He responded by chuckling at my joke.

The next night, I was startled out of my slumber again by a strange noise. But this time, it sounded like my window was sliding open, accompanied by a loud thump sound. I swiftly got out of my bed and checked every corner of the room, but I found nothing. Not a single thing was out of the ordinary. Sighing with relief and thinking that I was just startled awake by noises in my dream, since it wouldn't be the first time for that to happen, I closed my window and went back to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, my cheek and side ached, but I didn't bother checking since I thought it was normal. I groggily made my way to the kitchen. When Eddie saw me, his coffee mug and jaw dropped when he saw me. I asked him what was wrong, but instead of telling me, he pushed me to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror.

I had a huge gash on my left cheek. With how deep the cut was, I was surprised that I couldn't see teeth through it. What was strange was that I could only feel a slight sting. For hours, I only wondered how it was even possible.

"What the hell happened to me?!" I shuddered, confused. "Did I sleepwalk or something?"

"I don't know," Eddie replied. "We need to go to the hospital. Now!"

At the hospital, my doctor cleaned, stitched up, and bandaged my cheek, and asked if that was the only pain I felt. I told him that my side hurt a lot, too, and that I couldn't twist far enough to see why without it hurting more. He asked to check me again, and I complied. I carefully lifted my shirt up and heard the doctor gasp under his breath in shock.

I asked what was wrong, and then he showed me something that made my blood turn cold. It was a crude-looking incision where I assumed my left kidney should've been. The black stitches that held my skin together were jagged, thick strings, rather than actual thread. The whole thing looked disgusting, with different shades of red and putrid yellow.

The doctor was certain that my kidney was taken, but he said that I needed to stay in the hospital for a few days for some tests, and Eddie went to file a report to the police in the meantime. They took the threat seriously, but they haven't found any clues, which made it harder for them.

While I was in the hospital, I wondered how the perpetrator was so quiet in tearing open my cheek and taking my kidney that I felt nothing for hours. I started to think that whoever did this knew what they were doing...

A couple of days later, I was free to go home. The doctor gave me prescriptions for antibiotics and some pretty strong painkillers. I was told that the painkillers would make me really groggy, so I waited until after dinner to take one. I was too scared to go to sleep, and wondered who stole my kidney, how, and more importantly, why.

I had a feeling that something bad would happen again, but Eddie assured me that everything would be alright, and told me to go to bed, since I needed to go back to school the next day.

That night...my worst fears were confirmed.

Around midnight, I awoke from my medically induced sleep to a truly terrifying sight.

Standing on the side of my bed and leaning over me at an impossible angle was this... thing in a black hoodie. I assumed that it was a creature because I couldn't tell the difference between its clothes and its body. I could make out every detail of its masked face in the light of my bedside lamp that I forgot to turn off. Its mask was dark blue with no facial features, except for the eyes, which were just two gaping black holes. Its eyes were nothing but dark, empty sockets with a viscous, black substance dripping from them.

I was scared shitless, but I knew that if it killed me then, no one would know what happened or what the thing looked like. So I grabbed the camera on my nightstand, knocking the lamp off. I quickly snapped a picture, but the flash seemed to only provoke it. The thing growled and lunged at me, clawing at my chest. After a brief struggle, I was able to punch the side of its head as hard as I could and got out of my bed.

I still had the mind to keep hold of my camera as I ran like hell out of my bedroom, then seconds later, out of the house and into the woods. After that, I didn't stop running.

My feet hurt a lot whenever I took a step because I didn't have time to put on my shoes. While running, I stepped on a branch which made me jump. My head landed on a rock and I was knocked unconscious.

When I woke up, I was back in the hospital. A few minutes later, the same doctor that treated me earlier walked into my room. He had a very nervous and saddened expression on his face. I could tell that he was about to deliver some mixed news, because he started with a sigh.

"I have good news and I have bad news," he started. "The good news is that you only have minor injuries, and your parents are already on their way to pick you up."

"And the bad news?" I asked, afraid of what he might say.

"The police checked your residence. What they found was... horrible. The place is torn apart. And your brother... he looked like he was mauled to death by some kind of rabid animal. The police are looking for it now, but I doubt they'll find anything. The damage is unlike anything they have ever seen."

I was very distraught when I heard the news... I really didn't know how to cope with it. First my kidney and now my brother...? It was truly the worst experience of my life!

A few days after I got out of the hospital, the police told me and my parents that it was all clear for me to go back to Eddie's house to get the rest of my things. There were small reddish-brown splatters of dried blood that the officials hadn't bothered to clean up all over the house. I couldn't stand to be there for very long, so I just grabbed a few things and started to walk out, thinking that I would ask my parents or someone else to get the rest later. But as I was about to walk out of my room, something caught my eye. There was something on my desk. Without really looking at it, I walked back to my desk, took it, stuffed it into my backpack, and almost ran out to my parents' car.

I left Connecticut altogether, and when I got back to my parents' house, we were already talking about preparing Eddie's funeral. After a long, heart-wrenching discussion, I went up to my room to take a look at everything I was able to get from Eddie's house.

The first thing I pulled out was the thing I grabbed from my desk. I actually took the time to look at it. After a few moments of staring at the thing, a horrifying realization set in and I almost vomited on the floor.

I was looking at my stolen, half-eaten kidney, with some kind of thick, black liquid smeared all over it.