Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Vision in Red

Red. Glowing faintly in the darkness. Fixed on her with an intensity that felt like pressure, like a hand pressing against her chest, like a weight that was slowly, inexorably, crushing the breath from her lungs.

It did not blink.

Amal wanted to scream. Wanted to look away. Wanted to be anywhere else in the world but here, in this street, under the gaze of this thing that should not exist.

But Noor's hand was in hers. And Noor was watching her. And somehow, impossibly, the weight of that small trust was greater than the weight of her fear.

"I see you," Amal whispered.

The figure did not move.

"I see you," she said again, louder this time. "I know what you are. I know what you're doing. And I won't forget."

For a moment—just a moment—something changed in the figure's posture. A slight shift, as if it had heard her, as if her words had registered in whatever passed for its consciousness. The red glow of its eyes flickered, dimmed, steadied again.

Then, slowly —so slowly that Amal couldn't be sure it was moving at all—it turned its head away.

The weight on her chest lifted. The pressure faded. She could breathe again.

"You saw him," Noor said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"He knows you can see him now. He'll be watching you from now on. But—" Noor squeezed her hand, and when Amal looked down, her daughter was smiling. "But now he has to be careful. Because you're not sleeping anymore. You're a watcher too."

They walked the rest of the way home in silence.

The apartment was quiet when they arrived. Fadi wouldn't be home for another hour, and the evening stretched ahead of Amal like a vast and empty space. She made dinner mechanically—rice and lentils, vegetables, the same meal she made three times a week because it was cheap and filling and her hands knew the motions without her mind needing to guide them.

Noor sat at the kitchen table, drawing.

Amal didn't ask what she was drawing. She already knew.

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