A Love That Stares Back - 2/26 WC 1,651

They say love is blind. But what happens it allows to to see clearly for the first time?

A Love That Stares Back

          Ethel had always loved the way the city breathed at night--its neon veins pulsing through the alleyways, the distant hum of traffic that never quite fell silent. She moved through it like a wandering chord, free spirited, unanchored. Her love life had been a series of brief flings, each ending before it could settle into a pattern. She never needed to explain why she stayed single; she never needed to spend an evening in front of a mirror, coaxing a false confidence out of mascara and lipstick. The world was enough; she was enough.

          It was on a rain slick Tuesday, just after ten killings that had plagued the city in the past five months, that she first saw him. Roger walked on the opposite side of the street, his head bent low as if the sky held a secret he could hear alone. He moved with an unhurried grace, the sound of his shoes muffled by the puddles. When he glanced up, his eyes caught a startling sapphire, the other a deep, earthy brown. Heterochromatic, they seemed to flicker, each reflecting a different world. In that instant, the city's stale whispers fell away, replaced by a pulse that matched her own.

          Ethel felt an odd warmth swell within her chest. She was in a good mood, perhaps because the chilly rain had washed away the remnants of the week's headlines--another body found behind an abandoned warehouse, a left handed glove pressed over the victim's right eye, no DNA, no trace. She let the impulse take her, stepping forward into the space between them. "Hey," she said, voice bright despite the drizzle.

          Roger's smile was crooked, his gaze intense. "Hey," he replied, voice low, as if he were accustomed to speaking through a veil. Their conversation stumbled at first--topics fluttered like moths: the bitter coffee from the shop on the corner, the way the streetlights made puddles sparkle. Yet beneath the surface, an undeniable magnetism tugged them together. By the time they reached the curb, their hands brushed, and a shiver ran up Ethel's spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

          Over the next four weeks, the killings doubled in frequency--two victims a week, each discovered with the same left handed glove across a darkened eye. The city grew restless. Police tapes fluttered like mournful ribbons across alley doors. Yet in the midst of that darkness, Ethel found a strange, bright spot in Roger. He answered her calls within seconds, his voice warm and steady. If a call slipped through, he returned it within five minutes, his tone laced with a gentle urgency that made her heart race. Their daily meetings became a rhythm: coffee at dawn, walks through the park at dusk, whispered jokes over late night takeout. Roger never spoke of the murders; he never asked about the headlines. He simply existed beside her, a constant presence in a world that seemed to be falling apart.

          Months slipped by, and the dread that clung to the city's underbelly only deepened. Fifteen victims now lay in a grim tally, each with the same meticulous staging. The police were baffled--no DNA, no fingerprints, no surveillance footage that caught a suspect. The only pattern was the glove, a left handed one, always covering the right eye, as if the killer wanted the victims to see only darkness, a private world that no one else could witness.

          Ethel, who had always trusted her intuition, began to feel a fissure in the perfect veneer Roger presented. He would dodge her questions about where he worked, or why his apartment always smelled of cedar and peppermint. When she pressed, his answers grew curt, his eyes flicking away as if he were guarding a secret too heavy to bear. The more she tried to draw him out, the more he retreated into a guarded shell, his heterochromatic gaze shifting like prisms.

          One Saturday afternoon, curiosity overcame her caution. She stood before the beige duplex downtown that Roger called home, a modest two story building perched between a laundromat and a boarded-up shoe store. The windows were always spotless, the garden weed free, the porch lights never left off. He handed her a small brass key, his smile warm, as he said, "Make yourself at home."

          The moment the lock clicked, a thrill surged through Ethel. The hallway smelled faintly of lavender, the walls adorned with abstract prints she didn't recognize. She felt an odd compulsion to explore, to uncover whatever lay hidden behind the tidy fade. She opened closet after closet, rifled through desk drawers, sifted through dresser compartments. Nothing seemed out of place--just ordinary clothes, a stack of novels, an old vinyl record collection. Her pulse quickened, not from fear but from the feeling that something crucial was just beyond her grasp.

          She slipped into the living room and, out of habit, reached for the remote. The television was paused on a scene she didn't recognize. A flicker of static gave way to a dimly lit room, a silhouette of a figure standing over a motionless body. The camera panned to reveal a left handed glove pressed over a darkened eye. The blood on the floor was vivid, the screams muted, the atmosphere chillingly familiar.

          Ethel's breath caught. These were not fictional murders; they were the exact same tableaux that had haunted the news. The same precise placement of the glove, the same angle of the camera as though the killer had rehearsed the shots. She leaned forward, eyes fixed, heart pounding against her ribs. Memories of each headline, each crime scene photograph, cascaded through her mind. She could see the faces of the victims, their last moments frozen like broken glass. Yet there was something else--a feeling that she had watched these scenes before, not on television, but in the periphery of her own life.

          A soft click behind her made her snap the remote off, the screen going dark. She turned slowly, the remote clutched in her hand, to find Roger standing in the doorway, his eyes--blue and brown--fixed on her. The silence stretched, heavy with unasked questions.

          He opened his mouth, the words caught at the edge of his throat, then he steadied himself. "How long?" he asked, voice low, almost a whisper.

          Ethel swallowed, her throat dry. "What... what is this?" she managed, gesturing to the black screen that now displayed nothing.

          Roger walked into the room, his steps deliberate. He sat beside her, the couch creaking under his weight. "It isn't a movie," he said, his voice steadier now, as if he had rehearsed this confession in the dark hours of his mind. "It's real. Those... those are the killings. I've taken the footage myself."

          Her eyes widened, a cold shock reverberating through her spine. "You... you filmed them?"

          He nodded, eyes never leaving hers. "I watched you, Ethel. From my window, for the past hour while you were watching the... the footage. I wanted to see how you'd react. To see if you could feel what I feel when I watch... when I create."

          The room seemed to spin. Images flickered behind his words--bloodied gloves, the sound of a heartbeat stuttering against a blanket of silence. She felt faint, a dizzying swirl of nausea and terror, yet she did not collapse. The world narrowed to the space between them, the weight of his gaze, the lingering scent of cedar.

          She tried to speak, but a torrent of thoughts crashed inside her: the killer's obsession with the left eye, the uncanny timing of the murders, the way the city's fear had become a living, breathing entity. She thought of the victims, their faces blurred in the news, now unspooling in her mind. She thought of Roger, his heterochromatic eyes, his calmness that seemed almost... predatory.
          Minutes slipped by, each second an eternity, until finally a single phrase cut through the chaos, clear and resolute.

          "Teach me," she whispered, voice trembling but steady.

          Roger stared at her, the blue of his left eye shining with a mixture of surprise and something darker. "You... you want to learn?"

          Ethel nodded, the resolve building within her like a storm. "I've always been free, Roger. I've never had to answer anyone. But now... now I see a different kind of freedom. One that isn't about running away from darkness, but about standing in it. I want to understand. I want to become a part of it."

          He reached out, his fingers brushing the back of her hand, an electric jolt that seemed to bind them together. "There's a name for this," he said softly, the words reverberating like a chant. "Love. The only thing that tells me... tells us why we do this."

          Ethel's eyes filled with tears, not with sorrow but with a fierce, twisted affection. "I love you," she breathed, the phrase a simple mantra that seemed to anchor her to the storm swirling around them.

          He pulled her close, the two disparate eyes--blue and brown--meeting her own hazel, the left glove that had haunted the city now resting in his palm. In that moment, the city's sirens wailed in the distance, a reminder of the world beyond their tangled hearts. Inside the cramped living room, darkness pressed against the walls, but within it, a strange, fragile love blossomed--a love that watched and was watched, a love that thrived on horror and whispered promises.

          The killings would continue, the left handed glove would keep reappearing over a victim's eye, the city would remain gripped by fear. But for Ethel and Roger, the darkness was no longer a void; it was a canvas, and together they would paint it with the hues of their twisted devotion. The only truth that remained, the only thing that could guide them through the abyss, was the simple, haunting confession that echoed in the silence: "I love you."

Word Count: 1,651
Prompt: Horror Romance