I’m not crazy. Before I tell you people anything I need you to know that what I saw was real. It was not a trick of the light, sleep deprived mistake, or hallucination. And what happened was not my fault. I don’t belong in this hospital for insane freaks—I have a PhD, damn you! But I’m sure this is not helping my case. I know that I could make up what you want to hear and be discharged any day now, but someone needs to believe me because every single person on this forsaken rock of a planet will suffer if you don’t. This is not a psychiatric evaluation; this is my plea for you to listen.
I started working at the Yerkes Observatory when I was forty-five in the year 2000. The University of Chicago employed me as a professor for their astrophysics program and gave me free reign to use the telescope to conduct my own research. I liked the sound of Professor Adam Gardner and having access to technology like this was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So needless to say, I quite liked the position, which is why I assure you I would never do something that would jeopardize my standing within the academic community.
I was in my fifth year of working at the observatory when things started to take a turn for the worse. I didn’t have any classes that night but I had come in to continue work of my own. The building was empty and silent as the grave, so much that I could hear the steady hum of the fluorescent lights as they switched on. The interior was a sterile white from ceiling to walls and the light’s reflection off them overwhelmed the senses. The floors were the same as those wiry brown carpets that you find in every cheap office building. I suppose the equipment in this building left little budget for interior design. I walked past the rows of vacant desks where most of my students sat during lectures while the rest slept through them.
I entered the adjoining observation building, comparatively a much nicer space with a nearly rustic feel owing to a large portion of the original brickwork remaining untouched. This was contrasted by the centerpiece of the observatory, the telescope, which was a product of only the latest and most-expensive technology scholars such as myself had to offer. My research revolved around stars, more specifically how their intense gravity warps light. It always felt strangely mystical when you looked through those lenses. It puts me in mind of that quote, Nietzsche I think, “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it’s only my life’s work.
I had been focusing on a star named Rigel for a few weeks at the time. It’s the brightest star in the Orion constellation and rather large, making it the perfect candidate for my studies. Through the telescope, the star looked different, leaving me perplexed because stars don’t just randomly warp in a matter of days. I looked closer, discovering that it wasn’t the star itself that had changed but its light, as if something was blocking it, like sticking your hand in front of a flashlight. It was undeniable that something was obstructing one of the largest stars in the sky! I fumbled with my notebooks, rushing to document what I was seeing. By the time I looked back it had moved. Lo and behold, whatever this was slowly swayed side to side. Rigel was still just a speck even with the telescope and I watched as it flickered on and off.
Anxious tension settled in my chest while I tried to explain away what I was seeing. An asteroid belt? A rogue planet? An alien organism even crossed my mind. I went through every procedure to ensure that the lens was clean and accurate. All the while I kept glancing over my shoulder expecting someone to be there. I felt as if I was being watched. I felt invisible eyes boring into me from every corner of the room. Hell, I even glanced up at the ceiling because I swear to God that I thought something was there, and I became more entranced with this thing in the abyss of space.
I watched it until the sun crested the horizon and the pitch-darkness of night lit into the radiance of day. Though the night had faded, my nerves had not. Of course, I had just spent an entire night without sleep so I had thought of it as nothing more than a trick of the mind. I rubbed my eyes and hastily collected my things. Making my way out of the observatory, I encountered my teaching assistant, Evan. He was a short young man with long blonde hair and a knack for dressing just a little too formal for every class. In general, I liked him. He was smart, helpful, and not much mattered beyond that. His face contorted from confusion to concern in a way that made me keenly aware of how disheveled I must have appeared.
“Professor, are you alright? I won’t sugar coat it––your hair’s a bird nest,” Evan asked me like I was a crazy person. But allow me to reiterate––I am not crazy.
I answered with no small amount of pride and fervor, “Evan, I may have just made the biggest scientific discovery in mankind’s history, and I assure you it’s worth the bird’s nest.”
“Alright then,” Evan’s face lightened into an expression of curiosity, “well, um, maybe go take a nap and then come tell me about it.”
I laughed and I admit I probably sounded deranged. “You’ll see it in the news first!”
I walked out the door into the glaring morning light with a grin on my face. My excitement-fueled burst of energy did not last. The drive home was a struggle to stay awake and even the company of the bustling traffic did not stop the sensation that something was in my back seat boring its gaze through my skull. There was nothing when I looked into the mirror to check, so I did my best to simply ignore the feeling against my better judgement. By the time I pulled into my driveway the fear was overbearing as if I was being hunted. I had to consciously remind myself to breathe—my body would not allow it otherwise.
My home was nearly indistinguishable from my office. Both were littered with papers, old space memorabilia, and framed newspaper clippings of my own achievements, which paled in comparison to what I witnessed on that night. My bedroom, like the rest of my house and by extension my office, was barely fit for human habitation as it had become something of a secondary dwelling in favor of the observatory. Despite this, I laid down and gave my best attempt at sleep. I don’t know at what point I finally drifted off, but it felt as if it had been a long time of restless shifting and shuffling.
I suppose that’s not important. Not compared to what came next.
I found myself in a particularly lucid dream. I felt unusually aware of this fact and of my surroundings. I was standing on a thin precipice of polished gray stone only about two shoulder lengths across at the peak. Only about a hundred yards in front of me was a magnificent and colossal star that shone bright blue light into the black abyss that surrounded me. The star before me was Rigel and I nearly wept before its glory. Had that been the only thing, I might’ve enjoyed this, but I was not so fortunate.
Soon enough, I felt a tremor rise though my thin stone platform as a shape rose from the chasm below. An arm, human-like, shot up from the depths and knocked me from my feet with the force of its movement. I just barely caught myself from slipping as the arm extended to blot out Rigel’s light. My heart sank in my chest as I watched it sway as if to wave at me, and I soon realized what I saw through the telescope. The impossibly-large figure continued its ascent upwards until before me was a humanoid silhouette. What I can only assume was its skin looked darker than the void and rippled like liquid. It was neither muscular nor gaunt and its neck lolled limply to the left. The head was featureless, bald, and devoid of all extremities. I was caught in a fit of hyperventilation, hoping for the moment when I would shoot up screaming in my bed, but the moment never came.
“I see you, Doctor,” the thing spoke in a thousand voices at once like an entire crowd coaxed into speaking in unison. The sound came not from the creature but from inside my own head as if my thoughts had run a mutiny against me.
My mind rang out in the pain of a thousand migraines, and I screamed out in vain, “Go away!”
“I watch you, Doctor.” A thousand voices rang out through my mind again at the whims of this… this thing.
I steeled enough bravery to ask, “What are you?”
I braced for its answer but it hardly did anything as the voices replied, “ I am The Watcher, Doctor…”
Some will, other than my own, compelled me to look up and to open my eyes. The head still hung limp to the side but it slowly opened its right and only eye. A perfectly-round and infinitely-bright eye with but a speck of black for a pupil. Staring into it, my mind was thrown into disarray, and within a fraction of a second I had been torn apart and put back together a thousand times without so much as a scratch on my body.
“…And I am watching you,” The creature spoke once more and I forced my head down again.
Though it seemed wildly out of place, I found my worn red stapler resting beside me. Without hesitation, I threw the clunky metal mass into the gaping eye before me. It collided, or I assume it did, because I woke in my bed with sweat soaking my shirt. I frantically looked around and noticed a small speck of blood on my pillow.
I drew every curtain, barricaded every door and I even stacked chairs high enough to cover the skylight in my living room. However, it did absolutely nothing to numb my fear and the feeling that I was under constant observation. Knowing that this thing, The Watcher or so it called itself, was out there with its eye fixed on me was greater than I could bear. Every time I shut my eyes to blink, I saw its figure and I was consumed by the thought that when I opened them again, I would be back on that infernal pillar staring at my doom, right in the eye. I couldn’t bear to leave my house and every time I so much as approached my door, I could feel The Watcher’s eye staring through me, my heart nearly seized in panic. I’m aware of how this makes me sound and that paranoia is a symptom of severe mental illness, but what I saw was real. I didn’t understand any of this and this is the reaction of a perfectly normal mind in totally insane circumstances! If you try to tell me you wouldn’t act the same, you are a dirty liar.
I didn’t do…much of anything for several weeks. Although The Watcher’s gaze was ever present, it did alleviate slightly around the fifth day and I was able to sleep with only normal nightmares to torment me. I had thought that maybe it had gotten whatever it wanted from me or perhaps I had become too boring to continuously observe. Either way, I had almost considered returning to work one day when I received a call informing me that if I didn’t show for my class tomorrow, I’d be out of a job. That is to say I didn’t have much of a choice regarding the events that followed.
When the day came to return to work, I found readjusting to normal life surprisingly easy, and The Watcher’s gaze didn’t cause me nearly as much discomfort as it did earlier. I hesitated to even admit it to myself, but I was feeling good. I stepped out into the morning sun feeling confident that I may finally be free of The Watcher. I got in my car and drove to work with the only thing to dread being how to make up for my class’s lost time. When I arrived, Evan was already preparing for the class. I quickly organized my notes and took note of the heavy red stapler that sat on my desk. I moved it a little bit closer to me just to be safe. We exchanged uneasy greetings; he was particularly concerned about my wellbeing, but I put on a good show of confidence.
The class proceeded as if nothing had happened. I apologized for my absence and resumed where we had left off. Just my luck that we happened to be covering stars. Maybe things would have turned out differently if we had just been a little further ahead. The migraines started when I had Evan start up the noisy projector and images of stars were illuminated on the wall behind me. As soon as the lights went off, I felt my hair stand up on the back of my neck and I started to sweat profusely under the stress. But what overshadowed it all was the paranoia. I was being watched. No longer just a feeling, I could swear The Watcher was in the room with me.
The final straw came when Evan changed the slide. Behind me now was a telescope image of Rigel with its blue light reflecting off the walls in a blinding glow. My mind erupted into a violent maelstrom of searing pain. I collapsed and pressed my eyes to shut it out. Suddenly, it was not the dingy brown carpet I felt on my skin but smooth, cold, alabaster stone. I willed my eyes to open and awoke in the same scene as my dream. Standing on a precipice of stone in front of the Rigel. I felt defeated tears run down my face when the abyssal arm reached out and blocked the stars’ light. I thought I was done, I thought I was free, and yet here I was in my own personal hell.
“I see you, Doctor,” The Watcher told me with its blank face in its thousand voices.
I only screamed in response to try and drown it out. I yelled until my voice gave out and I tasted blood from my throat.
“I watch you, Doctor,” That monstrosity repeated as I saw its single eye painstakingly peel itself open.
History repeated itself. My mind fractured into a thousand pieces under the psychic pressure of that alien horror. I recalled the previous dream and desperately searched for anything that could free me from its grasp. Through the agony, I found the stapler and rose to my feet. The watery skin was mere inches away from me and its colossal eye gazed through my soul. I slammed the heavy metal chunk of office supply into the eye again and again in futile fury. I don’t know how long I did that for, but it was all I could do.
“I will be watching, Doctor.” The thing spoke again. But its tone was different. It was…satisfied?
I blinked in surprise as I was released from the nightmare. I found myself in the classroom clutching the stapler standing over Evan, my hands and shirt drenched in blood. Evan was a gory mess laying still on the now-red carpet. Screaming students charged into the hall while I stood there in shock. I didn’t resist when the police came, and I said nothing to their inquiries. Weeks later, I stood trial in court for the second-degree murder of Evan Pierce. Pleading insanity was all I could do to avoid a life sentence. At least that way I stood a chance. I want to clarify some things. I am not a murderer. I am not insane and I do not belong here. Most importantly you have to believe me. You do, don’t you? Somebody has to. I can’t bear to live knowing that there’s something out there watching my every move. I am not crazy. I am forsaken.