Ethan's eyes strained against the dim glow of the dashboard as his old pickup truck creaked along the lonely Texas highway. Midnight had long passed, and the world outside seemed swallowed by darkness. The only sounds were the hum of his engine and the occasional rustle of dry grass brushing against the roadside.
He had taken this route countless times in his dreams, but tonight, reality felt different. The air was heavier, almost expectant, and a strange chill ran down his spine. Somewhere in the distance, an old gas station flickered weakly under the pale light of the moon. Ethan sighed in relief—he would stop there for a quick check before continuing home.
As he pulled up to the pump, the truck gave a jolt and shuddered. The engine sputtered, coughed, and finally went silent.
"Great… just great," he muttered, pounding the steering wheel lightly. He tried the ignition again, but only a pitiful click responded. Ethan climbed out, the gravel crunching under his boots, and walked toward the hood to inspect the problem.
The gas station was deserted. The neon signs overhead flickered erratically, casting ghostly shadows across the cracked pavement. The faint smell of rust and old gasoline hung in the air. He knelt beside the truck, running his hands over the tire, when he first heard it—a soft, tentative knock.
"Hey… mister… can we get in?"
Ethan froze, his heart lurching. He looked up. At the edge of the gas station's faint light stood a child. Small, pale, wearing a thin jacket that did nothing against the night's chill.
He laughed nervously. "Huh… yeah, right. Who's playing a joke at this hour?"
Then he saw the eyes.
They weren't dark like pupils—there was no color at all. Just a void of blackness that seemed to stretch infinitely. Ethan's stomach turned cold. Every instinct screamed for him to flee, but his feet felt rooted to the gravel.
"Go… go away!" he stammered, taking a step back.
The child's lips curved into the faintest of smiles, an eerie calmness in contrast to the terror Ethan felt.
"You looked into our eyes," the child whispered. "That means… you've already given us permission."
Ethan stumbled backward, his scream lost in the empty Texas night. The moonlight caught the second child who had appeared silently at the other side of the truck. Both stared at him, black eyes unblinking, silent, unyielding.
And in that moment, Ethan realized that nothing would ever feel safe again.
---
Ethan's hands trembled as he fumbled for the door handle, his mind racing. Every instinct screamed at him to get back in the truck and drive away—but the engine was dead, and the children remained rooted to the dim light, their black eyes fixed on him like predators waiting for a prey to make a mistake.
"Stay back!" he shouted, his voice cracking. His words seemed swallowed by the heavy night air. The children didn't move. They didn't blink. They just stood there, silent, as if time itself had frozen around them.
The hair on the back of Ethan's neck prickled. He glanced at the gas station building, its windows coated with years of grime. Shadows shifted inside, subtle and unnatural, as though the darkness itself was breathing. Then he noticed it: faint footsteps approaching from the other side of the building—soft, measured, almost too quiet to hear.
Panic surged. Ethan sprinted to the driver's side, yanking at the handle. It wouldn't budge. His heart pounded so hard he was sure the children could hear it.
"They can't come in," he whispered to himself, remembering a story he had laughed off a week ago about the so-called Black-Eyed Children. "They can't—unless you let them."
But had he already let them? His mind screamed as he remembered their eyes, the emptiness staring back at him. His breath caught. The smallest detail—the faint, almost imperceptible smile—lingered in his vision.
Then the knock came again. Harder. Louder. Echoing from the glass of the truck window.
"Please… let us in," the voice intoned. Almost identical to the first, but stronger, more demanding.
Ethan flinched. His back pressed against the door, searching desperately for anything he could use to defend himself. His fingers found the metal of the emergency brake, and he gripped it like a lifeline.
The children shifted slightly, and in that brief movement, the moonlight caught them both fully. Pale skin, slender bodies, and those eyes—blacker than the night around them, reflecting none of the world.
A scream clawed at Ethan's throat, but no sound came out. It was as if the darkness itself had swallowed it. The children moved closer, their steps silent on the gravel.
Ethan knew—he was already trapped.
---
Ethan's chest heaved as he pressed his back against the cold metal of the truck door. His hands were slick with sweat, his knuckles white around the emergency brake lever he had gripped like a lifeline. The children—two small figures outlined in the pale moonlight—stood unwavering a few feet away, black eyes staring, unblinking, unyielding.
He tried to tell himself they were just kids. Just lost children who needed help. But the emptiness in their gaze told him otherwise. His rational mind screamed at him to run, to escape—but the engine was dead, the keys useless, the night too vast, and the darkness too alive.
Another knock, sharper this time, shook the glass of the truck window. The sound pierced the stillness, echoing across the empty gas station. Ethan's ears rang; every nerve in his body was taut like a wire ready to snap.
"Please… let us in," the voice whispered again. This time, it was not soft or timid. It carried an insistent, commanding tone, almost like a demand.
Ethan swallowed hard. His throat felt dry, his mouth a desert. He could not speak, not because he lacked words, but because fear had rooted them deep inside, leaving him mute.
He glanced around, desperate for anything—a rock, a wrench, something—anything to defend himself. His eyes caught a piece of broken metal pipe near the curb. Without thinking, he grabbed it, clutching it like a weapon, though he knew it would not help against whatever they were.
The children moved.
Not a step, not a shuffle—a glide, silent and unnaturally smooth. It was as if the ground itself held them, bearing their weight with perfect stillness, moving them forward without sound. Ethan's heart hammered so violently he thought it might explode in his chest.
"Go… just go away!" he managed to choke out. The words were barely audible, swallowed by the night.
They didn't respond. They never did. They simply watched, their black eyes unyielding voids that seemed to swallow the moonlight itself. Ethan noticed then the subtle movements: a tilt of the head, a slight lean forward, the slow, deliberate way they closed the distance.
Panic overtook him. He slammed his palms against the truck window, rattling the glass. "I—" He stopped. He couldn't even finish the sentence. Words had no power here.
And then… the world seemed to shrink. The vastness of the empty gas station disappeared. All that remained was the children and the truck, the space between them impossibly small, impossibly tense.
Ethan's breath caught in his throat. He realized, with a cold, sinking certainty, that they could see him in a way no human could. Not just look at him—pierce him, understand him, know every fear he had ever held.
A third knock, and this time the glass trembled violently. His hands slipped on the emergency brake, and the pipe clattered to the floor. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet, heart in his throat.
One of the children raised a tiny hand, pale and thin as a wisp of smoke. The motion was almost hypnotic, a slow wave that drew him in. Ethan felt his muscles lock. He could not look away. Could not move. Could not breathe.
"You… you have to… let us in," the voice came again, eerily calm. "You have already looked into our eyes."
Ethan's mind screamed: I didn't! I didn't give permission! But the memory of the first glance—the sudden, horrifying blackness of their eyes—tormented him. Could it have counted already? Had he already doomed himself simply by looking?
The temperature seemed to drop. Frost formed on the edges of the truck window, despite the summer heat outside. The children moved closer, and Ethan could see the subtle details he hadn't before: the unnatural stillness of their limbs, the way their shadows didn't fall correctly, as if the light itself recoiled from them.
He backed into the truck again, chest heaving, teeth chattering. The metal door scraped against the gravel as he stumbled, and for a moment he thought he heard laughter—not childish, not human, but low, echoing, vibrating deep in his bones.
Ethan's fingers found the ignition keys again. He turned them desperately. The engine groaned. Then silence. The dashboard lights flickered and died.
The children stopped at the truck window. Close enough that Ethan could see their faint, ghostly reflections. Their black eyes seemed to stretch, widen, becoming infinite, unblinking voids. He could feel them staring into him, pressing against his skull, burrowing into the marrow of his bones.
And then the first hand touched the glass. Small, pale, impossibly cold. Ethan flinched, the chill crawling up his arm, freezing his blood in place. He could hear it whisper, a susurration directly into his mind:
"Open… or suffer the waiting."
Fear was no longer a feeling. It was physical, pressing down on him, constricting his chest, tangling his limbs, binding his mind. Ethan wanted to scream, to run, to throw himself into the night—but he couldn't.
Time stretched. Seconds became minutes. Minutes became hours. Or maybe the world had paused altogether. All he knew was the inevitability: they would not leave. They could not leave. And if he didn't move… they would find a way in.
Ethan felt his knees buckle. He fell to the ground, sliding against the truck door, shivering, trying to reason, to fight, to do anything. His hands clawed at the gravel. He screamed silently, but the sound never left his throat.
The children pressed closer. Their faces, pale and still, were now mere inches from his own reflection in the glass. Ethan's heart stuttered.
"We only need a moment. Just a moment," they whispered, voices blending together, impossible yet clear, filling his mind entirely.
Suddenly, the moonlight caught their eyes in full. Infinite blackness. A spiral of darkness that seemed to suck the world in. Ethan felt himself being pulled, not physically, but mentally—his consciousness tugged toward that void, toward nothingness.
He closed his eyes, trying to force them away. But when he opened them again, they were closer, touching the glass with tiny fingers that seemed to pulse with cold malevolence.
Then, without warning, a deafening crash of metal echoed from inside the truck—the pipe had fallen onto the gear lever. The sound shattered the tension for a fraction of a second. Ethan seized it. With a burst of adrenaline, he yanked the truck door open and bolted across the gravel toward the darkness of the surrounding field.
Behind him, he heard the soft, deliberate footsteps. Not running. Not chasing. Just following.
His lungs burned. His legs ached. Every instinct screamed for survival. And yet, when he glanced back, the children were still there, small, silent, unhurried. Their black eyes glinted in the moonlight, and the faintest smile curled across their lips.
Ethan stumbled, almost falling. His mind reeled, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. They shouldn't be able to move like this. They shouldn't be… real.
The wind whispered through the tall grass. The gas station lights flickered one last time, then went dark.
And then the voice—low, hollow, echoing directly into his mind, deeper than the night itself—spoke:
"You cannot run. You have already seen us. You have already given us permission."
Ethan fell to his knees, gasping, shaking. The field around him stretched endlessly, shadows elongating unnaturally. He wanted to scream again, but the voice had already stolen his sound.
The children stood at the edge of the moonlight, watching him. Waiting.
And Ethan knew, with a deep, bone-chilling certainty, that nothing—nothing—would ever be the same again.
The night swallowed him whole.
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