JV Hampton-VanSant

A hand.

Your watcher's bony, spidery, nightmare hand.

Clamping you in place, he slices out with razor fingered brutality, opening grinning gashes across your knuckles.

You scream, shriek, bellow, and finally yank free.

Like you suspected, nobody rushes in from the lobby to rescue you.

Instead, a crooked silhouette unfolds from the dark row ahead, standing silently.

Like always, he's wearing your clothing, or tattered replicas.

Same pants you wore to the theater, same shirt, even your favorite jacket.

All of it shredded at the seams, too small for his distended form.

Except that's not the worst of him.

Those shimmering, high-beam eyes have always cast the rest of him in ambiguous, bent-bone shadows.

But he's tall.

So tall, his unseen face turns fish-belly pale as he rises into the projector light and... That's not a face!

No mouth, no nose, just a featureless egg-smooth terror dotted with two spherical lenses.

Movie projectors for eyes?

They ignite, and he angles his gaze upon you, dazzling your vision.

Your shackles rattle as you shield your eyes.

Silent as the first films, your watcher waves at you with one gloved hand, waggling long, razor-tipped fingers like the first time you caught him prowling, three nights ago, outside your bedroom window.

Like something from the endless horror movies you use and abuse to escape your stressful life, fake kills to distract from the troubled pains of daily existence.

The sight of him warps your reality.