The Man with the Red Eye
When the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, Tom immediately grabbed his backpack and ran straight for the playground. He and his friends were going to play basketball, his favorite sport. They’d been playing a tournament together every day after school, and Tom’s team was one game from winning! He could already hear his teammates cheering for him as he scored the winning shot for them. “Go Tom! Go Tom! Go Tom!”
But when Tom got to the playground, no one was there.
No one was hanging from the monkey bars. The slides were empty. The swings bare.
It was eerily quiet.
And suddenly cold.
Strange. It had been sunny and bright only a few minutes ago. But now the sky was dark
and gray, threatening rain. Tom’s Goosebumps t-shirt was too thin. He shivered.
I guess I’ll go home, Tom thought, wondering where all his friends and teachers went.
But when he turned around, that’s when he saw him: the man with the red mechanical
eye.
He was tall and thin, dressed in all black. His hoodie shrouded his face in shadow. But
from that shadow, Tom could see one bright red eye. It was surrounded by silver metal, gears, and wires. The eye focused and zoomed in on Tom.
Tom wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t move.
The man walked towards him, his red eye flashing, his pace quickening.
Still, Tom couldn’t move. He couldn’t scream.
And when the man got close, Tom realized…it was him! It was his face, just a few years
older, with a red mechanical eye! And then HE was the man with the red mechanical eye. Tom grew bigger and bigger, like a giant Godzilla. And lasers shot from his eyes, destroying
everything around him. He couldn’t stop it. Tom screamed and tried to shut his red mechanical eye, but nothing worked.
Cars screeched and swerved around his feet. People screamed and ran. He yelled for
help but no one understood.
Until he saw his twin sister.
She was older now, too, and driving a blue Lamborghini. While everyone fled from him,
she raced towards him. Tom tried to keep from looking at her with his red mechanical eye, but he wanted to tell her he needed her help. That he wanted to stop, but didn’t know how.
She screeched to a stop at his feet, and got out of the car.
Tom tried to kneel down, but he was too big. The second he moved, he hit buildings
behind him and in front of him, causing debris to fall.
Then Tom felt something strike his head.
When he opened his eyes, he was on his back on the basketball court, his left eye
pounding and throbbing. His friends were circled around him.
“Hey, are you OK?” they asked him, explaining that the ball had bounced off the rim and
hit him in the face. Tom touched his eye and felt no metal, nothing mechanical. He tried to
explain to his friends what happened, but they laughed and went on playing. But Tom knew—it wasn’t a dream.
Maybe it had been a glimpse at parallel universe.
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