It was the smell of fear. It was a mouth-gagging, nose-pinching, putrid smell that Emily had inhaled as she walked home. Her feet echoed, each step a shrill scream in the silent night. The streets were deserted and the night cold. She clutched her thin, knitted sweater that protected her little against the thrashing and bashing of the wind's icy whip. The lights flickered and provided little light - the only thing being provided was an electrical buzzing sound from the broken down street lamps that made Emily think of the tortures of being fried alive.

A trashcan rattled from inside an alleyway Emily had just passed. A black cat stuck its head out, its golden disks glowing in the moonless night. It circled around her legs slowly two times, and just before it left, the cat tilted its head crookedly to look at her and turned away from her with uninterested eyes.

And the eyes; the eyes that burned into the woman's back as if someone were standing right behind her, looming over her entire existence. It was someone larger. Much larger.

"Excuse me."

She screamed as a hand touched her shoulder, draping over her skin-covered bone. Her legs gave out, falling like attracting magnets to the ground. The stitching that made up the fabric of her socks came undone as friction started between the feeble strands and the unmoving plains of grey. Emily breathed in, her breath becoming stuck by the ticking of her heart.

Looking up, her eyes flickering to life, she saw the silhouette of a man. Slowly the pieces began to filter in, her eyes now more accustomed to the dark - she could see his dark brown hair sway in the wind, his broad shoulders and lean figure, and his creased brow with a small divot in the middle, probably from looking so hard at the girl, that led right to his eyes; they were the most breathtaking eyes she had ever seen, bright and vibrant, illuminating the night with its pure, radiant color - its bright blue, and, like the sea, it sucked her in.

"The people," she said, breathy and separated. "The people. Where are the people?"

"Gone, I assume." He shifted his weight to his right foot and looked awkwardly around with no excessive movements from his body. "They're certainly not here."

"And what about you - you're not a serial, mass murderer or something, are you?"

He cracked a smile. "Maybe."

"Don't tease me like that!" she screamed in shock, wrapping her arms around her body and flinching back away from the man. "It's not funny." She shifted her eyes back and forth, but no one was there to draw her attention away from him or offer any sign of reassurance. "It's smelly, quiet, dark, and just creepy! There's no one here except you and me and there's someone w—"

She cut herself off and lowered her head, which caught the man's attention. He leaned forward more, lessening his voice, and said:

"Someone's what?"

"Watching me," she answered back, "stalking me, or whatever. I can feel their eyes on me."

They both stayed quiet for a minute before the man cracked a smile, of which was soon accompanied by his loud, obnoxious laughter. "Now," he said, "that is absolutely ridiculous. There's no way someone could be stalking you. Besides," he continued, "if they were, you'd be dead by now."

"That's not true. It could be you."

He shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. Save these wild delusions for at home where you're safe, and not the middle of the street with someone you don't even know. Now, give me your hand and let me walk you home - a lady shouldn't be outside all alone like this."

Emily reached her hand out to him. His hand encased her whole hand. She noted that his fingers were ice, in fact. She observed is fingers were in fact blue in comparison to hers. Although he was walking right next to her, checking every alley, street, and door for her, she could still feel the eyes on her, closer than ever.

"What can you do?" Emily looked to the moonless sky, her eyes a blank slate. Her colors were gone, now all that was left was a nasty monotone. "If the eyes are still watching me, what can you do?"

The buzzing of the street lamps seemed to get louder, like cicadas buzzing in the summer, while the street seemed to grow into an even eerier silence. Rotting fish filled the air, brushing against the noses of the two. The man cringed his nose upwards and sneezed.

"Is your home anywhere near here?" he asked.

"It's near."

She was like a deer in the headlights, like a doll in a case - in a world of her own, mesmerized by the night, by the black, dark nothingness. She smiled towards the man, dark and distant, her eyes hanging low, her head bobbed back. "Thank you for walking me home, but I can make it home from here."

"It's fine." He shoved his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone. "It's only a little past nine. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" The question went responded, echoing a few times where the wind carried it to. "Are you sure?" she asked again.

Sea blue eyes starred into her coal-colored eyes. He shivered, rubbing his arm, his eyes looking across the street at the swinging sign to an old shop. "Ye-s." His voice hesitated. He cleared his throat and, with a small shake of his head, tried again. "Yes, I'm quite sure of myself."

Her eyes had lost any trace of what they once were, her face was dark, and her smile seemed to wrap around her cheeks. She rolled her eyes, the smile never leaving her face. "Indeed you are." She laughed in a shrill, high-pitched voice. "Indeed you are. You have that—" Her eyes looked to his chest. "—knife."

His sea blue eyes turned to storms of grey, his face darkened as he lowered it. "And?"

"I already asked you if you were a mass murderer person. You lied through your teeth, didn't you?" She slouched her back and let her head fall towards the ground, her brown curls wrapping around her head, hiding her face from view. "You did." She laughed again. "You did...."

The man drew his knife from his coat pocket and pointed it at the girl. "Alright," he said, "I'll admit it: I'm a murder. I didn't lie, though, because you asked if I was a mass murder. I'll tell you know, I'm not. Letting you slip by was going to be easy since you weren't my victim, but seeing as you somehow found out, I have to kill you now."

"Kill me?" Her voice was becoming hoarse - deeper and deeper to the point he had trouble distinguishing it from a man's voice. "Kill me?"

He took a step forward. His arms began to shake and his eye twitched as he watched the girl bob up and down in a fit of laughter.

"Kill me!" she screamed. "Kill me, kill me, kill me!" She spun her head to him. Her eyes were demented - red and crooked as if she hadn't gotten any sleep for weeks on end- and her mouth was foaming at the right side from her smile where her teeth were turning a brown, dead color. "Kill me."

The knife fell out of the man's hand as he pushed himself back, shaking his head. He looked around but no one was there with him.

"No one's here to save you."

He pushed himself back against the cold, brick wall of an apartment complex. He ran to the doors and pulled on them, but they wouldn't open no matter how hard he pulled. Then, he pounded on the doors and screamed at the top of his lunges for help.

"No one will hear you."

He turned to run down the sidewalk but stopped after five large steps. Beating red eyes starred back at him from the darkness of the moonless night.

"We're not alone. I told you there were eyes watching me, stalking me."

The man turned toward her. "What are they - no - what are you?"

Laughter erupted like a volcano from within the darkness. The man turned back to look at the beating, red eyes that laughed at him.

Emily walked over to the man and wrapped her arm around him, caressing her hands on his chest. "It's like a disease, once one person has it, everyone has it." She spoke in her normal voice, and she looked as if everything had returned back to normal, as if everything were a dream, a silly illusion from lack of sleep, a delusion of the eye. "But, the thing is," she whispered softly in his ear as her hands pierced through his chest and into his heart, "you were the only person that was alive."