Aster's heart froze as the full truth crashed down on him like a physical weight.
Not one eye. Not two. The *entire sky* was made of them.
His heart trembled in his chest. Cold spread through his body, making his fingers numb and his breath come in short, panicked gasps. The sheer impossibility of what he was seeing—the horror of it—threatened to shatter his sanity.
And then they moved.
All of them. Simultaneously.
The uncountable number of eyes—hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions—all began rushing toward him at once. The sky itself seemed to collapse inward, a tsunami of malevolent gazes converging on the single point where he stood.
Aster tried to run, tried to scream, but his body wouldn't respond. He could only watch in frozen terror as the wave of eyes crashed toward the mansion.
The impact was like the end of the world.
The mansion *exploded*. Not collapsed—*exploded*. The walls blew outward in every direction. The roof was obliterated, reduced to splinters and dust. The ground beneath buckled and shattered. Everything—the ritual circle, the candles, the otherworldly skull, the mirror, all of it—was consumed in a blinding flash of darkness that was somehow more intense than any light.
And Aster was caught in the center of it all, drowning in an ocean of watching, judging, *hungry* eyes.
---
He woke up.
The transition was abrupt, violent. One moment he was being torn apart by countless malevolent gazes, the next he was lying in a bed, staring up at a familiar ceiling.
His bedroom. The Thornwood mansion. Home.
But he couldn't move.
He could feel everything—the soft mattress beneath him, the weight of blankets, the warmth of the room—but his body refused to respond to his commands. His limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. His mouth wouldn't open. Even his eyes felt frozen, locked in a forward stare.
Paralyzed again. Just like in the mansion.
Voices reached him. Multiple people in the room, talking in hushed, worried tones.
"This is an injury unlike any we've ever seen." An unfamiliar voice—male, older, with the careful pronunciation of someone educated. A doctor, Aster realized. "The external wounds are minimal, just some cuts on his feet, but there's something else. Something affecting his consciousness directly. I've never encountered anything like this in thirty years of practice."
"Will he recover?" That was his father's voice, tight with worry.
Aster tried to turn his head to look at him, but nothing happened. He could only stare straight ahead, seeing a section of his bedroom ceiling and the top of his bookshelf.
"I... I don't know, Mr. Thornwood. Honestly, I don't even understand what's wrong with him. His vital signs are stable, but it's as if his mind has been... locked away somehow. Trapped inside his own body."
Footsteps approached the bed. Aster's father moved into his field of vision, sitting down in a chair that had been pulled up beside the bed. His face was drawn with worry, his sharp green eyes dim with an emotion Aster rarely saw there—fear.
Mr. Thornwood reached out and took Aster's limp hand in his own, squeezing it gently.
Aster wanted to squeeze back, wanted to show any sign that he could hear, that he was still in here. But his hand remained lifeless, unresponsive.
Movement near the doorway caught his peripheral vision. Lily was standing there, still in her school uniform, watching through the partially open door. Her face was pale, and even from this distance, Aster could see tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
*I'm okay*, he wanted to shout to her. *I'm still here. I just can't move.*
"Is he awake yet?"
A new voice came from the shadows near the window—deeper, more formal. There was a quality to it that made the air itself seem to vibrate slightly.
Silas.
Aster felt a surge of relief so powerful it was almost physical. Silas was here. Silas would know what to do.
Mr. Thornwood's head snapped toward the window, and his expression transformed. The worry was replaced by fury—cold, controlled rage that made his eyes flash with dangerous intensity.
"Not yet," he said, his voice dropping to something deeper and more threatening. "Thanks to you."
Silas stepped out of the shadows near the window, his blue mage robes pristine despite everything that had happened. His staff was visible in his hand, the crystal at its top glowing softly with latent power.
"If I have to choose between the fate of the town and one person," Silas said calmly, meeting Mr. Thornwood's glare without flinching, "the answer would be obvious, Mr. Thornwood. I did what was necessary."
"You took my son into danger—"
"I took him where he needed to go to find answers. Answers that might save thousands of lives."
The two men stared at each other, the tension thick enough to cut. The doctor shifted uncomfortably, clearly wishing he was anywhere else.
Aster wanted to interrupt, to tell them to stop arguing, that it wasn't Silas's fault. He'd been the one to look at the Eye despite the warning. He'd been the one to choose to look out that window in the dream-mansion.
*I can tell them*, Aster thought desperately. *If I could just move my mouth. Are there dark spirits holding me down like before?*
He tried to remember the purification spell, tried to form the words in his mind with enough force to break through the paralysis.
*Purify the evil around me. Purify the evil around me. Purify—*
But his mouth remained stubbornly closed. The words were trapped inside, unable to escape.
*Maybe Silas could do something*, Aster thought. *He saved me before. He could sense the spirits before. He'll figure it out.*
As if hearing Aster's thoughts, Silas suddenly turned away from Mr. Thornwood and looked directly at the bed. His eyes glowed brighter—that distinctive blue light that indicated he was using his magical sight, seeing beyond the physical.
"Maybe he did find something," Silas muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
He raised his hand, and his staff materialized from thin air—one moment nothing, the next moment the familiar ashwood weapon appearing in his grip as if it had always been there. He stepped forward and pressed the base of the staff against the floor.
"All the evil, purify," Silas commanded, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority.
White light exploded outward from the staff, flooding the room.
And suddenly, Aster could *feel* them—the spirits that had been holding him down. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all clinging to his body like leeches, their shadowy forms invisible to normal sight but clearly revealed in Silas's purifying light.
They *shrieked*—that same high-pitched wail of agony Aster had heard in the dream-mansion—as the white light burned them away. He felt them releasing their hold on his limbs, on his chest, on his throat. Felt sensation returning to his body like blood flowing back into a limb that had fallen asleep.
The spirits dissolved into ash and were gone.
Aster's eyes flew fully open—he hadn't even realized they'd been only half-open before. He gasped, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. His fingers twitched, then clenched into fists. He sat up abruptly, the blankets falling away.
The dark marks that had encircled his eyes—the marks he'd seen in the mirror—were gone, his skin clear and unblemished.
His heart was still pounding frantically, the memory of countless eyes rushing toward him fresh and vivid.
"You're awake!"
Lily rushed into the room properly now, no longer holding back. She practically threw herself at the bed, wrapping her arms around Aster in a tight hug. He could feel her shaking, feel the dampness of tears on his shoulder.
"I'm okay," Aster managed to say, his voice rough from disuse. He hugged her back carefully. "I'm okay, Lily."
Mr. Thornwood stood from his chair, and Aster saw something he'd rarely witnessed—his father's eyes were glistening with unshed tears. He placed a hand on Aster's shoulder, squeezing firmly but gently.
"Thank the angels," he said quietly.
The doctor stepped forward, his professional demeanor returning now that his patient was conscious. "This is... highly unusual. The marks on his eyes—they're completely gone. I could have sworn I saw dark patterns around his eyes just moments ago."
"It's normal," Silas said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. "He had evil spirits inside him for a while. They leave marks. The purification removed both the spirits and their lingering effects."
Silence fell over the room as everyone processed this.
Then Silas moved forward, his expression intense and focused. "So, what did you see in your dream this time?"
Lily pulled back from the hug, confusion clear on her face. "A dream? What dream are you talking about?"
Mr. Thornwood's expression shifted as understanding dawned. His face paled slightly. "Wait. Is this what I'm thinking? Is this about..."
"You're right," Silas confirmed grimly. "The Eye of Evil."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
"No," Mr. Thornwood breathed. His hand tightened on Aster's shoulder, protective and afraid at the same time. "No, that's impossible. I knew there were evil spirits in his room that first night—I could sense the residual dark energy—but the Eye of Evil is beyond our capabilities. It's beyond anyone's capabilities. That entity is—"
"Eyes," Aster interrupted, his voice stronger now.
Everyone froze. Four pairs of eyes turned to stare at him.
"It's not one," Aster continued, the words spilling out now that he could finally speak. "Not one Eye."
Silas stepped closer, his expression intensifying. "As much as we know from the ancient texts, there are two aspects of the Eye. The one below and the one above. Twin manifestations of—"
"There are not only two eyes," Aster said, cutting him off.
Silence crashed down like a physical weight.
Silas's chest visibly tightened. His knuckles went white around his staff. "What?"
"What did you see in your dream?" Silas demanded, stepping right up to the bed. His blue eyes were blazing now, and there was something in his expression that Aster had never seen before—genuine, unguarded fear.
Aster met his gaze and spoke the truth that had shattered his understanding of reality.
"The whole sky is made from evil eyes."