Talents

You wake up one night. It's just a normal night for all intents and purposes except, there across the room, sits a man you've never seen before. He doesn't seem very large or very intimidating but still something seems slightly off.

After a few minutes of staring at him in the darkness he clears his throat causing you to jump slightly. The man apologizes for startling you in a calming yet stilleerie voice. You're not sure why but it seems familiar.

Afterwords he says he'sbeen waiting for you to awaken for quite some time and is somewhat surprised it's taken as long as it has. Still unsure of what's going on you ask this strange man who he is, why he's in your house, how he got in your house, and a myriad of other questions.

Once you've asked your questions the man stands up and you realize why he seemed so odd sitting. He's easily 7 and a half feet tall the top of his hat almost brushing against your ceiling. He bends at the waist bowing politely and tips his hat to you and introduces himself as a representative of certain parties interested in you and your talents. Curious you ask what talents? The man simply says all in due time.

After a good hour and a half of small talk, circular conversations, and even a slight temper tantrum you've learned no more about this strange man than you knew upon waking. Soon you sit silently upright in your bed just looking at him.

Something is still unusual about him but you can't figure out what. Another twenty minutes pass and you speak up. Again asking what talents the man and his "employers" are so interested in that he had to break into your home in the middle of the night, scare you half to death, and just sit and stare and make no sense or even answer a question straight for hours on end. He simply responds that you are able to do something neither he nor his benefactors are capable of and merely wishes to outsource your talent.

Another hour of idle chatter passes and still nothing further comes to light. Soon you notice the first rays of light pouring into your window, finally you'll get a chance to see this odd man in the light since you've not dared leave your bed to go turn on a light.

Before the sun can light your room however the man stands and turns around and kneels down to a bag sitting beside the chair he was seated in. Funny you're just now remember you never had a chair there, or any chair like that in your house for that matter. You hear some metallic noises coming from whatever is in the bag as the last of the light finish lighting up the room. Now with the room light you can make out more details. He's wearing what looks like a somewhat well made though aged black suit, and what looks like they used to be shiny black shoes though the shine seems to have worn off with use and never been re-polished.

Standing back up the man says to you that he and his benefactors lack the type of vision for the future you have. The sight of what's to come and what needs to come only one with your talents can have. And that he's here to negotiate with you for the use of that talent. He elaborates further that, it isn't so much a rare talent, just a matter of convenience in picking you in fact most of your neighbors have the same talent. To be quite frank, he continues, all of your neighbors are being visited this morning.

You think you hear something from a few houses down but you can't really make it out.

The man continues to fish around in his bag doing something but you can't tell what, just to be safe you reach under your pillow for the 9mm you keep just in case and find that it's missing. As if he heard you the man speaks up saying that it is quite unnecessary and wouldn't have mattered even if he had left it, before he pulls it out of his bag, removes the clip, and sets both on the chair in front of him.

At this point you begin to panic, you heard it from next door. Clearly it was your neighbors screaming, the children to. Followed by something like a combination of a bear roaring and a human shrieking. The man turns to you and says "Well it's been delightful speaking with you but I really must get back to work."

As he turns you realize this man who you've been casually chatting with, has no eyes. Not only that but he doesn't even have so much as empty sockets it's just blank flesh where eyes should be. You have just enough time to scream before the blade pierces your throat silencing you. You look on in stunned silence as shock begins to set in as the man, the monster you correct yourself in your last thoughts begins to slice the flesh from your eye sockets being ever so careful not to damage your eyes.

The last thing you see before you black out is one of your eyes having just been pulled from your head drop into a small open container on the night stand. You don't know how long it takes but you remember hearing something just a few seconds ago it seems. Something like an inhuman shriek but deeper and louder. You try to open your eyes but you find you can't. You can't even move your arms. The horrible nightmare you just had suddenly pops into your memory. Terrified you jerk around fruitlessly before you realize you can't feel anything.

Suddenly your eyes open and you look into the mirror. What you see terrifies you beyond rational thought. Looking back at you is the strange tall man, though it's clearly your eyes in the fresh slashes on his face.