BLINK

I first noticed it during my morning commute. The digital billboard on 5th Avenue flickered differently—just for a millisecond. Not the usual ad transitions, but something else. A face, maybe? I rubbed my eyes, attributing it to lack of sleep. Working late shifts at the cyber security firm had been taking its toll, but something about this particular glitch felt different. Wrong.

Three days later, every screen in my apartment glitched simultaneously at 3:33 AM. My phone, laptop, and TV—all showing the same split-second image: an eye. Just one human eye, staring back. I jolted awake, my heart pounding against my ribcage. The screens returned to normal, but the image was burned into my retinas. An eye with an iris so dark it seemed to absorb light, surrounded by bloodshot vessels that looked more like crimson lightning bolts.

I started documenting these occurrences, my professional instincts kicking in. They followed a pattern:

Only visible when blinking

Always lasted 1/60th of a second

Spreading to more screens daily

Increasing in frequency between 3 AM and 4 AM

The logical part of my brain tried to rationalize it. Maybe it was a sophisticated virus or some elaborate hacking scheme. But deep down, I knew this was something entirely else. The way the eye seemed to track my movements, how it appeared more solid, more three-dimensional with each passing day.

Yesterday, my coworker Julia asked if I'd been sending her strange messages at night. I hadn't. She showed me her phone—dozens of texts from my number, all sending the same thing: "Don't blink." The timestamps were all from times I'd been asleep. Or at least, I thought I had been asleep.

The security footage from my apartment showed me sitting perfectly still at my desk each night, staring at my computer screen, fingers typing mechanically. But when I checked my computer's history, there was nothing. No record of any messages sent, no programs opened, just hours of apparent nothingness.

This morning, I received an email from myself, dated five years in the future. The timestamp authentication checked out—I ran it through every verification protocol I knew. It contained only one line:

"They're using our blinks to cross over. Keep your eyes open."

I haven't blinked in 6 hours now. My eyes are burning, and the world has taken on a hazy, watercolor quality. The eye drops aren't helping anymore. But I swear the reflections in my mirror aren't matching my movements anymore. When I turn left, my reflection hesitates for a fraction of a second before following.

The screens around me are multiplying. Every reflective surface now holds the potential for that eye to appear. My phone won't stop vibrating with messages from my own number, each one more desperate than the last: "DON'T BLINK," "THEY'RE ALMOST HERE," and "KEEP WATCHING."

The worst part? I'm starting to see them even without screens now. In the corners of my vision, shapes are forming. They're like static given form, like television snow molded into almost-human silhouettes. They're waiting. Watching. And they're getting closer every time I blink.

My eyes are screaming for relief. Tears are streaming down my face, but I can't stop now. The shapes are just feet away, their forms becoming more solid with each involuntary twitch of my eyelids. I can almost make out their features, but something tells me I don't want to.

The future me was right. They're using our blinks—those millisecond gaps in our perception—to slip through. Each blink is a door, and they're pushing harder against it every time.

I'm writing this as a warning. If you start seeing the eye, if your screens begin to flicker, if your reflections start moving on their own—don't blink. No matter what.

Because I just did.

And now they're he