The Red Eyes at Midnight

“The Red Eyes at Midnight”

by Ali Asad Ullah

There are moments in life that don’t just haunt your memory—they consume it. For me, it was the red eyes. I saw them when I was sixteen, and I’ve never been the same since. I grew up in a small, remote village surrounded by endless wheat fields and dense forests. Our home was modest, and the nights were so quiet and dark that you could hear your own heartbeat. There were no streetlights, no passing cars, just the thick presence of nature and shadows. And stories. My grandmother, a deeply spiritual woman, used to tell me tales of djinns, cursed places, and the one legend that chilled me the most—the red eyes that appeared at midnight.

She warned me countless times, “Never look into the fields at midnight. If you see red eyes looking back… don’t blink. Don’t speak. Don’t run.” I laughed it off for years, assuming it was just another superstition. But one summer night in 2015, everything changed. My cousin Haris and I were sitting on the roof during a power outage, exchanging ghost stories. The stars were bright, and the village was wrapped in a thick silence. Haris brought up the story of the red eyes and dared me to come with him to the edge of the fields to see if they were real. I hesitated, but my pride got the better of me.

At around 11:42 p.m., we climbed down with a flashlight and made our way toward the wheat fields behind the house. The moon was full, casting everything in a silvery light. The fields rustled gently in the breeze, and the air was heavy with the scent of soil and grain. We stood quietly at the edge of the crops, waiting. Midnight passed with nothing unusual. Then, at exactly 12:03, the world seemed to shift. The air grew thick, the breeze stopped, and everything went silent. That’s when we saw them—two glowing red dots, hovering just above the wheat. They were too high to be any animal and didn’t blink or move. They just stared at us.

My flashlight began to flicker as Haris whispered, “What the hell is that?” Before I could respond, the eyes blinked—and began moving toward us. Slowly. Steadily. Silently. I was frozen, every muscle in my body locked. But Haris did the one thing we were told not to do—he ran. I heard him scream once, sharp and short. Then nothing. The eyes stopped, then turned back to me. I remembered my grandmother’s warning and held my ground. I didn’t blink. I didn’t move. My eyes burned with tears, but I stared back. Then, just like that, the eyes disappeared—gone into the night.

I found Haris’s phone at the edge of the field. The screen was shattered, the back covered in what looked like claw marks. Search parties looked for him for days. No footprints, no blood, no body. The police assumed he ran away. But I knew better. I had seen what took him. I moved away from the village soon after. Tried to forget. Started college, got a job, built a new life in the city. But the red eyes never left me. They came back in dreams—always watching, always waiting.

Years later, in 2022, I returned to the village for Eid. It had been seven years since that night. The house was older, dustier, more silent. I told myself it was just a visit. But when midnight struck, I couldn’t help myself—I looked out the window. And there they were. The same two red eyes in the same place. But this time, there were more. Two smaller sets, lower to the ground, like children standing behind the first figure. And then I heard it—a soft scrape on the glass behind me. I turned around slowly. On the inside of the window, there was a fresh handprint.

At midnight, the power went out again. I locked every door and window, sat on the floor clutching a knife and a lantern, refusing to blink. Then, from upstairs, came the sound of footsteps. My heart stopped. The footsteps grew louder, closer, until they stopped outside my door. And then I heard a voice—Haris’s voice, whispering through the crack. “…Why did you let me run?” The door creaked open on its own. No one was there. Just wet footprints leading away from my room toward the fields.

The next morning, I went to the oldest man in the village, Baba Noor, and told him everything. He didn’t look surprised. He told me that the fields were cursed long before we were born, the site of something dark and ancient. “It doesn’t want to hurt,” he said. “It wants company.” I left the village that day and never returned.

But even in the city, I’m not safe. Every year, on July 15th—the night it happened—I get a phone call. It rings once, then hangs up. The screen always shows no caller ID and a single red dot where the contact image should be. I’ve changed numbers, moved cities, even left the country once. It always finds me. And some nights, especially around midnight, I’ll see them. Reflected in a window, standing in the corner of my room, or blinking in the mirror behind me—those same red eyes. Watching. Waiting. Not in the fields anymore.

Now they’re everywhere.