This story originally appeared in Wicked Words Quarterly. Though it’s an early piece and a little rough around the edges, I’m fond of it. The story began its life in an online class I took with Jack Ketchum. He was, from all I could tell, a nice man and a generous, insightful teacher. We were asked to write a story inspired by some memory of fear. I chose the terror of waking up with my eyes sealed shut by excessive amounts of sleep dust. I took the old feeling and ran with it into the weird.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

                                                 by Wendy Hammer

Iggy Emerson was the weakest PhD student in her department. Every class was a struggle, and every paper a grind, but she had one thing working in her favor. Iggy had always been able to dive into the dark well of sleep without hesitation. She could close her eyes, enter the black, and go. Waking was just as smooth. She would emerge, alert and ready to face the day.

The process had always been as easy as opening and closing her eyes. 

# 

The night began like any other. Iggy’s blonde hair flowed across her pillow like a moonlit stream. Her breathing was deep and regular. She was the perfect picture of peaceful slumber, except for one lone detail. Her left eye had crusted over—the delicate green orb was buried under a dull golden brown scab of sleep dust. 

As she slept, a visible pulse appeared behind the mass. It increased in speed and power with every beat, but it wasn’t enough to break through the crust—the hardened patch held firm. The left eye was well and truly trapped behind its wall, safe from whatever mischief had animated it.

The right eye had no such barrier. 

It wiggled, and jiggled, and heaved. With great effort, it finally managed to pull itself free. The eye crawled over to its sister, made a token effort to poke at the crust with the ends of its optic nerve, but moved on. 

There was so much to see after all. 

The eye was clever and malleable. It snuck through the small gap under the door—the same one Iggy had eyed with displeasure ever since Move-In day. Muscles made strong by constant movement propelled it along. It hid in shadows and corners. 

The eye tested itself and soon discovered it could inch up walls. It crept up and settled on top of a ceiling mounted security camera. Thursday night was a party night, even in the grad dormitory. There were arguments, drunk dancing, laughter, and even some rather perfunctory hallway sex on display. 

The eye saw it all. 

When it grew red and slow with fatigue, it journeyed back to Iggy’s room and tucked itself in for the last hour or two before morning. The lid pulled down over the eye like a well-loved blanket. 

The other eye had lost its chance for freedom, but there was something new for it to experience too. It flicked rapidly from side to side, locked in the rhythms of sleep, dancing to the tune of dreams. 

#

The alarm chimed at its usual time, and Iggy woke to find she could only open one eye. For a moment she was gripped by panic, but a quick touch was enough to tell her it was only a bad case of sleep crusties—rheum. She winced, but knew it would be easy enough to take care of. The other eye felt dry and gritty, and it took a moment or two longer to focus than usual, but was otherwise fine. 

Iggy soaked the plug of sleep dust off in the moist heat of the shower. As she soaped and shampooed her body, she lingered over the novelty of dreaming. She had handbook knowledge of dreams. She knew something about their science and chemistry, and had listened to others talk about them, but Iggy never remembered experiencing a dream firsthand. She’d only known the black. 

She wasn’t sure what to make of last night and her first dream. It had started with silent flashes of images: an elevator, glimpses of students she recognized, the stained carpet, and the industrial blue hue of the dorm’s walls. 

Then the scene changed. A pair of ravens—inky black brutes—cawed and flew in slow circles around her head as she trudged through a sea of bending grass. Sometimes they glided down and whispered in her ear. She didn’t know why she walked or where she was going, but she never stopped moving.

She passed other figures on her journey: a woman with a glowing moon in her belly and a crown of stars, a great bear with lightning bolts for eyes, and a man who cradled a rainbow in his hands. None of them noticed her. 

She had only the ravens for company.

Iggy turned off the water and toweled herself dry. She shrugged and rubbed her eyes. They itched like crazy. “The pollen count must be sky high today,” she muttered. 

#

For two months, she experienced vivid, but disjointed visions. Every night one part took place in her dorm, but the other took her to the far elsewhere. There were fleeting visits to dank caves and burning deserts. Iggy swung from the limbs of a giant tree with roots that pierced the heart of the world, and she sipped from dappled pools of sweet iced well water. Sometimes she flew.

Every morning she would wake up with the echoes of raven-cries in her ears. Every night she went to bed early, too exhausted to study. It was difficult to concentrate and she was afraid her coursework would suffer. Even the thought of that possibility made her seize up. 

Iggy missed the old days—missed that nimble dive and graceful descent into the black. Her transitions used to be made without a ripple, without a trace. 

#

Night by night, the eye grew bolder. It strayed farther and farther away from its host, and was less and less interested in returning. 

Iggy was so squeamish. She looked away too often. 

The eye wanted it all: the rot, the ugly, the twisted and secret, the entire spectrum and spectacle of violence and despair. It had seen enough bland cuteness and soft things to last forever. It wanted something raw and new. 

The eye craved light more than anything. Light exposed all. It was brutal and honest. That need for a harsh glare goaded the eye, drove it, and tantalized it. The eye’s desire felt like a speck of grit on its cornea.

It fluttered its nerve endings in irritation. It found no more pleasure in the shadows, and slunk back to Iggy to pop itself back into the confines of her bone and skin. 

It held its dormant sister in contempt.

It burned with resentment. 

#

Iggy’s fears eventually came true. The pressure continued to mount as the semester progressed. Instead of allowing herself the chance to visit with family during break, she forced herself to stay in the office to work. Thousands of dollars of debt, her pride, and her future were at stake. Iggy pushed herself without mercy. 

She worked through the night, and succumbed to sleep at noon the next day. Iggy snored at her desk. Her chin glistened with moisture and a puddle of drool had begun to seep through one of her papers.

The eye didn’t care. Its chance for light had arrived. The eye seized the opportunity and pulled itself out of its socket with ease. It skittered down Iggy’s cheek and hopped onto the desk. 

She twitched. 

The eye had never been able to explore this place before. It spied papers, a ring of dried coffee, and the dead husk of an insect. There were photos and books—so many books. The eye had little interest in them beyond their bright covers. It had come to resent being forced to scan the monotony of text. The eye slapped at the nearest tome. 

The book teetered and slipped off the stack. 

The eye froze. 

Iggy jerked at the noise, snorted, and woke up. She brushed the back of her hand over her chin and cheek with bleary imprecision. “Huh?” 

Everything looked flat and strange. She tried to shake off the cottony feeling of disorientation. Iggy turned her head and stopped. 

The eye still stood its ground on the corner of her desk. 

They stared at one another and the contact created a kind of feedback loop. 

Iggy could clearly see there was an eye on her desk. It had a pale green iris, red capillaries, and a trail of nerves. It was sandwiched in muscle. She drew back and her upper lip twitched. She couldn’t tell if it was the sight of the eye that caused the reaction or what the eye was seeing.

Iggy’s vision had doubled and she watched herself. 

She loomed, a grotesque giant thing with wildly tousled blonde hair, one fixed green eye, and a gaping hole where the other should be. 

A scream squeezed out of her throat, and emerged as a strangled keening cry. 

The eye quivered, but couldn’t move. 

They sat, locked in the stare. As the moments ticked by, Iggy found that her horror settled down. It faded to fear, then dread, then a more dispassionate curiosity. As she calmed, so did the eye.

Eventually, she could recognize it as part of herself. “How in the world did you get there?” 

The eye pulsed, as if to shrug. 

The move surprised a laugh out of Iggy. 

The eye shimmied. 

Iggy fell for the eye at that moment. It was, after all, no real stranger to her. She could finally see its beauty. 

The eye’s judgment softened as well. It moved closer to her inch by inch, finally settling by one of the towers of books.  

“You are so lovely, little eye,” she cooed. “You brought me the dreams, didn’t you?” 

She put her hand on the desk, palm out. A wave of emotion gripped her. Iggy had never loved anything as intensely as she did that eye in that moment. 

The eye responded and moved into the cup of her hand. It nestled down into its warm cradle. It felt love and beloved. 

Iggy stood at the precipice and made her choice. She thought of her dreams.

She whispered to the eye, “Thank you.” 

And then she squeezed. 

The eye was crushed in her grip. It exploded with a pop and her palm filled with warm liquid ooze.   

She cried out. 

When the eye was destroyed, a curtain of black fell over one side of her vision. It yawned before her, an endless void. Grief clenched at her throat, but she shook it away and buckled down to work. 

Words flowed and connections sprang together effortlessly. She paused only to swipe away the stray tears that leaked slowly and steadily from her remaining eye.

The only sound in her office was her soft breathing and the clicking of keys, but elsewhere, so very far away, the air filled with the music of ravens.