To build excitement for the upcoming release of Issue 15 (which will be out April 26th, 2023) we’re releasing one of our favorite stories early for you to read right now. Thank us on Twitter https://twitter.com/planetscumm or by sending a groveling, 1000 word essay to our intern Mglbfx-2.

Cover Your Eyes

When I was six, I asked my mother, "Why don't we go out in daylight anymore?" while she sat by my bed at noon, way past my bedtime.

My mother laughed. "Why should we?" She stroked my hair, urging me to sleep so she could slip away to the job she was already late for.

Her response was what her own mother had told her when she was younger. I didn't question it before, and I still don't. The instilled fear of mornings was far greater than my curiosity. Until one day, before her death, she told me, "Look outside when it's daylight." But she never had the chance to tell me why.

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I preferred sleeping with my back toward the window—as did everyone else—but not my mother. She always worked during daytime, when most of the world was asleep or waiting for nightfall, with alert minds and eyes pressed shut with effort. Day traffic was minimal but always sounded like screeching prey, or sometimes crawling predators. I kept my window closed and the curtain drawn—that was what my mother taught me.

But I never felt truly asleep when it was daytime. It always felt like the sun was watching me from outside the window. Maybe it was.

In the coffee shop, under fluorescent lights and artificial glare, I told Kinqu about my insomnia.

"Don't worry about it so much. You get used to it." It had already been twenty-five years, and I still was not used to sleeping in the presence of the sun during the day, though I had known no other routine. Next week I’ll be turning twenty-six—the anniversary of my mother’s death. It has been a decade, but it meant much more recently.

I shouldn't have looked out the window.

"When did you get used to it?" I watched the mosquitoes crowd around the lightbulbs, thinking of the way most of us cower now from the sun. Unlike the past, insects that fed on flesh evolved to roam wherever was brightest, without fear.

A mosquito flew by Kinqu's head. He waved it away unconsciously. It flew towards me, landed on my arm. A prick. I let it be as it drank its fill, the way my mother would have let it. It amazed me still how fearless they were, showing such lust and greed in plain sight. The way they fed without consequence. They reminded me of the men in the photos the police showed me when Mo—

"What are you doing tomorrow, during the day?"

I sniffed with minor annoyance. Kinqu knew what I would be doing during the day tomorrow, what most people also did.

I pressed my lips together, offering an unamused expression before I said, "Staying home."

He blew raspberries. "Don't always be such a killjoy. Come with me to the club. Just once." Kinqu raised and lowered his brows with a smirk.

I shook my head. "Next time."

"You know that's a lie." He crossed his arms. I watched a mosquito land. Kinqu smacked his hand over the insect, then flicked it away, not bothering to wipe the leftover blood now smeared over a minuscule patch of skin.

From where we sat on the patio, we could see the TV screen near the café's entrance.

"Statistics. Everyone loves statistics, don't we?" the news anchor woman asked her partner, a meek man who appeared to be a new addition to the segment.

"Y-Yes," the male anchor replied.

The anchor woman's smile seemed to twitch, though it remained taunt. Her red lips always looked too bright.

"With everyone remaining indoors during the day—or at least most," she raised a brow, "there has been a significant decrease in violence." The anchor woman then jumped into those statistics, offering charts and diagrams I had no interest in. Kinqu's eyes were glued to the screen. Their reasoning made little sense to me, but I knew better than to question the government's logic. It seemed more than enough people believed it anyhow… like Kinqu.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, thinking of my mother. They had said no one would dare attack in plain sight, but still… And it was never reported on the news.

"See? It's perfectly safe," Kinqu said, gesturing to the screen.

I shook my head. It wasn't, but there was no sense trying to argue with someone who wouldn't listen.

I watched the light bleed into the sky, starting from the end of the street. When night was halfway gone outside my window, I hung up my new curtains. The tarpaulin fabric of this set smelled stale and was thicker and more opaque than the almost translucent cotton that I had before. But that set felt comforting—they had soaked up the smell of coffee and fresh-laundry air freshener that floated in my room. The new curtains offered a greater sense of safety in the darkness they provided. It wasn’t what Mother would've wanted, but what she’d said about not needing to be fearful was proven wrong the day she passed.

"I bought new curtains," I said to Kinqu when I settled down in front of him at the café the next night.

There were no mosquitoes today. The ice clinked and scraped against the inside of my glass, disturbing the iced latte before it stilled—muffled screeching.

"Still can't get used to it, huh?" Kinqu glanced at me from the corner of his eye before refocusing on the waitress walking by. He'd been trying to get her attention for weeks after noticing the brooch she always wore on her uniform—one with the logo of a band he likes. I could never remember the name, but I caught snippets of the music once, and they were always shouting about seeing clearer in the dark.

Kinqu sported tight shorts, like always, while I sweltered in my sweats. My stomach boiled as Kinqu's gaze continued to follow the waitress. I popped an ice cube into my mouth. The mosquitoes returned.

"Today. Come on, it's your birthday. Let's go to the club in the morning," said Kinqu, eyes twinkling with mischief. I shook my head.

I didn't know why he always bothered asking if he already knew what my answer would be, and where he conjured the constant hope that perhaps one day I'd change.

Shadows darted across the street—people late for work. The bus's tail lights gleamed at the corner. A lost cause. No point trying to catch up now. I imagined Mother fast-walking in the daytime when the buses didn't run. Perhaps if they did—

"It's also my mother's anniversary. You already know we always celebrate with brunch at midnight."

Though Kinqu and I have been friends for years—an odd coming together of extrovert and introvert—our often-conflicting thoughts could make it feel as though he were a stranger.

The comforting darkness wavered in the sky. My palms were clammy. I wiped them against my leggings, the fabric making me feel like a bound sausage.

Kinqu took a quick look at my outfit choice. His eyes twitched. Though he never voiced it, he wished I didn't feel the need to cover myself, to hide. But he understood my worries, and he knew what happened to Mother. It wasn't her fault, he'd said. No, it wasn't, but it was better to be safe—though I wished we didn't have to be so careful with our bodies because of the darkness gnawing at the minds of some. I looked down at my sweats—at least this was something I could control.

I waved away a mosquito.

"Next time, then," he said, but his attention had already moved elsewhere.

The waitress was nowhere to be found. Kinqu's eyes kept roaming the streets. I swiped the condensation from my glass and flicked it at his face. He turned with a scowl.

"Who are you looking for?" I asked.

He shook his head, eyes downcast. "No one." Kinqu chewed his upper lip. "It's not as scary as you think, you know." He looked up at the moon, but he was referring to the sun. I wasn't sure if he was trying to convince me or himself, but his words held a hint of hesitance.

There was laughter in the distance coming from a group of men. They were looking in our direction. I stiffened. My eyes met one of the men standing near the front of the pack.

"Early risers," I muttered, eyes flitting away. "I see them around sometimes, wandering the streets when I'm heading home a bit too late. Always got the crazed look in their eyes…" I refocused on Kinqu. "Do you ever see them… do anything?" I thought of the crime reports.

"Nope. I'm telling you. It's perfectly safe. Numbers don't lie!" Kinqu shook his head. "They've even cut down on the police force."

That worried me.

"Be careful, alright?"

Kinqu rolled his eyes but nodded.

I smacked the mosquito that landed on my arm; its crumpled wings glinted in the fairy lights the café hung up along the outdoor seating area. Smooth jazz played from the speakers, but I couldn't help imagining the saxophone’s squeal coming from the dead insect smeared on my skin.

"It is."

In both our hands, Kinqu and I clutched the same coffees, munched on the same croissants for breakfast, and waited for the moon to shine at its brightest before we parted ways. We had been friends for years, but it always surprised me how similar yet different he and I were. Like my mother, Kinqu also worked during the day. I tried to convince him to take a night shift, but he refused. Kinqu's the only one I had left.

I left Kinqu with the dead mosquito. Mother was waiting.

"It's getting warmer," I said when I sat down next to my mother's gravestone. I set an alarm for twenty minutes before 4 a.m, when the sun would rise. One hour would be enough. "The days are getting longer again."

I pulled at the grass and watched as the blades fell when I dropped them.

"I'll be starting at that café you used to work at—dawn? I asked for the night shifts, but I think they might give me a few day ones too… They're still open for twenty-four hours, except Sundays. You'd think they'd learn after you—"

I wasn't sure why I wanted to work at the same job that caused my mother's death, the same position, the same hours—or what would be the same hours.

"It'll be okay though, right?"

Maybe I was hoping she'd rise from her grave, shake my shoulder, tell me not to do it.

"Right?"

My alarm went off, but the sun was early, peeking in a crescent through the trees that blocked its red and orange body. It was too early.

I scrambled to my feet, kissed my mother's gravestone, and ran out of the cemetery and onto the empty streets as the light chased me from behind.

I slowed to a walk halfway home, panting, lungs burning. The sky was pink, like washed-out flesh, and lightened by the second. When my breathing evened, I heard footsteps behind me. My lips dried. I was still far enough from my house that quickening my steps would only draw more attention, signal alarm—danger. I turned. A man in his forties, dressed in a tweed coat with a matching hat, treaded behind me at a leisurely pace. He looked harmless enough, but my heart still pounded faster, trying to force its way from the confines of my ribs. I turned again to watch him as I walked. Then again. Again. Again. Again. Then—

He noticed.

I bit my tongue. He smiled apologetically and crossed the street, picked up his pace so he walked ahead of me rather than behind, even with the width of the road between us. I watched his back until he turned the corner.

I didn't breathe until I reached home. I didn't breathe as I struggled to open the front door. I didn't breathe when I dashed into the house, slammed the door behind me, collapsed onto all fours, heart and lungs dropping onto the carpeted floor.

I finally breathed when I drew my curtains. On the bed, I pulled the blankets around me, drenching myself in darkness.

"Open. The. Window."

A scream.

But my window remained closed, muffling the sound. The light had already crawled in, and with it, the muted noises of the day.

I was sixteen years old at the time.

I covered my ears, eyes squeezed shut, and remained immobile when the police arrived, immobile when they left. At the station, I didn't speak.

During the day, when they finally brought me home, I listened, watched, but I couldn't tell if it was the light that had burned my eyes or if it was the unseen events that had unfolded beneath my dreadful window. Why did Mother want me to open the window?

After two days of sleeplessness, exhaustion forced my eyes to flutter shut. I wondered what else I could possibly do but continue keeping my curtains open, the glass screen unlatched, pulled upwards.

After a year, I returned to the dark. That was what Mother would have wanted.

From behind the drawn curtains, my room looked still. Not a single shadow passed through navy drapes, black in the dark, though the ceiling seemed to swirl as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light.

I'd forgotten to close the windows.

A light, passing breeze pushed against the curtain. A sliver of light leaked through, casting jagged shadows across the walls. The ceiling continued to swirl with the light. Shadows mocked me with their gnarled limbs.

A high-pitched scream drifted through the window.

Mother?

I should close it. That was what they told us to do on the news, what they insisted we do. The scream weakened, faded. My heart hammered—ice against ice within my body.

They don't want us to see…

Mother?

They don't want us to care…

Because they themselves don't want to care…

With a sudden rush of adrenaline, I leapt from my bed and ripped the heavy drapes apart, allowing the bright noon sun to stream into the room. Outside, below my window, in the middle of the road, was Kinqu, battered from what I could see. Bruises—brown and purple like rotting fruit in the fridge—blossomed across his eyes, nose, elbows, and knees. He rose, dragging himself forward at an impossibly slow pace, knees trailing rust; a snail stuck in its own slime. Behind him loomed a man—the same one from before? No. Different. Closer and closer, until he nipped at Kinqu's heels.

Kinqu was missing one shoe, the other Converse frayed from the dragging. The man snaked a hand around Kinqu's waist, covering his eyes with the other. And it was as though covering Kinqu's eyes, shielding them from the light, caused him to suddenly lose consciousness. But what the man had caused was nothing but momentary blindness, the illusion of darkness—something we had been taught meant safety even in the most dangerous of situations. There was a false sense of security, of ease, of a strange kindness in darkness, and of blindness.

I threw open my window, eyes squinting and spasming uncontrollably in the light.

"Kinqu!"

Mother.

The man looked up, his mask too opaque and my vision too impaired for our eyes to meet. Kinqu squirmed, his head flailing, searching for the direction of my voice.

The pause lasted less than a few seconds before I tore out of my room, bare feet propelling me past Mother's empty bedroom, down the stairs, barely halting before I slammed into the front door. I took an umbrella from a stand by the door, the one Mother always brought with her to work. There was no time to find a proper weapon.

"Kinqu!"

Mother.

I rounded the house, screaming nonsensical words, hoping to draw attention, get others to open their curtains, or even come out of their house—a futile hope. The man was running down the street with Kinqu abandoned where I'd seen him last.

"Kinqu?"

Mother?

No response. I tented the black umbrella and raised it above us, hiding us from the sun. Kinqu's chest rose and fell, unrhythmic and erratic.

"Help!" I called. "Help!"

But there was no sound, only the insistent buzzing of invisible mosquitoes in my ear.

My eyes spun around, searching, looking at everything but seeing nothing. Mother's laughter echoed in my head. So blind. So very, very blind.

"Fire!" The voice that ripped open my lips was a high-pitched wail, a raw croaking that gurgled in my throat. "Fire!"

And soon, windows stood with parted curtains, shadows lingering behind glass. The streets pooled, a river of blurred figures scuttling into the light, surrounding us in a crowd, mouthless whispers. Fear not for us, not a young girl bawling in the streets or a young man on the verge of death, but for their own lives amid a false fear of a wild blaze trailing.

My shoulders relaxed, though my fingers remained tight claws curled around the handle of the umbrella. My eyelids fluttered, vision still unfocused, until something pulled me upwards. "No," I said. "Kinqu." I pointed.

The umbrella fell from my hands, and I grabbed at it blindly.

"Where's the fire?" they asked, the question echoing, repeating, hands pulling at me, shaking me, pecking at me from all directions. "Where is the fire?"

I pointed to myself and the fracturedness they could not see. Then I pointed at Kinqu, who now had his own hands covering his eyes, knees drawn over his naked chest. There was the sound of a phone beeping, someone dialling, hopefully for help. The crowd began to disperse when the sirens wailed in the distance—until there was but a handful left.

A voice came from my left, from the hand that still had hold of my elbow. "Can you walk? Can you see?"

I shook my head. No. No. No.

There was movement, and the red behind my closed eyelids dimmed. I paused, then opened my crusting eyes in slow motion.

"Can you walk? Can you see?"

I looked up at the opaque skin of the black umbrella, then at the face of my rescuer—an elderly woman who lived down the street—flanked by a young couple who had just moved into the neighborhood. A man, the same one who had crossed the street for my comfort earlier, crouched over Kinqu with a blanket.

"Yes," I nodded, my hand wrapping around the woman's, over the umbrella handle. "Yes."

It is safe, it is safe, if we just make it so.

Mother.

Issue 15 Preview! "Cover Your Eyes" by Ai Jiang

Cover Your Eyes