Once upon a time, there was a man named Samuel, a lonely soul who, for a long time, had lived alone in an old house on top of a hill. Although the house was majestic and his life comfortable, he was far away from everything and everyone, so when a woman named Rosaura knocked on his door, Samuel was startled.
Rosaura and Samuel became friends; they had many things in common, and after a while, they got married, and everything would be perfect for Samuel, except for a strange condition that his wife had.
Every night, when Samuel retired to bed, he would see her lying beside him, with her eyes open and without any trace of blinking. Her eyes were like two dark mirrors, staring back at him. At first, Samuel tried to get used to this peculiarity, but in time, his mind filled with dark thoughts, and his love turned to fear.
Weeks passed and then months passed, and Samuel became obsessed with Rosaura's open eyes. His nights became unbearable, tormented by his wife's unchanging gaze. He began to spend his nights awake, staring into Rosaura's eyes while she slept. The tension in their relationship became palpable, and Rosaura began to notice the distance that was being created between them.
One night, Samuel decided he couldn't take it anymore. The obsession had darkened his mind, and his sanity was slipping into the abyss. Armed with a sharp knife, he crept closer to Rosaura's bed, determined to close his eyes forever and free himself from this torture. But when he leaned over her, something strange happened.
Rosaura spoke in an almost inaudible whisper, “Why, Samuel?”
Startled, Samuel withdrew abruptly and looked at Rosaura's eyes, which were still open. She continued speaking, her tone calm and serene. “Don't be afraid of me, Samuel; I can only live when your wife sleeps.”.
Alarmed and without giving credit to what was happening, the man flinched and knocked over a lamp behind him. The roar made the woman sit up without having any idea what was happening. He calmed her down and told her to go back to sleep.
Samuel went out into the bush. It was a night as dark as his thoughts, and it was clear that this situation could not continue. He was in his thoughts when a small man came out of nowhere.
—Good night.
Good night, answered Samuel.
The little man approached him one more time.
—Why didn't you do it?
—What do you mean, you? —Samuel understood that maybe it was an eavesdropping neighbor who had witnessed what he was about to do.
—You were going to kill “it” that lives in your house.
Samuel walked quickly in the opposite direction without giving the little man a chance to continue talking, but the strange character said something else, and the troubled man heard it:
—If you don't kill it, “it” will kill you!
The first rays of the sun were already rising when Samuel arrived at the house. Rosaura had gotten up and was making coffee. She wanted to ask him where he had been, but she preferred not to do it when she saw his disjointed and somber face.
The following nights were no longer of fear and torture, but rather of a cold fight, a war scenario where two enemies observed each other.
Not Rosaura, but her eyes, followed each movement of Samuel. He, in turn, calculated his potential attack. He realized that it would be impossible to attack “it,” surprisingly. The eyes seemed to guess his intention.
The day had already dawned when Rosaura returned from feeding the chickens. She brought the basket of eggs; the birds had been very generous that morning. “I can make a great breakfast,” she thought. “Maybe the food will take away Samuel's bad mood.”.
The man was already waiting for her in the kitchen. He looked at her with glassy eyes, and the dark circles under his eyes, a product of all the sleepless nights, had a grayish tone... Rosaura's husband had become strange; possibly he was sick.
She could no longer feel that he loved her; it was more like he hated her. That's why she was surprised that morning when he hugged her; he surrounded her with his body, and she felt that everything would be all right. Possibly, the hug was Samuel's way of apologizing for all the nights he didn't sleep with her, or that for some strange reason he went for a walk in the early morning.
Rosaura felt the cold of the knife in her belly that entered again and again with force. She saw how the basket fell to the floor and the eggs were stained with her blood. The woman died in her confusion, but without crying, and as evening fell all was silent.