2026 Star Festival Prompt
The Watcher in the Mud (13) : With so much rain lately, it's not surprising to find muddy patches throughout the city. Aside from being very slippery, there's nothing notable about most of them. Most. At first, there's only the strange sensation of being watched--and then, you see why. The eyes. There are eyes in the mud. Two, staring up at you, and nothing else. No face, no form. Sometimes the mud is totally flat, sometimes it's sunken into the ground a bit, sometimes it's built up like a small hill--but the eyes are always the same. Blinking, occasionally. Tracking you. Moving, if they need to--with surprising ease. Kick them, disturb the mud, or try to bury them, and they'll simply roll or swivel back into place to continue watching. Even if you try to leave, they'll move until they run out of mud--and then watch until you disappear from sight. If you linger long enough, the eyes will eventually grow heavy and slowly close before sinking beneath the mud.
Clara accidentally dropped his emerald star charm in a puddle of mud and bent to pick it up when he noticed something odd. In the dim twilight, what he first thought were bubbles seemed to blink at him. He peered closer, thinking maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and there had just been bubbles that had popped or something, but the closer the got, the more disturbing things became. What he was so certain were merely bubbles were actually eyes staring at him.
Quickly snatching up his star charm and wiping the mud that had gotten on it off on his bright red skirt, he frowned at the eyes with his lips parted slightly, emerald eyes wide with alarm. Was it some kind of magic? Was someone somewhere looking at him through a muddy puddle like a looking glass? They often did such things in fairy tales and Destiny City was just weird enough for something like that to be probable there. Especially when it came to the Negaverse. Who knew the extent of what those guys were capable of?
That reminded Clara of the corrupt senshi he had met not long ago; the one that had smelled of chocolate because he had a chocolate sphere. He had threatened to take Clara's starseed - no, not just take, but eat. That seemed depraved even by chaos faction standards. Did they really allow their agents to do such things? Just the idea made an unpleasant shiver run down his spine. Though the encounter had been a bit ago, some nights he still woke up in a cold sweat after nightmares of Chara's hand reaching for his chest to pluck out his starseed and eat it.
The idea that it could have been Chara watching him through those staring eyes, spying on him to locate him so he could come after him again, was enough to frighten Clara into violently splashing his high heel into the mud puddle. He had hoped to dismiss or at least dissuade the eyes from appearing to watch him again, but unfortunately a few seconds later they were back. They didn't seem to have any bloodlust or anger or killing intent behind them, at least, but Clara still didn't trust them. Just because they didn't seem to have any ill intentions didn't mean someone associated with them didn't have any ill intentions either.
"Go away!" Clara yelled at the eyes, which merely blinked at him in response. He tried to reach down and splash at the mud some more; tried to cover up the eyes or feel for whatever they belonged to so he could bring it up out of the mud, but there was nothing to feel; nothing to grasp. Eventually, Clara began to experiment to see how far and long the eyes would watch him and if they could follow him; perhaps from one mud puddle to another. The eyes continued to watch him no matter how far or in what direction he went. However, when he began to walk away, they didn't follow.
Realizing he had been afraid for probably no reason at all when he could have just walked away the entire time, Clara laughed mirthlessly at himself. He had let his own fears get the best of him. He was probably just being paranoid just like he probably was about Chara. The corrupt eternal senshi had probably forgotten about him long ago if he had abandoned stealing his starseed when he had been seconds away from it just for a silly little phone call.
With a sigh, Clara felt slightly more at peace as he simply left the harmless eyes in the mud puddle where they continued to stare, not bothering to even look back once he knew they couldn't follow. He had enough other things to worry about.
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((The End))
