
12/10/2025
(as asked, one a little bit more horrific)
The whispers started when the old blind seer, Elara, suddenly regained her sight. Not true sight, not of the world around her, but of something deeper, something terrible. She would point at seemingly ordinary townsfolk and shriek, "I see the evil in your eyes! I see the black rot in your soul!" They dismissed her as mad, until the disappearances began.
It was always the ones Elara had accused. The baker who secretly short-changed his customers, the farmer who poisoned his neighbour's well, the elder who embezzled from the orphanage fund. They vanished, leaving no trace but a faint, coppery tang in the night air.
The terror truly gripped us when the Night Butcher came.
We only saw glimpses at first: a hulking shadow, impossibly large, moving through the alleyways under the blood-red moon. But the sounds… the sounds were clear. A wet, tearing noise, like fabric ripping, followed by a sickening crunch, like bone splintering. And then, a guttural, satisfied moan that chilled the blood.
One night, young Thomas, a boy known for his cruel pranks and malicious lies, didn’t come home. His mother, distraught, found a trail of fresh blood leading to the town’s abandoned slaughterhouse. Fear warring with love, she pushed open the rusted doors.
What she saw that night broke her mind.
The Night Butcher stood at the centre of the room, a monstrous figure, its scales a sickening, mottled crimson. Around its massive neck hung what looked like a tattered, blood-soaked apron. In its colossal hands, it held something small, glistening, and terribly familiar. It was an eye. A human eye, still vibrant, still reflecting the terror of its last moments. The Butcher brought it slowly to its wide, fanged mouth, its immense jaws working with a sickening relish.
The floor around it was a charnel house, littered not with the butchered remains of animals, but with piles of human eyes. Some stared vacantly, others were wide with eternal horror, all stripped from their former owners. Each one, Elara would later explain, was a concentrated orb of malice, a crystallized bead of wicked intent.
The Night Butcher didn't care for flesh or bone. It cared only for the evil it could literally pluck from within a person. It was a connoisseur of corruption, a gourmand of guilt. Its massive, predatory gaze was drawn to the spark of ill will, to the flicker of deceit, to the festering darkness behind the iris. It was the ultimate judge, for it literally consumed the evidence of sin.
When the creature finished its grisly meal, it let out a low, satisfied growl. Then, its head turned slowly, deliberately, towards the mother, still frozen in the doorway. Its own eyes, blazing with an unholy intelligence, locked onto hers.
The mother didn't scream. She didn't faint. She felt a burning, agonizing pressure behind her own eyes, as if invisible hooks were tearing at her very being. The creature was looking into her soul, searching. Searching for the seeds of hatred she bore for the Night Butcher, for the vengeful thoughts against the world that had stolen her son.
She collapsed to the floor, convulsing, fighting an unseen force that sought to rip the evil from her. But there was no evil in her, only overwhelming grief and fear. The monster seemed to sense this. Its gaze softened, subtly, almost imperceptibly. It gave a dismissive flick of its clawed hand, sending a pile of empty, bloody eye sockets skittering across the floor, and turned its back on her.
The Night Butcher eventually vanished, leaving behind a terrified town and a slaughterhouse filled with the silent, staring evidence of its horrific diet. Elara, the blind seer, died shortly after, whispering, "It tasted the world's sickness, and then left it to heal."
Now, years later, the people of the town are different. They are careful. They are kind. Not out of inherent goodness, but out of a profound and chilling understanding. For they know, deep in their bones, that the Night Butcher is always out there, watching. And it sees the evil in your eyes.