The black-eyed children watch from afar.

They don't know who you are, but they know what you're thinking. They know how you've betrayed them. The black-eyed children live in the periphery of your vision, in the itch at the back of your neck, in the cold sweat once all the lights are off, and from the folds between perception, they watch and they wait. When they come out, they do not smile. Their mouths thin and the corners of their lips travel up their face, but they do not smile, and when they speak, it is always the same question. 'Why did you do it?' Their mouths form words, and different sounds reach your eyes, but all you hear them say is, 'why did you do it?'

You never know how to answer.

The black-eyed children never had a chance at life. You inherited a world they have no place in. They come out to play but must always go back, and they come to your backyard, your favorite hiking trail, and your local worship. They always want to be where they do not belong.

Whenever they ask their question, your light grows a little bit dimmer. They live in space unobserved, but each time you see them, each time you feel a tug on the hem of your shirt and look down, they pull you another inch closer. You peer into those vantablack eyes and, before you look away, you swear you see something, something big and drifting, a darker shade in an ocean of nothing, traveling across groups and blotting out their eyes as it travels.

Every morning when you rise, you mock the black-eyed children. Every passing second of your life is an affront. They never had a chance, and they just want to know why, why did you do it, why did you do it, why, and whenever you look down and see and still do not answer, they grow more desperate, so they return to the wink between seconds and take another part of you with them. Another. And you know they’ll come back and ask again, because they always do.

The black-eyed children will never have the answer they seek.

By the time you understand the question, you will be asking it alongside them.