There ain’t no sky today.

That was the first thing I noticed when I woke up. My room was dim, but not like normal—not like an early morning before the sun rises. Not like a cloudy day when the light is just slightly muted. This was different. The air felt heavier, thicker, like the world was struggling to breathe. I felt my chest tighten, like I had woken up in a dream that I hadn’t let go of yet.

I got out of bed and pulled open my curtains, expecting to see the usual clear blue sky above the rooftops. Instead, there was nothing. No clouds. No sun. No sky at all. Just a solid, endless gray, like the world had been sealed inside a giant concrete dome. It wasn’t the kind of overcast sky that comes before a storm. There were no darker patches where clouds clumped together, nor were there lighter spots, where the sun tried to push through. It was smooth. Fixed. Empty.

At first, I thought maybe it was fog. That would make sense, right? But as I stepped outside, I realized it wasn’t fog at all. The air wasn’t damp. There was no mist floating along the ground. It was just… nothing.

The street was wrong, too—far too quiet. Normally, I’d hear birds chirping, dogs barking, the distant hum of traffic on the main road. But now, there was nothing. Even my own footsteps sounded muffled as I walked toward the middle of the street, like the sound was being swallowed before it could go anywhere.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. My neighbors were outside, too, looking up with the same confused, uneasy expression. Mrs. Johnson, who always walked her dog first thing in the morning, was standing on her porch instead, clutching the leash like she wasn’t sure whether she should move or not.

“Storm coming?” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. But we all knew better. This wasn’t a storm. Storms have clouds. Storms have wind. This was just—nothing.

I pulled out my phone, but there was no signal. No WiFi, either. My stomach twisted. Maybe it was just my phone? Maybe something was wrong with my service? But as I looked around, I saw other people checking their phones too, shaking them, frowning. The TV in our living room flickered with static. The radio? Dead silence. It was like something had unplugged the entire world.

A little boy, maybe six or seven, clutched his mother’s hand. “Where did the sky go?”

Nobody answered.

Then, the gray above us moved. It wasn’t like clouds drifting or fog rolling in. It was slower, deeper, like something massive stirring just beyond our sight. A ripple ran through the sky—or what should have been the sky—like the surface of a deep, endless ocean shifting under an invisible current.

A shadow stretched across the gray. Then another. Shapes, just barely visible, moving in the distance. And then, for a single, breathless second, I saw it.

An eye. Not a human eye. Not an animal’s. Something bigger. Something vast.

It didn’t blink. It didn’t shift. It only watched.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. My body felt like it was trapped in ice. Every nerve in me screamed to run, but I couldn’t even take a step.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. And the sky snapped back. Blue. Normal. Cloudless. The sun shone like nothing had ever happened. The birds started singing again. The wind picked up. A car engine rumbled to life down the street. Everything was normal. But we all knew better.

People stood frozen for a long moment, staring at the now-perfect sky. No one said anything. Maybe because we weren’t sure it had really happened. Or maybe because saying it out loud would make it too real.

Mrs. Johnson was the first to leave. She turned without a word, walked inside, and shut the door. One by one, the others did the same. Soon, it was just me, still looking up, my heart pounding in my chest. The world had gone back to normal. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had looked at us.

And worse… That it had decided to look away.