The Collection

"I cannot take my eyes off of you." These words resonate through the room despite of the loud howl of the wind. Hearing these, the butterflies in my stomach rumbles; fighting one another to get out. No matter how cold this blizzard brings, it couldn't be compared to the coldness of his stares. As he take each steps toward me, I can hear his heavy breathing. Each breath slowly takes mine away. I was paralyzed to where I stand. I tried to speak but every words I have known is lost. Fear becomes a living force that crept unto my body; losing my will and holding me captive.
The Alpha Angelica Academy is one of the finest school in town. It has three main buildings; the grade-school building, the middle-school building and the high-school building. It has great facilities with a big football field, an outdoor pool, a wide gymnasium, an amazing library and an enormous cafeteria. Every classroom is designed with high-end technology that is suitable for each kind of learners. It is a haven for learning and it is every teacher's dream to work here.  As for Sheena, this place will be the foundation of her teaching career.
Even as a new teacher in the academy, Sheena easily adjusted to the school. She has a petite figure with a long black wavy hair and this matches her fair complexion. This woman has a kind and loving look. One thing that makes Sheena unique from other people is her eyes. She is diagnosed with heterochromia; it is a rare eye condition that a person irises has a different color to one another. Her right eye has a hazel color while her left eye has a bluish color. She always wears contact lens to cover the color in her one eye. No one knows about her condition except her best friend, Nadia and a few relatives.  As she walks in the hallway this morning, her eyes did not escape the sight of Mr. Arthur Collins, the president of the academy. The one person who knows about her little secret. The moment that the two met began playing in Sheena's mind.
Six months earlier, Sheena got an email from the academy that she has passed the initial screening for the job. She was invited to do a demonstration teaching and an interview with the President of the school on Monday.  She was so happy upon receiving the news. Monday has come and it is the most awaited day. She's a little bit nervous for it is her first opportunity to be employed. The demo teaching went well. She was immediately summoned to the office of the President. The office is spacious and filled with enormous paintings and sculptures. It was like a visit in a museum of art. She saw Mr. Collins standing behind the glass window; quietly looking to the kids playing outside. The stature of this man emits prominence. His eyes speak honesty and gentleness. His lips were pale and his nose is slender that gives him a noble look. He gazes at her with a serious face and smiled a little. "I admire how each individual is peculiar in their own nature. I believed that you exhibit uniqueness as well. It's nice to meet you, Ms. Rodriguez." He shook her hand wholeheartedly with a warm smile. Sheena answered each questions with confidence and at the back of her mind, she might land the job. What took her by surprised is the last statement of the Mr. Collins. "I wonder how you capture the beauty of each moment through that eyes of yours if you cover it with that lens. Oh well, we will call you for the result of your application," he said. She was astonished that she froze a bit and whisper to herself. "How did he know?" She thought that maybe it was part of the employment process, the checking of the background. Three days after, she got a call that she was hired as a pre-school teacher.
She enters her classroom with a great smile. Despite with the coldness of the winter season, she managed to make a warm and energetic environment for her students. The academy advised the students to go home early for there's a news that the snow won't stop falling. She makes sure that her students were fetched by their parents. In spite of the warning of the weather, she need to accomplish the instructional materials and the grades before the holiday break next week. She is so immerse with what she's doing that she didn't notice that it's evening already. When she look outside, it is snowing hard. She watch how each icy flakes falls heavilly in the ground. She cannot go home with this state of the weather. So, she grab her purse and went to the vending machine to buy some food for herself.  As the snow falls hard, she notice that for the past six months she never had the chance to look around in the academy. So with the piece of bread in her hand, she began exploring the building.
The silence is deafening as she walks in the hallway. She enters each classroom one by one and amazed with the works of the students posted on the walls. She visits the library also and scan the fiction section. She come across a book entitled "The Little Prince." She sat on the library floor and began reading it. While she is busy reading the book, she sees a cat lurking in the dark restricted section in the library. She slowly stands up and walks carefully towards the cat. Accidentally, Sheena dropped the book she's holding. She thought that the cat will run away but it stays there; staring at the small statue beside the shelf. It is a statue of a man that has growing children on his hands, shoulders, knees and feet. She finds it weird and cannot decipher what's the meaning of that statue. She touches the statue's face and accidentally poke his right eye. Suddenly, something opens in the floor. When she looks at it, there's a staircase that leads to something. She hesitated to go in but when she saw how brave that little cat went down to the stairs, she finds the courage to follow it. She used her phone to light her way for everything is covered with darkness. Little by little, she reached the bottom.
Sheena couldn't believe herself from what she saw. Her hands tremble at the sight of an unimaginable place. The room is filled with horrendous glass tubes with body parts of a human and a human being itself. What's insane about it is the peculiarity of each human. There's a collection of conjoined twins; these are twins that are physically joined together at birth and sometimes shares one organ, parasitic twins; one twin ceases development during gestation and becomes vestigial to a fully dominant twin, a man with hypertrichosis or werewolf syndrome; is a condition characterized by excessive hair growth on a person's body,  a man with an Ulnar Dimelia; it is a congenital deformity where there is no thumb and there were seven or eight fingers in the hand, a man who is an albino; a congenital disorder that has the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, and many more. One question pops out of her mind, "Who is the person behind this monstrosity?" When she turns around, a figure of a man is standing near the door. He is holding the little cat whom Sheena followed earlier. It is Mr. Arthur Collins, the President of the academy.
"I cannot take my eyes off of you." These words resonate through the room despite of the loud howl of the wind. Hearing these, the butterflies in my stomach rumbles; fighting one another to get out. No matter how cold this blizzard brings, it couldn't be compared to the coldness of his stares. As he take each steps toward me, I can hear his heavy breathing. Each breath slowly takes mine away. I was paralyzed to where I stand. I tried to speak but every words I have known is lost. Fear becomes a living force that crept unto my body losing my will and holding me captive. Echoes of voices screams at my head. How can someone looks so tame had a wild spirit inside? How can someone who has an angelic smile has a demonic soul? How can someone whose been entrusted with the life of the youth has the audacity to take life?  He comes close to me and slowly caressed my face. His touch clouded my desire to live and all my hopes vanished through the thin air. He uttered words I never long to hear, "You will make a great addition to my collection." In just one snap, I become the eyes that no longer have the power of sight.