Blue. Electric blue. That's the colour of his eyes. No, his eye. Singular. It's large and round. It seems to pierce you right through to the very recesses of your soul, seeing your darkest fears and greatest secrets. In stark contrast, the other one is small and beady and dark, dark brown. So brown it's almost black. It reminds you of that cockroach you just removed from your bathroom the other day.

Your eyes examine his features further – or lack thereof. You see that scars of various hues, from deepest maroon to almost invisible white riddle his face. A chunk of his nose is missing, like someone moulded it out of clay, promptly deciding against that particular shape, clawing it out partly. You inwardly cringe as you imagine long, yellowing, filthy nails gouging their way into the man's face, flesh catching in the assailant's fingers.

His hands are like the branches of an ancient oak. They are long, skeletal, gnarled. They look rough and calloused, probably with many hundreds of hours of hard physical labour. It seems as if those hands could reach out and grab you at any moment, stealing you away from the light of the midday sun. For now, you observe, they are curled securely around a wooden staff, grasping it as if it were made from gold, as if you were trying to snatch it from his grip. As if you would dare to cross this man.

His shoulders are hunched like that of an old man's, although, you observe, he could not be much older than fifty years. You saw earlier that he was limping, as if his leg was not sufficient support for his weight.

Who is this man? What is he doing here? You shift uneasily. You desperately want to tear your gaze away from this great and terrible presence, but you feel drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. He could not be an ordinary man. He had almost – almost – no, the notion was laughable, even in your own mind. He almost seemed to have a magical quality about him. You scold yourself inwardly for letting such puerile thoughts enter your adult mind.

You recoil in horror as you see that the man's large blue eye has swivelled in its socket. You can now only see the bloodshot white. You sense that you have been seen. You turn, and you run. You run as fast as you can and you do not stop until you reach the safety of your home and the door is locked firmly behind you.

For the first time, you're truly afraid, not of the man himself, but the aura of power which seemed to emanate from him. Little do you know that you will meet again. Little do you know that it will be in your time of greatest need. Little do you know that someday soon, he will be the one to save your life.