Lab Report
The redacted field log from Project Soul Lens — the classified experiment where it all begins, told as a found document.
THE SHAPE
YOU MAKE
A serialized horror concept about trauma made visible, contagious, and impossible to look away from.
When a classified experiment captures something at the moment of death, a perceptual contagion spreads through eye contact — implanting a personal Shape of each victim's trauma that drives them toward madness, or toward passing the infection on for a few hours' relief.
Overview
In early 2020, a classified military-medical programme — Project Soul Lens — tries to image human consciousness at the point of death. Instead it captures something that was never meant to be seen. To look at it — even through a reflection, a recording, or another infected person's eyes — is to carry it for the rest of your life.
The Contagion
The outbreak hides inside the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks, distancing, covered mirrors and a national "Keep Your Eyes Down" campaign double as containment. The only relief is to force the infection onto someone else through eye contact — buying a day or two of sleep, and turning every victim into a potential predator. Around that bargain grows an official Relief Protocol, and the cults that feed on it.
The Shape
Each victim sees their own Shape: a smudge at the edge of vision that sharpens into a tall figure wearing their grief, guilt or fear — and stepping closer with every blink. The threat is never simply seen; it is made. The congenitally blind are immune, and become Shepherds: guides who lead the sighted, blindfolded, through contaminated ground.
Project Materials
The Tate / Thorne Interview
The project's declassified case files scroll beneath an audio excerpt from the interrogation of Declan Tate — a blind, immune Shepherd — by Dr Thorne of the containment authority. A short proof-of-concept for the world's tone and texture.
Proof-of-Concept Pieces
Six published fragments that test the world from different angles — origin document, public-space dread, folklore, military protocol, isolation, and immunity. Free to read on Substack.
The Bus Stop
An atmospheric survival vignette: a bus stop, a crowd, and the quiet discipline of never meeting another passenger's eyes.
Teaser #3
Forum threads, rumours and a half-remembered nursery rhyme — how a frightened public mythologises something it can't admit is real.
Sentry One
A military fragment showing how the contagion moves through mediated sight — thermal scopes, distance and protocol — and the incident that breaks the sniper doctrine.
Iris
A study in isolation: one woman walls herself off from every reflection and screen, and learns where the Shape truly lives.
Shepherd
An interview with Declan Tate — blind since birth, and therefore immune — introducing the Shepherds who guide the sighted through contaminated ground.
If looking at someone could kill you both — would you still look?
Every mirror wears a blanket now,
every screen is turned away…
It’s the shape you make
when the dark looks back.
It takes your hurt
and gives it a face.
Don’t close your eyes.
Don’t give it space.
Read the full lyrics expand_more
Keep your eyes on the pavement, love, keep your breath in your chest.
There are windows in the rain tonight,
and none of them are blessed.
Every mirror wears a blanket now,
every screen is turned away.
There are soldiers on the rooftops
where the angels used to stay.
And I heard them in the stairwell,
saying don’t look up, don’t speak.
There’s a shadow in the corner
and it moves each time you blink.
It’s the shape you make
when the dark looks back.
It wears your voice,
it knows your tracks.
It takes your hurt
and gives it a face.
Don’t close your eyes.
Don’t give it space.
It’s the shape you make.
It’s the shape you make.
There’s a bus with no windows,
there’s a booth for every soul.
There’s a child on a leash of rope
where the underpass turns cold.
There are hunters in the static,
with apologies like knives.
They only need a second
to borrow someone’s life.
And the posters said be careful,
but the posters never said
that the thing you fear is patient,
and it sleeps beside your bed.
It’s the shape you make
when the dark looks back.
It wears your voice,
it knows your tracks.
It takes your hurt
and gives it a face.
Don’t close your eyes.
Don’t give it space.
It’s the shape you make.
It’s the shape you make.
I saw my father in the snowfall.
I saw a lover at the glass
with no reflection there at all.
I heard my uncle in the hallway,
that soft voice meant for one —
the kind that’s worse than shouting,
and you’ve nowhere left to run.
I saw the wound beneath the language.
I saw the first and final ache.
I saw the thing that waits inside us
become the shape we make.
It’s the shape you make
when the dark looks back.
It wears your grief,
it wears your past.
It takes your name
and learns your face.
Don’t close your eyes.
Don’t give it space.
It’s the shape you make.
It’s the shape you make.
At the edge of sleep
it counts your breaths,
it hears the grinding of your teeth.
It stands so still
you’ll think you’re safe —
then one more blink
and it has your face.
(Keep your eyes down.)
(Keep your eyes down.)
Interested in this project?
The full treatment, world bible, and proof-of-concept pieces are available for professional review on request.