A room full of broken ‘faces’ all stared at her. The walls of the room were all staring, questioning her. Some of the ‘faces’ were more broken than the rest, while some only had minor cracks. The number of the ‘faces’ stored in this vast room were well over one-thousand. The room was a dark and scary place, one that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand. Though sadly this little girl had gotten used to the chilling environment.
Her weighted footsteps echoed with every step she took, filling the empty but full room. Quiet sobs could be heard in between steps but only a mouse that was focusing would be able to hear it. Tear drops fell off her face wetting broken shards of glass as well as the floorboards beneath it. Tap…Tap…Tap… she walked through the chilling room, passing ‘faces’ upon ‘faces’, until finally reaching the end of the room. The young girl’s shaking hands reached for a ‘face’ that was hung on the wall, a ‘face’ with no cracks, clean and new like Fine-China. Trembling but also calmly, she picked up the glass-like ‘face’ and moved the smiling face towards her crying face. Her original face, a face that would make anyone pity her, was now replaced with a smiling one. One with an expression that would make no one question her sincerity.
CRACK
The sound of glass cracking could be heard, but no one turned their head to see, almost like there was no sound to begin with. Even if there was, it would’ve been drowned out by the sound of laughter from within the classroom. The loudest laughter could be heard from Lia’s group. While the laughing increased, the cracking did too.
‘Stop lying through your teeth, if they find out, they’ll hate you even more than they do now.’ A mocking voice echoed through her little head.
Her eyes started to redden; she was about to cry.
‘Ah, I can’t cry, not right now. Not while I’m still in front of them’ she thought to herself.
Before anyone could notice the change, she opened her mouth into a yawn.
“Huh? Lia, are you okay?”
“Hmmm? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, haha I just yawned. I didn’t sleep much last night…”
Lia’s friends asked with uncertainty, only to get a smile of an angel in return.
“Ah, sleep earlier tonight! You seemed out of it for the past week now.”
“Yeah, what April said! We worry about you, ya’know?”
‘Lies. Amazing, they can lie without hesitation.’
“Will do, I’ll sleep extra early today since you guys asked me to.”
‘Ha! What a hypocrite you are! You lie just as well.’ Lia eternally scoffed at herself while just smiling with her friends.
CRACK
“Ah!” Lia accidently gasped out loud, terror filled her face.
‘It’s breaking too quickly…’
No one heard her little slip up since the bell signalling the end of school rang louder than her gasp. The trio of girls all said their goodbyes and soon all left the school grounds.
SLAM! SHATTER
The sounds of a door slamming, and glass shattering rang throughout the house though the latter downed out the former. Within the room the little girl’s face had returned back into it’s original state. The mask, in the form of shards, was thrown somewhere in the room. The darkness of the room towered over the little girl, almost swallowing her whole.
‘Haha, hahahah! Hilarious!’
The room full of faces, the dark and cold place reappeared again, but this time. Instead of being lifeless, they were historically laughing at the small child.
‘How sad, boo hoo. There she goes crying again like always!’
‘So sad…pfft.’
‘Pfft so, so sad. How pitiful.’
Some voices full of mockery and some filled with snickers filled the room drowning the quiet sobs of the little girl.
“……sob…someone….sa-“
Even before she could finish her sentence someone cut her off.
‘HA! ARE YOU ASKING FOR HELP? HUH??’
‘Pfft HAHAH’
Vicious voices filled the room instead of mockery and snickering. The little girl started to tremble while covering her ears like any child would. Until a gentle voice reached her ears through all the violent laughing, the loud room quickly died down for the person to speak.
‘Darling, don’t be so afraid…’
With those few words the little girl started to calm down, until the voice continued, and the girls shoulders shook with terror.
‘…You should get used to it! No one can help you while you’re in here! Ha..HAHAHA you’re stuck here by yourself! Plus, like anyone would come save you. No one really cares about you!’
The once gentle voice quickly turned vicious. If it had a face it would be the face of an angel turning into a villainess smirk, with her eyes crawling into a crescent moon. You could even compare the look to a lion giving false hope to its prey before devouring it. Another voice chimed in at that moment…
‘You’re a nobody!’
‘Sweetie, before you think about other things just know that you owe us a det for using us for so many years. We’ll be your saviour and your demise! How fun, isn’t it dear?’
“Ah… so that’s how it is…I’m stuck.”
The little girl answered under her breath, but there was no point since laughing befitting witches echoed throughout the room making all noises disappear.
‘At least no one can hear me cry with all this noise.’ She girl thought to herself. All the shimmer that was once in this child’s eyes were now all gone. Her lifeless eyes just cried and cried until she fainted from exhaustion.
The time was unknown since there were no objects connecting to the ‘outside world’ but one would assume it would be the early morning. The young girl woke up on the cold floor, just like how she had fainted the night before. The silence was deafening compared to the scream like yells of yesterday, but the deafening silence was how the little girl discovered the chilling room a few years ago. The deafening silence was how it was originally, until a few months ago when they would wake up from their slumber. A headache from crying so hard rang throughout her little head. With a puffy face and red eyes anyone would be able to tell she had been crying hard immediately.
The little girl got up on to her feet, her heavy footsteps echoing like the day before. The room full of ‘faces’ covering the walls and broken shards covering some of the floor all seemed to feel very empty, like a void that could never be filled. A bottomless jar. A full but empty room.
Just like always she walked to the end of the room listening to her footsteps echoing through the silent room. Tap…Tap…Tap…
CRASH
Her eyes had started to blur causing her to trip over her own foot causing her to fall onto the glass shards from the broken masks.
Blood dripping from her knees and hands seeped into the wooden floorboards. Glass shards in the freshly made cuts made her lifeless eyes start stinging from the intense pain but she got up again, she had to. The young girl continued to walk through the room past all the empty stares, until finally reaching the end. This was the place where a new mask would regenerate every day, one per day. Instead of a mask like perfectly made Fine-China, it had a few small cracks, but still better than the rest of the other faces, the old used masks and not to mention, better than her own face. As her blooded hands picked up the white mask, it slowly got dyed in blood. With the blooded mask in hand, she lifted it up to her red and puffy face. Before she could put it onto her own face, for the first time, she hesitated.
“Ah, I dyed it with blood…this won’t do…”
The young child sighed and threw the mask to the side of the room making it shatter on impact.
“I’ll just have to force a smile for today, using my own face.”
As she whispered those words a faint smile appeared on her face. As she headed to the ‘exit’, her heavy footsteps echoed through the empty void, though that wasn’t the only noise that could be heard. TAP…TAP…CRACK…TAP
A crack could be seen on her face….
“Hmm? Lia, are you okay?”
April called out Lia’s name, but Lia couldn’t hear her.
“Lia, your eyes are all red are you okay?
May, her other friend, tried to call out to Lia too, but still Lia only heard silence.
“What are you saying? I can’t hear you, I can your lips moving though...”
‘They’re trash talking about you…’
The mocking voices came back but Lia just shook her head.
CRACK CRACK
Another two cracks formed on Lia’s face but this time everyone in the classroom stared at the source of the noise.
“What was that?”
“The cracking noise?”
“You heard it too?”
“Yeah…didn’t we all?”
“It came from Lia didn’t it?”
Everything was just muffled for Lia, she couldn’t hear anything, like she had lost her hearing. She felt the eyes staring at her, reflexively she turned around. Gasps and faces of shock instantly filled the classroom then followed by silence.
“What’s wrong?
Why is everyone so shocked?”
Lia questioned but no one gave a response. She put on her best smile and made eye contact with her peers but when she did, they all flinched or took a step back.
‘HA! They’re afraid of you!’
‘You’re a monster! HAHAHA!’
CRACK CRACK CRACK
Multiple cracks formed on her face causing even more shock to her peers.
‘You nameless nobody! Run away and hide! No one wants to see your monstrous face with cracks on them’
The vicious voices rang through out her head. Reflexively after hearing the words cracks, Lia touched her face and blood started running down her finger. When she looked at the finger, she saw a cut as well as some glass in the wound. She looked around once more in shock but this time she was back in the dark room full of masks. Tears began flowing out like a dam that broke. Her face had become a broken mask. Laughter filled the room, it felt like her friends were laughing at her when really, she was alone.
‘HAHAHAHAHAHA THEY FINALLY FOUND OUT!’
‘WHAT A GREAT SHOW!’
‘BRAVO BRAVO!’
If the masks had faces, they would be smirking from one ear to the other and their eyes would form into a crescent moon. With devilish laughter filling the room, no one would realise that a little girl was in a ball shape, covering her ears while crying. Her heart felt like glass and that glass was currently breaking. For the first and last time she screamed with all her might while clenching on to her shirt, begging them to stop.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! STOP!
Please…just stop…. you’ve done enough damage…can’t you see? I’m now broken beyond fixing…”
As tears kept on falling the room grew quiet, to the point where a newborn baby’s breathing could be heard. Soon the silence was interrupted by the nameless girl, the girl who had lost herself during this charade. The sobs grew louder and louder to the point where anyone would be able to hear it, even if it was during a concert, but sadly no one came to comfort her as she was already a lost soul.
