Behind The Mask ~

Loneliness Is The Worst Medicine ~

Crack. The sound of something hard and strong making impact with something soft and delicate echoed throughout the decomposing hallway. The once normal atmosphere suddenly attained a tense feel, as if the very Earth was holding its breath while the event happened. As seconds ticked away from the time, the atmosphere returned to what it was before, but something still wasn't right. The hallway that everything had happened in had faded white paint peeling from the yellowed, mouldy walls, and almost everything in it was coated with a thick layer of grey dust, as if it had never been cleaned or touched before. From an outsider's point of view, they might of thought it was an abandoned building, or some kind of slum dwelling for people who couldn't afford a proper place to live in, and to be honest, it wasn't that far from the actual truth.

Blurred lights were dancing around a pitch-black world, each of them growing slightly bigger as they rotated around each other. Without warning, each of them started to grow brighter, and more easier to distinguish from each other, nearly swallowing the once-black-world into blinding lights. "YOU WORTHLESS WASTE OF A HUMAN BEING!" one of them screamed loudly, getting more clearer by the second. "Go and die in a hole you fat cow, no one even cares if you do. It's not like you'll be missed by anyone." another one yelled deafeningly. Voices seemed to erupt from every single light, screaming insults and death threats, steadily becoming louder until whoever they were shouting at couldn't stand it anymore. It was like someone with a razor-sharp drill tipped with poison was drilling into his skull, causing excruciating pain to flow through his veins and torso, making him want to succumb to the pain and endure the journey to wherever humans end up after their worthless life ends. Because everything has to end somewhere. He wanted to die, the pain was too overwhelming for a average human to withstand. It needed to stop, it had to. It couldn't go on forever. The lights had all now conjoined and created one swirling mass of horror, enveloping the boy's soul in unreal pain. He wanted to scream, he wanted to create some kind of signal, however small, to tell someone in the World to help him, to stop whatever was happening to him. The lights were starting to say random things, like "Dan, whatever happens, I'll always be with you, even if I'm not here." That was the last thing his mum ever said to him before life finally gave up on her. He wondered why this memory surfaced out of nowhere in this battle between reality and fantasy, when the lights' tones of voices started to change. They sounded like his sister's voice, his abusive father's, his long-gone mother's. His sister was whispering, sounding like she was crying, "Dan, stay with me... come on... please... you can't die on me... you and mum are the only people who give me hope, who show me sunshine in a world of darkness..." But Dan realised something. That wasn't a figment of his imagination, it was actually real. The pain was suddenly replaced with a dull stinging feeling, as Dan finally took the slow journey back into reality.

It felt like he had been lying there for the whole of eternity as Dan's battered and bruised eyes finally found the willpower to open. Bad mistake, Dan thought as it felt like weights were hanging off the edges of his eyelids, making it painfully hard to open them. When his vision finally focused, and his brain gathered itself again, he was met with an unwelcome sight. His sister, Blair, was sitting there sadly, sprawled across the floor, her soft blonde hair covering her facial features, glistening tears seeping down her tanned face. Dan thought to himself, "She looks like a work of art, just lying there motionless, exactly like a piece of art does." Suddenly she jerked awake, making Dan flinch slightly. He didn't jump. He was used to scares. "Dan?!" "You're okay?!" she almost screamed. In a kind of loving desperation, she hugged him hard, and looked him in the eyes. As Dan looked into her piercing green eyes, he realised how much she looked like their mother, the same skin, same looks, same posture, same everything. Whereas he looked like his father, which was a horrible burden on his mind. He didn't want to look like the abusive, terrifying, heartless person who tore his life and family apart. Maybe that was why he had only a few friends. "I hate it." Dan said out loud. "Great, mental note, never share your feelings with anyone..." he thought, realising he said his thoughts out loud. Blair looked at him with a slightly confused and quizzical expression on her face. "I know." she said simply. "Oh.. she must be thinking I'm talking about the abuse, not why I have to look like my crappy dad." Dan thought yet again. "We need to get you cleared up, you have to go to uni today, and I have to go to high school. No one can know what happened." Blair explained, grimacing of the thoughts of what the day could hold for them both. Dan slowly stood up, gripping onto the peeling strips of paint coming off his wall to steady himself. Blair stood up too, looking at him. "Why do you look so angry Dan..." The anger started to flood back to him. Dan longed to say, "Why?! WHY?! Because I'M SICK of having to keep this whole abuse thing to ourselves, there's people OUT THERE WHO COULD HELP us and yet we're stuck in this fucking slum house with nobody, just waiting for our dad to come back and nearly KILL us again!" But he didn't, because he knew Blair was the only person in the entire World he still cared about, and he couldn't risk losing it in front of his last remaining relative who actually still cared about him and his wellbeing.

Dan and Blair slowly walked past the destruction that used to be the upstairs hallway. All it was now was some kind of wreckage that when their father was high or drunk, loved to tear to pieces as well as Dan and Blair's sanity. As Dan limped into the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of his face in the chipped and broken shards of what used to be a mirror scattered across the catastrophe of a floor. It wasn't something you'd want to look at. His eye was black and swollen, and it was so bad his whole eye was nearly indistinguishable in the mess that was his face. A long, jagged scar cut across his left cheek, dried blood coated all over his cheeks. Dan knew how bad his life really was, and he knew that his life would end by his father killing him or beating him to death somehow. He knew he and Blair would be confined to this prison until their dying day if something didn't change soon. Dan knew he was dead for sure, and he would have no friends forever. Or so he thought.