Behind The Mask ~

The Past ~

"Fuck, Blair that hurts." Dan almost screamed as his sister deftly wiped away the dried blood covering the majority of his face. "Obviously it's gonna hurt you dumbass, but I need to wipe away all the things that could cause infection." she said, putting emphasis on the word infection. A few minutes later, Dan caught a glimpse of his reflection in the grimy window. His face definitely looked better then it did before, but he could tell that there would be some kind of black eye that people would notice and surely ask about. Like people always do, poke their noses into other people's business. And he couldn't forget the scar. "What will I say though...? I'm running out of excuses... they'll probably suspect something's going on by now..."  Dan thought sadly. Blair looked him in the eye quickly, and a slight jerk of the head told Dan it was time to go downstairs, and see his dad lying there unconscious, like he always was after he had too much drugs or alcohol. Dan grabbed the rusty bannister and slowly tiptoed down the stairs, trying to avoid Blair's stare as he passed through the cataclysm that used to be a kitchen. Dan noticed that on the bottom of the exposed dead-looking wall, there was something scrawled messily there that he hadn't seen for a long time. It was written with a black pen that Dan had found one day when he was outside scavenging for food out of random people's bins. It said, "Dan + ------ are best frends fourever" The other person's name was angrily scribbled out with something red and dried onto the messed-up wall. So simple, yet so meaningful. It reminded him of his past. 

His past was not much better than the time today for Dan, but at least he still had his mother there to comfort him when he was angry, or scared. Which was basically every second of every day. Dan never felt any sort of happiness in those days, not even with the presence of his mum to comfort him. He just sat in the dark corner of his room, brooding in utter silence, keeping all his thoughts to himself, which were mostly suicidal. Dan did try to commit suicide numerous times, but failed, because even though every part of him was screaming for him to do it, a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him that he would be being selfish to his mother and Blair by leaving them when they needed him most. So he didn't. Dan took out the pain he wanted to feel on himself. He still had the scars today. But Dan couldn't remember hardly anything at all about his anonymous best friend from the past. Maybe they had never existed, Dan could've just made up an imaginary friend because he was so deprived of them himself. But he could remember a happy, enthusiastic voice speaking to him, a hazy blur of colour, eyes that turned anyone's head. "Pain isn't the answer, be happy." And that one solitary sentence that his best friend said to him stopped him from committing suicide, from hurting himself for quite a long while. Dan longed to know who the mysterious individual was who kept him alive. But Dan also knew that he never would find out. He knew his past was one mystery-filled place he would never want to return to, even for all the happiness in the World, and neither would Blair. But Dan knew that a tiny part of him was aching to find out what actually happened to his mum, and who the eyes belonged to. And he also wanted to know who was the culprit who carelessly scribbled out that one name without a second thought, not knowing it was the key to Dan's past, maybe even his whole life, if he still had one. Dan vowed inside his head that one day, he would find out who it was, even if it was the last thing he'd ever do.