I first noticed Rick during the second of the five preboard examinations of our review school. Our seats had been rearranged alphabetically to simulate the actual board exam and I was seated directly behind him. He sort of stood out among the 614 students because he came from a popular university; and because out of the 33 students from his school, only he decided to review here.
During the entirety of the last day of the second preboards, Rick kept glancing at the girl beside him. Initially, anyone would get the idea that he's attempting to cheat. But after the first subject that day I realized he wasn't looking at his seatmate's test paper. Rick was looking at his seatmate's face.
The girl was comely, but not enough to warrant a hundred stares per minute. And Rick's expression wasn't that of admiration—he had the quizzical look of a guy who's seen something rather out of place.
The next review meeting, I incidentally arrived at the review room with Rick. We were 2 of the 614 students reviewing, so I supposed neither of us expected a greeting from the other. Rick was walking ahead of me when another guy coming from inside the room almost bumped at him at the door.
Rick's face looked like he just saw a ghost. He gasped audibly, his veins tensing in his neck. The random guy stared at him before heading out, but Rick remained glued in his position, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead.
"Did you...did you just see his face?" he asked me, his voice shaking.
I said yes as I tried to imagine what might have startled Rick. The other guy's face was simply unimpressive—no distinguishing detail to note.
"His eye," Rick continued, his stare fixed at the other guy. "His eye and his noses were...wrong! Didn't you see? Bloody pigs. They were almost the same as my seatmate during the preboards."
I had to laugh to show my bewilderment, but Rick continued swearing. He was actually pleading at me to understand; kept on pressing me that something was wrong with the previous guy's face.
I continued observing Rick that day. During the first part of the review, he kept stretching his neck as if searching for someone amongst the reviewees. When he seemed to have spotted what he was looking for, stark fear registered on his face.
The days after that were no better. Each day, Rick seemed to grow more agitated and paranoid. He would always keep glancing around, at times muttering stuff his seatmates seemed to find incoherent. More and more reviewees got concerned about his state, but none dared approach him.
After a week, Rick came to me.
"Your friend, Al Justin, is it not? Why did his face become like that?" Rick asked me directly.
"Oh. I don't know?" I hesitated, searching for an appropriate reply. There really was, after all, nothing wrong with Al's face. It was the same plain tomboyish look as before. "What's wrong, Rick?"
"His nose, his...his nose, eyes, and ear...bloody pigs," he began stammering, eyes glued at Al, three seats away.
"What's wrong with his face?"
Rick shook his head, then grabbed my pen and one of my review materials. He began drawing something on them quickly.
"That's his face right now."
Scribbled upon the sheet was a shape I knew was meant to be a head, with a crude neck supporting it from the south. What's unsettling, however, were the features. Rick had drawn one of the face's three eyes on a vertical position and placed it on the right cheek, the other two eyes an inch above the jaw line. Instead of ears, what appeared to be teeth jutted from the sides of the head. The drawing had no mouth, but an ear above the right eye and the nose at the corner of his left cheekbone.
