by Aurora Smith
I passed out somewhere between the intense, penetrating pain and when my tongue finally cut off my oxygen. I felt cold sheets under my naked skin as relief, finally recognized by my conscious and I readied myself for my new reality. What had I done to myself? What effect would that kind discomfort have on me? Nothing good could come from that.
I moved inside the sheets and a strong scent that belonged to Justin overpowered me. Was I in his bed? Hadn’t he been with me when my face began to melt? I vaguely remembered that being the case; his panicked voice was in the back of my mind as one of the last things that I remembered.
I worked up the courage to open my eyes, the lids felt heavy and swollen. I reached up and touched them, sure that there would be nothing but bone, and readied myself for the damage I had done through my dangerous obsession. I didn’t feel bone though, I felt skin and it was smooth; very sore and tender, but smooth.
“Justin?” My voice sounded funny as it croaked my brother’s name. I didn’t get an audible answer but a hand went on my shoulder, I turned my tender neck and looked to see who was touching me. It was Justin. He was looking at me with large, worried eyes and it put the fear of God in me.
“What have I done?” I asked him.
“How did you do it?”
“Do it? What did I do?”
“Your face. It’s-it’s back to normal! You did it, Liam! I didn’t think you would ever do it, but you did it.”
“I did?” Was I dreaming? Hallucinating? I pushed my body up with my arms but they shook, and I collapsed back onto the bed. I had no strength. “Bring me a mirror.” Justin did as I asked, going to the other side of the room and bringing me a small handheld mirror. k/1/2
I held it up and saw what looked like a very swollen, younger Justin. The skin was so new that it was glowing pink, like a newborn baby’s. Small bumps littered around my nose and cheeks, but not one scar in sight. My eyebrows had blond peach fuzz, as well as the top of my head. I rubbed my scalp and started laughing. It hurt my sides and I began coughing, blood coming out of my mouth and onto the white sheets. I stared down at the fresh blood and noticed there were darker, redder splats already on the bed.
“You’ve been coughing up blood all night, I didn’t know what else to do but clean it,” Justin said while dabbing my mouth with a wet washcloth. That wasn’t good. Although that wasn’t completely uncommon among one who took a blood thinner and even though I wasn’t taking a blood thinner per say, I was messing around with my blood a lot. That could go hand in hand. I pushed the fear down, not caring at the moment; my goals and dreams being founded were overtaking any worry I had.
“What time is it? How long have I been out for?” I asked as I looked back in the mirror. I had my hand up to my cheeks and I was caressing the soft skin.
“Only a few hours. You stopped breathing because of your stupid tongue and all I could think to do was push it aside and gave you mouth to mouth until the swelling went down.”
“You gave me mouth to mouth…‘til the swelling went away? How long was that?” Had I been on life support that my brother had been providing for me?
“Only twenty minutes or so, the swelling went away quickly.”
“There was so much blood,” I said, thinking back to all the blood and what I think might have been my actual skin coming off of my face. Justin nodded and I noticed for the first time how truly and utterly freaked out he looked. He was twisting his fingers together, and rubbing his arms like he was cold. Here was another trauma that I had marked up on his already extensive list.
“There was a lot of blood. I managed to clean you up, your scars fell off. How did you do it?” He asked the last question again.
“I had the idea to regrow my skin, but I thought that it would grow over the top of the scares, I didn’t realize my skin would fall off,” I admitted.
“Like a lizard?”
“I actually used lizard DNA.” I was impressed that he figured that out. Maybe my brother had some of the science genes in him after all. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I wasn’t the only one who was scared, by the looks that were on your face I’m willing to bet that you thought you were dying.” Justin smiled at me and I felt a small amount of relief.
“I did. I thought I was dying,” I confirmed. I remembered the pain and I shuddered. Coughing again I watched as more of my blood splattered across the sheets; it mingled with the old blood and I tried to smile at Justin so that he wouldn’t worry.
“I can’t believe how calm you are,” Justin said. I thought about that and he was right, I was being calm, but perhaps it was due to my extreme exhaustion. Maybe my mind was getting ready for the blow of having my face suddenly revert back to the way it was before. How many hundreds of times had a tried to change my face to no avail? No, my brain was recording all of this as a failure still. I tried to use my arms again by pushing up on them. The elbow joint was sore; they shook but held my weight better than before. I pulled my legs out so that I could see them and they were completely brand new as well; the black skin that I never shared was bright red and even more tender than my face was.
“You’re a genius; I wish I had a mind like yours,” Justin said, and I scowled at the thought. Carefree Justin. Kind, loving and thoughtful Justin, be like me? Obsessed, conceited and self-seeking? That sounded like the most awful thing I’d ever heard.
“I wish I were more like you,” I said, trying to smile at my brother even though the pain in my chest was burning with envy.
I tried to stand up; my knees wobbled under the pressure, so Justin grabbed me under my right arm. I grunted and put most of my weight on him.
“Help me get dressed, I want to go see Maya.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he answered.
“Why not?” Frustration began to boil its way to the surface.
“Look at yourself.” Justin pointed to the full length mirror on the opposite wall. I did as he said. I couldn’t see myself; all I saw was a pair of boys staring back at me. One looked like me with strong tanned arms and scruffy blond hair that couldn’t decide if it was curly or not. That hair framed a square face and golden flecked brown eyes. The other boy, the one that was being supported was skinny and emaciated. His skin was red and puffy and his head was bald and glowing with brown fuzz. I looked like I was on death’s door, unable to even hold up the weight of my body on my own.
“Did my mixture deteriorate my muscles?” I asked out loud but not necessarily to Justin.
“You’ve been looking like this for the past month, but it started even before that. Once Maya took us into your dream,” Justin paused and looked down, unsure where to put his eyes. He looked like he wanted to continue but I got it. Not eating, not sleeping and losing the will to live, almost losing the will to even succeed in what I had been working so hard towards had completely changed the way I looked, physically, and I was beginning to fear that it had mentally changed me as well.
Why was I not feeling the pleasure that I felt before when I imagined this moment? Where was that glow of pride and the confidence that came with not owning my scars?
“How is Maya?” I asked trying to take my mind off the emptiness.
“She’s fine. She’s worried about you. We were all worried about you but I now see what it is you were doing. I could have helped you,” Justin said his frustration with me was evident.
“The last two months is a blur,” I admitted.
“With rest you’ll look better.”
“How is he?” A voice interrupted our conversation. A kid I had seen many times and knew as Justin’s roommate came walking into the room.
“He’s up.” Justin sat me down on the bottom bunk of the bed that was next to the full length mirror we had been looking at. He walked away, looking down at the floor and I took time to look at the kid who’d just walked in. He had long dark brown hair and emerald green eyes. He smelt woodsy so I assumed he was some kind of elf or something. Justin looked suddenly emba
rrassed to have been touching me and speaking to me. I remembered the way he and a group of people had been teasing Maya and then me when I had shown up behind her in the woods. That happened right before Maya and I had changed Ashley and I remembered the roommate’s face among those people.
I suddenly hated this guy. I could handle people not liking me, I had become accustomed to that the last few years, but the way they treated Maya had made me furious. The concern on his face now was confusing me though.
“Wow. Look at your face! That’s amazing. How did you do that, man?” The stranger, who suddenly knew me well enough to speak to me like a concerned friend, was in my face.
“Ahh.” I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to punch his face but I didn’t have the energy.
“You should have seen all of the blood. It was everywhere. I walked into the bathroom and there was Justin, man I thought he killed someone, his face was all bloody from giving you mouth to mouth or something, then he made me help get you in the shower and there was skin falling off everywhere, it was clogging up the drains, we had to keep cleaning it. Man it was gross!” His run on sentences were confusing me and I wanted to yell for him to shut up. I held my tongue though. I figured after helping my brother with all of that he had earned a little bit of respect and he was now more bonded with me after helping with all of that. I, of course, didn’t know him from anyone but understood how he was excited about all of this. Plus I was pretty again and had provided him with excitement in this prison cell camp. I was now cool in his eyes.
A knock on the door interrupted us, which I was grateful for but instantly worried about who was on the other side. My already weak mental stamina was going down fast. I needed food and sleep. Justin walked over and creaked the door open, bouncer style.
My ears perked up as Maya’s voice seeped through the cracked door and over Justin’s body, but fear quickly followed my excitement. I didn’t want her to see my like this, but that was not in my control. Justin thumped to the floor, asleep and unharmed as Maya and Abby walked in, stepping over my brother. I reached for the scratchy, cheap, camp-provided blanket that lay on the bed I sat on and covered myself with it.
“Liam?” Maya walked straight over to me and put her hands on my face. I winced and sucked in air and her hands flew back to her side. “I’m sorry, does it hurt?” she asked, her big eyes looking freakishly bigger.
“A little tender,” I said, and decided that I couldn’t look at her with me looking like this—wrapped in a cocoon in with red, baby acne skin while her purple hair looked adorably tossed from sleep and her white creamy face flushed with excitement.
“Are you okay, though? You look sick.”
“I’m okay, I’m just tired.” I felt a tickle in my chest and sensed a couch coming but I fought it. Which was surprisingly painful.
“You did it!” Abby’s face was next to Maya’s now and I wanted to hide. I suddenly remembered my promise to Abby and I dreaded what I had to tell her.
“Abby,” I went right into it. “I don’t think this is going to work for you. It hurt, it hurt so badly and it’s different than what you need.” She glared at me.
“You promised,” she growled. “You have been ignoring me and our thing for the talent show, and now you’re going to tell me you won’t even let me try.” She grabbed the front of my blanket and got in my face, which was awkward and uncomfortable.
“Whoa,” Maya said and put her arm on Abby’s shoulder, but she shook it off, which shook me.
“Get off. He promised me something and he’s going to follow through with that promise,” Abby was saying to Maya, who gave me an angry look.
“It’s not like that; we aren’t…together or anything,” I said and Maya gave me an even stranger look.
“What’s going on?” Christina walked into the room, looked at Justin, who was on the ground, then to Maya, who was giving me a dirty look, and Abby, who was trying to wrangle a cure for her ugly fin out of me. Then there was the poser, who only liked you if you were cool, in the corner, cowering away from all the weirdoes in the room. This girl was a Siren and from what I’d seen an incredibly decent person. I was also overwhelmed and needed help.
“Help me,” I mouthed.
“Help you?” She looked around the room again, her eyes widening, understanding spreading on her face.
Christina’s soft body and beautiful, serious face appeared the same for me but everyone in the room took their attention off of me and became completely engrossed in the Siren. I had no idea what each one was seeing, but even Abby had forgotten that I was in the room and that she was angry with me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, then turned my face toward the long mirror again and felt sick to my stomach.
What had I done?
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Liam, what is going on?” Christina stepped over Justin, like the other two girls had, and sat in the bed across from me. I suddenly envied my brother, soundlessly sleeping on the ground without a care in the world.
“Thank you, I know we don’t know each other but I appreciate it.”
“I only did it because I saw Maya’s face and she looked like she was about to lose her temper. That girl is sweet but man, when she loses it people start going into comas, she puts them in such a deep sleep.”
“She’s amazing,” I said and Christina bent towards me.
“Your face. What’s going on?” She didn’t have a look of shock and awe and her voice was calm. She didn’t look unimpressed exactly but she wasn’t freaking out like everyone else had been. Apparently unexplained power wasn’t that remarkable to her. For example, all of the people who had silently left the room because she told them to.
“Where did everyone go?” I asked.
“Well, Maya and Abby went back to bed and Nicholas went to take a shower because he thinks that his girlfriend is coming over for a little midnight call.”
“What did Maya see?” I couldn’t help but ask and Christina glared at me.
“None of your business.” She wasn’t outing her friend, I respected that.
“What about Abby?”
“Humm.” She considered me for a minute and I tried to give her my innocent face.
“Abby saw her mother.” She answered quickly, not giving anything else up. I respected that too.
“What would I have seen? I’m assuming you know those kinds of things.” I was amazed at these girls and how powerful they were. Meanwhile the girls that looked beautiful but did next to nothing were ruling this camp. It should be the girls like Maya and Christina, and that weird witch chick that was at the beach the day I changed Ashley.
“You would be a hard one to siren. You have so many things going on in your mind. But if I had to choose one it would be Sheila.”
“Sheila?” I doubted that very much.
“I assume this is the girl that Maya has spoken about, she hasn’t told me that girl’s name, but I think that this is the same person.”
“Honestly I think she is the last person that I would want to see standing in front of me.” The thought made me even sicker to my stomach than I already was.
“No, you have a very deep, maybe unacknowledged desire to be with her, to see her and maybe apologize to her,” Christina said, and I knew once she said it that it was true. I didn’t know what to say after that so I settled with putting my head in my hands and concentrate on breathing.
“Are you going to answer my question now?”
“What?” I forgot she had asked me a question.
“I asked what was going on with your face.”
“Oh, well, I should think that was obvious.” I said. She was smart and clearly knew more about my desires than she should.
“Wait, don’t Sirens sing?” I asked.
“Dude, seriously?” She laughed, her usually serious face softening and becoming even more beautiful.
“What?”
“That’s a myth. Sirens used to sing to sailors because it was how we got their
attention. I don’t need to sing to someone who is three feet away from me. NOW, what is going on?”
“Fine, I figured out how to get the scars off and re-grow my skin and now I am scared that I’ve done some kind of irreversible damage to my body and people are beginning to flock,” I said quickly.
“Yes, there is definite flocking. Maya was sleeping and all of a sudden I’m being shaken by my hysterical best friend and she was saying you were in trouble. She had to wait a few minutes before Mother Nature fell back to sleep before she could escape to come and see you.”
“Ahh, I see. She must have been snooping around in my dreams again.” My heart sank. How was she going to know if she really felt anything for me if she kept doing the one thing that kept us apart?
“I don’t know, maybe. She had stopped, but who knows.” Christina shrugged. “Where is the counselor?”
“Never here. I have no idea.”
“Well that’s lucky. We have ours all over us.” Abby pointed to scaly reptile animal that had been snooping around the room for the last few minutes. “Well, how does it feel now? Do you feel like you’re worth loving again?” she asked.
“I don’t know how I feel.” I answered her honestly. Perhaps she was sirening me, but I felt completely comfortable answering all of her questions.
“I know why that is.”
“Why?”
“I’m someone who can look however I want. I am the most appealing person in the world. I can be the most beautiful person to you, to anyone at this camp. I can get whomever I want, whenever I want but here’s something I’ve learned, it doesn’t matter. It’s not real. Who you are inside, that’s real.”
“It’s easy to say that when you’re beautiful anyways,” I argued.
“Well, what about you? You used to be beautiful, were you happy then?”
“Yes,” I said, but she looked like she wasn’t buying it.
“Were you? Because you don’t act like someone who was content with themselves before the accident. You act like someone who depended on it and valued it above everything, even other people.” This girl was cutting me open and exposing me and it hurt. I couldn’t respond, I had no idea about anything anymore. All I wanted was to look how I used to and I had succeeded. Now I felt miserable.