62.

  My scream became a strangled cry as the faceless boy squeezed my throat. I slapped at his hands and pushed at his face, but I couldn't get him off. We tumbled through the emptiness, falling deeper and deeper into nothing. Suddenly, trees were whipping past my face, branches cutting and slashing us as we fell through a forest. My eyes streamed, and my head felt like it was going to be twisted off my neck.

  I saw the forest we were falling through in a dim twilight, the falling sun a sickly yellow colour. There were strips of fabric hanging from the branches: faded birthday cards, letters that had never been sent, the collar of a childhood dog I'd never owned. Faces were carved into the trees, half-remembered, mostly forgotten features that screamed soundlessly at me.

  As we broke through the canopy, I saw in slow motion a tree bearing a carving saying, ‘I'll come back soon.’ The words were rotted through, crying black sap. Then we hit the ground and rolled. My body smashed against the floor and a wall, and I kept rolling until I finally came to a dead stop, lying on my back, gasping and staring up at a ceiling. I swallowed but felt no pain whatsoever. That fall should've broken my body into pieces. Those hands around my throat should've snapped my neck and shattered my vocal cords.

  I sat up and saw the faceless boy, twisted and broken, bone shards sticking from his flesh, his head hanging at an ugly angle.

  "Why did you let him die?" it rasped. "Why did you turn him into ash?"

  I fled from the broken boy and his accusations, tears pouring down my cheeks as I ran full pelt down a corridor with faded mauve carpet, peeling wallpaper, and endless doors. I kept running, panic stripping me of breath. My heart pounded so painfully fast in my chest, I thought it was about to give out. Then I tripped and fell, and again, I felt nothing as I skidded across the carpet. I pulled myself up, looked over my shoulder, and the boy was gone. There was just darkness.

  I looked in front of me and saw an endless corridor. On both sides, lined at perfect intervals, were doors. I dragged myself to my feet, and began walking. The hallway stretched infinitely in both directions, and was lined with identical doors. Each door was marked with a symbol, a fragment of some memory that lay dormant in my subconscious. One door had a crayon drawing of a multi coloured stick figure family. There was a blue dad and a pink mum, and they were holding hands with a little brown child. There was a bright yellow sun with a smiley face drawn into the corner of the picture, and a little picturesque house in the distance. I felt a pang deep in my chest. I remembered drawing that picture at school and taking it home. I wanted to give it to my mum, but she wasn't there. The house was empty; they didn't come back until the next day, and they hadn’t cared about the picture.

  As I walked, I saw a school photo, maybe from when I was in Year 2 or 3. There was a bruise on my cheek. My clothes were dirtier than the other kids'. I never had new clothes, or even clean clothes. I remembered, despite being alphabetically first in the list, the teachers had shuffled me to the back of the picture, probably so I wouldn't ruin it for the other kids and their parents.

  My fingers began tracing the walls and the doors unconsciously as I had when I was little. There was a spoon stabbed into one of the doors. I didn’t need to pull it out to know what it was, and that the bottom of it would be blackened and burned, and it would be caked in congealed grime. I'd seen that spoon in my nightmares. I walked past another door that just had a leather belt hanging from the doorknob, already tied with a thick knot like it always used to be when I did something wrong.

  A fresh sob escaped my trembling lips as I saw the broken toy soldier, which had been one of my only toys growing up. One of his legs had been snapped in half, and his face had been melted. I had named him Captain Courage. I still remembered the backstory I had invented for him. He was wounded in the war but came back to fight crime on the streets of London… a broken thing trying to save others. I reached out a shaking hand to touch it, then withdrew quickly, afraid that it might fall apart, turn to ash like everything else.

  As I walked, I started to hear sounds behind doors. There was weeping behind one. That was a sound I was familiar with, and I was sure it was my mother. There were muffled voices behind another, arguing with each other, and behind another, there was just the meaty sound of fist hitting flesh. Behind another was the sound of a little boy crying, trying to stifle his sobs because he knew he'd be next if they heard.

  My body trembled and my arm unconsciously curled protectively across my body.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Then I saw a door that was slightly ajar. With a quivering hand, I pushed it open slowly and saw the little boy, no more than 11 years old, standing at the window, staring out of it and waiting. I remembered standing like that for nearly a whole day and night. I'd stood at that window many times in my childhood. But this time I just knew it, I knew they weren't coming back. And they didn't. I wanted to reach out and scream at the little boy. I wanted to tell him to get away from the window, to tell him he was stupid to wish and hope. Instead, I closed the door and turned away like the coward I was.

  Then I heard the rumbling. It seemed to trigger something when I closed the door. I looked behind me and saw the hallway collapsing: the doors falling in on each other, the ceiling coming down, and the floor crumbling. The disintegration of the hallway sped towards me, ready to swallow me whole. I turned and ran as fast as my legs could, pumping my arms with my head down. There was one final door at the end of the hallway. This one was blood red, seeming to ooze something, but I didn't pause to find out what. I squared my shoulder to the middle of the door and slammed through it.

  I was on a street.

  I blinked a few times as the sun dispelled the gloom. I was back on the Mulberry Estate, I think. Everything looked like it should. The sun was out, and I could hear the noises of traffic. I looked behind me and there was nothing, just more road. I saw a park in the distance, with children playing in it. I could hear them laughing and screaming. I ran my shaking hands through my hair; the horror of the last few minutes had stolen my strength. I just wanted to squat down and weep and hug my knees, but instead, I closed my eyes and tried to bathe myself in the warmth of the sun, willing it to dispel the horrors of the darkness.

  I walked down the road, smelling the sweet breeze. It was a warm summer afternoon, one of those ones where the clouds were lethargic, flies buzzed, birds chirped, and people were just happy to exist. I walked down the road, breathing deeply through my nostrils, expelling the nausea and fear. I turned a corner and saw a young mother wearing a breezy yellow sundress and large red sun hat, bending down to talk to her child.

  She looked up and cold horror engulfed me again. They had no faces. Like the little boy in the room, their heads were just smooth, blank expanses of skin stretched across their skulls. She passed me with barely a look, her faceless daughter skipping happily in her wake.

  I looked around and realised they were everywhere. The faceless things going about their normal day. I saw businessmen in suits with briefcases, mothers pushing prams, children playing, all laughing silently, and moving animatedly as if they were having conversations with no sound. They all walked past me as if I was invisible, as if I didn't exist. The horror of their featureless faces crunched through my spine like jagged blades of ice. It felt wrong; it was revolting. I wanted to turn and run again, but to where? They were everywhere. The entire place was teeming with these faceless aberrations.

  And then a horn blew, and I looked down the street. Suddenly, all the faceless people stopped moving. On some unseen signal, they parted and lined up on the pavement, standing in neat rows, all looking eagerly down the road as a parade made its way towards me. There were floats with jesters, and men on stilts, and everyone wore a myriad of colors. Each float was a kaleidoscope of bright colours. There were clowns and jugglers and fools, all dancing and banging drums and blowing trumpets. The faceless things laughed and pointed and clapped, as the parade approached. The clowns and fools wore masks with bright red grins on their faces. They cavorted and danced while waving colorful banners, and I stood frozen, watching the entire bizarre scene play out in front of me.

  As the parade came by, they all stopped, then turned to stare at me. All those faceless things were now gazing directly at me, all those masks with their stupid red smiles painted on them were aimed directly at me. I wanted to scream at them, to hurl power, to fight, to do anything to get them to stop looking at me. Then the clowns, jesters, fools, jugglers, bannermen, and people on stilts reached up and pulled off their masks. Their faces were gaunt and hollow, their eyes like empty holes dug in the desert, with tears running down their faces, and their lips downturned in grimaces of agony, pain, fear, sorrow, and every other shade of the worst emotions a human could feel.

  And they all looked like me.

  They were me. I opened my mouth to scream, and then they lunged. Hands gripped me with skeletal fingers, whisking me from my feet and carrying me aloft. I fought and struggled against them as they carried me away. The faceless crowd started laughing and cheering again. The trumpets and the drums restarted, and the parade continued, holding me aloft like some prized pig at the fair. I fought, I kicked, I screamed, but they were too strong.

  I tilted my head backwards so I could see where we were going. We were coming up to the banks of the River Thames, the faithful, turgid sludge that wove its way through the heart of New London. There was something wrong with it. It wasn't the usual murky brownish moss-green color. It was gray and black, and moved with a strange sand like quality. They carried me straight towards it. I screamed and thrashed my limbs, but my doppelgangers didn't care. I was on the edge of the precipice, looking backwards down over the Thames, and I realized it wasn't water… it was ash.

  "You let him die," I heard all my doppelgangers chant in unison. "You turned him to ash. They all turned to ash because of you.”

  "It wasn't my fault!" I cried.

  "Because of you!"

  “No!”

  And then they threw me into the river of ash.