text: I do not understand how it is so commonly assumed that we are supposed to fall into groups with other children at school. With a class of approximately thirty students, I am assumed to find an average of five kids that will want to swap football cards and kick a ball around with me. I do not understand how people could simply accept that and refuse to look further into it. “It is what it is” they all say. I have never been able to find my five, so I stick to my own company. It is not that other kids exclude me for looking or acting different, or being bad at sports. I have always chosen to be on my own. These other children are too immature for me. Besides, I will always have the company of The Faces, although their company is not always welcome; in fact, hardly ever. I remember the days when their appearance would terrify me and cause me to soil my pants. I was four when they first introduced themselves. Now I am a grown boy and they no longer scare me. Eight and a half I am. Nothing scares me anymore. The chairs are being thrown, the table turned over, wooden splinters flying in every direction. A muffled scream followed by a succession of heavy sobs. This is how I know it is time to wake from my restless slumber. As I sit up on the edge of my bed and pull a grey shirt over my pale, lanky torso laced with black and blue, I ponder what it must be like to get a proper night’s rest. I open my door after much hesitation, to my mother walking past with a rather harsh limp, drying tears from her eyes and trying to hide her pain from me. She offers me a weak smile through the heavy lines on her face and continues on her way. I grab the Swiss Army knife kept by my nightstand, in case my father is still around, looking for something to take his anger out on. I venture further into the depths of the house to find my father still in a fury, mumbling curses under his breath and pacing back and forth with clenched fists, as I keep one hand on the knife in my pocket. He looks up, and as his eyes meet mine he swings a powered punch at my head which I am able to swiftly dodge, leaving his fist indented in the wall. He creates a sound of pure rage and storms out of the front door. He will not be back for at least three weeks now, not that mother or I will mind. We like it when he is not around. I stumble over to the refrigerator, still shaky with the hangover of bad dreams. I ease open the refrigerator door so as to not disturb my mother and observe the contents. Half a carton of eggs that expired three weeks’ prior, a bottle of orange juice that has greyish mold beginning to form along the lower rim and an unopened jar of mustard. Groaning internally, I turn myself around to grab my coat and any loose change that would pay for a snack at the corner store. As I edge closer to my room, my mother races past me and out of the door, leaving it wide open behind her. I notice that she had been concealing an object underneath the flap of her jacket, and immediately knew that it was the 40 Caliber gun that she kept hidden under a loose floorboard in her bedroom. She had tried to shoot herself five times in the past, but could never muster the courage whilst in the moment. I race after her with the kind of speed that can only be achieved through high levels of adrenaline. My mother is not a fast runner, so I am able to catch her pace with little effort as we reach the playground in the park across the street. This is the playground that the offspring of the surrounding drug and alcohol abusers play at by day, and the playground that drunken stabbings take place by night. Once I catch up to her, she falls down in a heap at my feet, tears escaping down her face in a steady stream, and a sustained strangled note coming from her mouth as she struggles to breathe. I fall down with her and wrap my arms around her, prying the gun from her frail hands. I press her small figure towards mine and trace my fingers along her scalp soothingly. Her tears cluster in a damp patch on my chest and her nails create painful indents in my ribs. I continue to comfort her, and as the sobbing gradually eases I softly mumble “mum” into her ear and tighten my grip on her. She is the only person I have in this world; the only person I love. I close my eyes and bury my head amongst the tangle of limbs and torsos. We stay in that position for what feels like hours. I finally lift my head from the tangle to find that we are in the company of others. The Faces. They look particularly sinister this time however and I can not help but feel a trace of fear in my stomach. They edge closer, closer than ever before. One of The Faces, the largest of them all, flashes its teeth widely, exposing long, sharp needles lining gums in perfect rows. In a fraction of a second, the faces are suddenly upon my mother, slashing at her face and body with their needle-like teeth as she withers, unable to let out a sound. I watch, helplessly, clawing the air to try and pry the faces away from her, but my fingers slip through their transparency. The Faces begin to disappear, one by one, each taking a final stab at my mother’s limp body as they leave. Finally, as they are all gone, I grab my mother as she strains to lift her hand up to rest on my cheek. Her mouth is filled with blood and her eyes are missing from their sockets. With a final gurgle of the coppery substance in her mouth, her head falls back and the rest of her body goes completely limp. I let out a succession of screams, desperate for someone to come and revive my mother’s dead body. I lay down next to my mother’s corpse and rest my head on her torn-apart chest. I fall asleep like that and am woken awhile later to the sound of sirens blaring. I am lifted from the body by two strong hands and put into handcuffs. Bewildered, I attempt to explain the situation, but the strong hands are too distracted by my Swiss Army knife that has obviously fallen out of my pocket and is somehow covered in my mother’s blood. Perhaps the blood has simply soaked through my jacket pocket and onto the knife before falling out. The strong hands do not believe a word of this however and I am thrown, rather aggressively, into the back of a truck. As I spin the wooden Knight through my fingers, I cannot help but admire its beauty. The delicate lines that have been carved into its fine, white surface, set it apart from the other chess pieces. A hand is placed in the center of my back and guides me upwards out of my chair. I am led to a line where I stand patiently, moving forward at the appropriate times. As I finally reach the destination of the line, I am handed two small, baby blue cups. In one cup there are an assortment of dull-coloured pills and in the other, a mouthful of water. I stare at the contents of the two cups numbly before forcing them down my throat. I sit back down in front of the chess board, however no longer with fascination of the detail. I discover that the nail on my right index finger is loose and I begin to pick at it. The nail is taking too long to come off, so with a quick, frustrated movement I proceed to rip it from my hand, resulting in tearing open the skin. I yell out a series of curses and grip my finger tightly. A nurse on duty rushes to my aid. Not any nurse however. She is the nurse with the fine brown hair, that falls perfectly down her back in the pony-tail that she wears everyday. She is the nurse with the bright green eyes that see me as a person and not Patient 253. She reaches for my hands, and I let her pry my second hand from my wound and observe it with those eyes. She offers me a humorous smile and shakes her head back and forth. From the pocket of her apron, she produces a bandage and wraps it carefully around the nail and then lifts it to carefully observe her work. Satisfied, she lets go of my hand and gently pats me on the shoulder before returning to her perch, where she is able to observe the whole room at once. I watch her for the duration of her shift. I watch the way her hands lie on her lap when she is sitting. I watch the way her muscles move in her legs when she is walking. I watch her eyes as they move across the room and make contact with my own. I find beauty in her every detail. She is the white Knight. A loud bell sounds, signaling that it is time that we move to our beds. I remain seated and wait for her to approach me and lead me to my room. Her small, pretty hand reaches under my elbow and guides me from my seat and through the halls. We reach my room and she pauses outside, gesturing through the door. She flashes me one last dazzling smile before disappearing at the end of the hall. I fall backwards onto my perfectly made bed, ignoring the distressed sounds of a bad dream from the bunk above, and picture the life that the nurse and I will one day share. She will bare three children and we will live in a secluded cabin in the countryside, relying on each other for sources of entertainment. We will go on family hikes and take family trips to the markets every Sunday to gather our supplies for the week. Lost in these glamorous thoughts, I fall asleep fully clothed and on top of the sheets. I wake the next morning to the familiar sounds of screams and wails echoing throughout the desolate halls. My body aches from the position in which I fell asleep and I struggle to pull myself into a sitting position. Last night was the best sleep that I had had in years. A male nurse with a harsh, booming voice appears at the door and demands that we join the procession into the main sitting area where we can be constantly observed and pumped full of drugs. Dragging my feet, I obey the orders and carry myself to my regular chair facing the chest board. By routine, I observe each chess piece, saving the Knight for last, and line up for my medication again. With an excited jolt in my chest, I notice that she is once again on duty. Today is the day that I will confess my love for her and let her tell me the same. To get her alone, I tell her that I need to use the bathroom. She nods and gestures for me to follow her through a door and down a series of stairs. I stop her as we exit the door and are completely alone. Griping the railing with one hand I reach out for her with my other. Frightened, she jumps back defensively, griping her arm where my hand had just touched. This angers me, as I fail to comprehend why she is being so difficult. The Faces float in the background, edging closer, a similar scene to that night. As I become aware of the situation, I reach for the nurse and pull her tightly towards me and attempt to frighten away The Faces by desperately flailing one arm in their direction. This again, provides no use and I feel the tug of her body away from me and towards the hellish beings. Their whispers become louder and daunting, as their pull gets stronger and stronger. The nurse is torn out of my grip and thrown forcefully down the stairs. I observe the muscles contract throughout her body as it bends in different angles with each blow of each stair. I observe her pony-tail maintain its perfect shape as it is thrown around with the rest of her. Her body finally rests at the very bottom of the stairwell, disfigured and broken. Her limbs resemble those of an oak tree, twisted in strange, beautiful angles. Her neck is broken, resulting in her head twisted the same as her limbs. I race down the stairs to her aid, although I know that I am far too late. The Faces linger, and watch me as I kneel beside her body. I notice that her eyes are still open, and the bright green has faded to a dull grey. I softly close the lids of her eyes and run my hands over her broken, cold corpse. I admire the delicate curves and detail of her placement, my broken white Knight. I pull myself up from the ground and up the stairs. I enter the room where I had just come from, to find that the place was empty. Desperately, I run through one of the adjacent doors, to find myself in a large commercial kitchen, yet again, empty of all beings. I turn myself around to discover that The Faces had followed me and were edging closer, and closer to me, flashing their teeth. I reached behind me, feeling over the bench for an object to use as a weapon of defence. My fingers brush past a sharp blade, and I feel around for a handle. Grasping what I hope is the handle to the blade, I thrust it ahead of me, towards The Faces, only to have the blade enter clean into my chest. Gasping, I fall forward onto my knees, and then helplessly onto my side. I have lost control over every bodily function, and I feel a wet, warm sensation spread through my pants. The Faces are dancing around in circular motions before my eyes, disappearing one by one. Finally, after the last one disappears, I look down at my wound to find my hand still clasped tightly around the handle of the knife. My vision is becoming increasingly more fragmented by the second, and I am loosing my grip on reality. I do not even feel pain in my chest, just a hot sensation spreading throughout my body, the stab wound, the source. The rigidness eases from my body as I turn onto my back and stare above me. I wonder why I have never noticed the patterns in the white ceiling. There is so much intricate detail to it, similar to the white Knight and the nurse’s broken body. It is in this moment that I remember that I have forgotten to make my bed this morning.