Chapter 2:

Unseen/Unwanted

Face Me Online


As I ran down the stairs, a plated dinner sat at the dinner table, waiting for someone to eat it. The meat - presumedly beef - was covered in an oil similar to gelatinous bacon fat as well as the distinct orange of a coagulated egg yolk, immediately turning me off from stopping to do so.

Before I could get out of the house, I had one more obstacle to overcome - my older sister Erika.

She was asleep and almost out of sight on the beaten-up leather couch, but she stirred in her sleep, freezing me in my tracks for a second. Just lying there in front of me, she reminded me of what I looked like before my "affliction"...she had significantly longer hair than I did, though.

Suddenly, I held my breath. Erika sat up in her mess of a patchwork blanket, glancing out of blearily opened eyes, but didn't see me as I locked the door and made my escape.
----
Luckily - or not so luckily? - on my part, I passed by Harrison's house every day, so it was no big deal to suddenly pop up in his garden...but probably not in a bush in his backyard, which I had the really dumb idea of hiding in.

Unlike mine, Harrison's house was only one storey, so it was pretty easy to get his attention. However, when it seems you're doing a creepy version of the balcony scene from 'Romeo and Juliet', something's got to be wrong with you.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" he'd interrogated, his mouth unmoving as he spoke.

I'd somewhat expected him to have my face like I had his, but it turned out his face had been robbed of its features so that it became like a white store mannequin's. Regardless of that, he seemed to be able to function normally.

"I'm An - Brooke's friend." My tone reflected the careful way I wanted to word things, but my eyes watched Harrison's Adam's apple bob up and down.

"By 'Brooke', you mean one of the twins down the road?" His tone was lackadasical, but clearly trying to match mine, while his eyes seemed to stay shut, as if in disbelief in regards to his condition.

"Yup."

"What are you doing in the backyard?"

I showed him the affected picture, a side of my borrowed mouth tucked into a scowl. His eyes "looked" at it, then his face lit up.

"So something did happen!"

...He expected 'something' this entire time? Whatever did he mean?