The Lady’s Face
Picture this.
You wake up in a room much darker than the one you fell asleep in. Looking around, you discover nothing, because you see nothing.
The room is pitch black. You close your eyes and that that when they open, you will find that it was just a dream.
But no.
You can’t even tell the difference between the insides of your eyelids and your surroundings. You try desperately to make out a shape, a form, anything, to no avail. Soon, your imagination begins to substitute for the absent images.
Or so it seems. Or so you tell yourself.
In front of you, a lady’s face appears. She is a happy lady, seemingly old-fashioned, too. She smiles at you, and you smile at her too.
You quickly realize how wrong this could go, and your smile is wiped off your face. You close you eyes and try to shake the image away. Your actions mean nothing, the lady wont leave.
So you do the inevitable. You continue to stare at the face. You have no other choice. It doesn’t take long before the lady’s smile turns evil. Her expression wrinkles into a prune, into a snarl. The face darkens and is getting less ladylike by every passing second.
This is no lady.
This is a banshee. A demon; unearthly and unkind. The snarl gets worse and the eyes narrow and get angrier as they sink into their sockets. You are absolutely hopeless in getting the image to disappear. You are awake. Wide awake, and you know it.
The sunken-eyed snarl begins to transform. The mouth opens wider until it becomes an elongated ‘O’. A screaming soul with no sound. You feel every decibel of the scream that never was. Soon, the mouth of the creature gets even bigger.
And longer.
The mouth grows to devour its own hideous face, and comes closer as it threatens to go for yours.
You close your eyes and will it away. It has already gone, seemingly have devoured your face when you open your eyes.
Somewhere, halfway across the world, someone has woken up in a place darker than the one they fell asleep in. The room is pitch black. They try desperately to make out any shape, to no avail.
Finally, a face appears. It is a smiling face. But this time, it is not the old-fashioned lady.
Had you been there, you would have recognized the face.
Why, it was your own.