The Many Faced Man

Looking into a mirror I see a small boy.

He is very young, 4 years old, looking back at me. An older lady is standing off behind my shoulder. I think the boy looks familiar but the old lady I don't quite recognize.

I turn to look at the old lady and she isn't there... No, she is. I feel her, her shape is still there. I can sense it, just not with my eyes.

And I can sense her eyes turn to look at me. So I smile at her, she seems nice. She becomes a bit distorted and goes away.

I guess she didn't want to talk.

It is another day, and I am in my bed. The old lady and some others like her visit me frequently at the night. They seem nice, but they are always a bit different. They never seem to want to talk, they only gesture, smile, and watch.

I can tell when they are around but no one else ever seemed to see them. I began to doubt why no one else tries to talk with them. Eventually, I realized I wasn't supposed to be seeing them, or more like, I was the only one seeing them.

I started to act like my parents and the others, and I ignored them. After all, they never really try to play or talk anyways. I don't think it will bother them.

Still, it bothers me that no one notices them, that no one talks to them. The few times I tried, they never talk back.

I go and ask my parents about them, telling them about the people by my bed. They said it was just my imagination, and asked if I was scared of them. I said I wasn't, but a lot more of them had been around recently, I thought it was kind of weird, but It wasn't worth to mention.

They told me that if I'm scared, just remember that they aren't real. My dad would tell me that since I have a strong imagination, I should be able to control it too.

So if I saw something scary, and I knew I was imagining it, I should use my imagination to get rid of it.

As time passed more of them came. And then suddenly there were a lot less. The ones who came instead at night were dark, they felt different. They did nothing but stand over my bed and watch, like the others, but they felt wrong.

I did what my dad said. I made an imaginary bubble, a barrier, to keep the scarier ones away. I couldn't do it well at first, but after a while at least, I was confident that they could not touch me.

But because of my actions, I think, as more time passed, more came.

They would come and go like an ebb and flow, but always those who came would keep being darker. Outside the window one night I saw something dark, even darker than black, a true void. A darkness without shape or being.

It only watched from outside the window, but that alone made me fear it far more than those dark who approached me before.

I felt, if the void ever approached me, I would not be able to resist. It shook a deep fear from within my soul.

A few days passed but it didn't leave, if anything it exuded an even stronger presence each day. But I said nothing to anyone. It was just in my imagination anyways, so it didn't matter.

More and more of them gathered despite it's presence, and I noticed something.

The void would sometimes swallow them up. Not like a person eats hot dog, but like a sink swallows water. The people become a colorless water and the void eats them up, getting bigger and bigger.

I wondered how it did that, could I do it too? So I tried. I let my bubble blow up, and had it act like water, when I hit them with the water then they acted like they were water too. I swished them this way and that way, until they lost their form. Then I gobbled them up.

I don't know why, but I felt better. I felt happy, I felt safer. I started to wash them away whenever they came too close to me. If it wasn't me, it would be the dark, they would wash away one way or another.

It became another part of my everyday, my usual. No one else could see, it was my own way to play. My own private game, my own imagination.

After a while, they didn't seem to show up around me as much, I wondered why? I would still run into them occasionally when we went for a drive or on a walk. My bubble also got bigger as time went on, so it was easier to catch them if I expanded it out once they got close.

As I ate more, I felt more confident, and made my bubble bigger. Eventually it got to the size where I could cover my whole school.

As I got older, I questioned, is it real? What if everyone is wrong? What if it is not me who is wrong, but everyone else.

But then, I didn't mind, it was the same either way. Any time I tried to explain it, no one believed anyway.

The void went away one day, it left no explanation for it's coming, and none why it went away.

I went on, acting like everyone, every day. There was a difference between the imaginary people and the real ones. Real people are nice to you, and should be treated nicely back. They aren't like imaginaries, who you could just wash away.

I wasn't good with others, but I knww how I was supposed to be. When others needed help, I was there to save the day. When asked for a task, I'd hop to help right away.

But it did no good, to be good every day. Those I helped, forgot favors quickly, those I protected them from, would always remember. To help others, it is the quickest way to get yourself isolated.

Time passed, my heart grew colder, it began to feel just like the void I had seen back then.

I wanted others to like me, but no matter if I do the right thing for others, or even on my own.. it didn't make others like me and seemed to do the opposite.

My void like heart was unfeeling, it yearned to feel but no longer could. As I grew older I stopped caring about my imagination, I even hated it and blamed it for my failures, for my lack of friends.

So, it went away, like I wished. With some effort, or a lot of it. I stopped seeing them, and with time, I became normal, or at least to a certain extent. I even made friends, or at least, I tried to believe so.