An Ugly Truth
- Apr 22, 2015
- 2 min read
Anna stood still. Her heavy breath crackled and a heat rolled over her like she had suddenly left a cool comfort and entered the heat of a scorching midsummer afternoon. Feeling the moisture settling in the cracks of her hands, she clenched and unclenched them. Her eyes stared forward, fixed on the beast before her; whose face stood only inches from her own. The hot breath on her face, as though bursts of heavy steam against her cheeks. Frozen in panic she could not change direction and her breath quickened.
The being was most foul and disfigured. What was lost somewhere between human and beast snarled back at her exposing rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth. The skin of it dripped off the bone in a never-ending stream like wax off a tilted candle. The skin itself seemed to glisten from it’s own slickness and sliminess in the light of the overhead bulb, emphasizing the green and yellow tinges of puss and infection on the ribbed surface.
Each chomping snarl thrust the dripping slime off its teeth and snout onto Anna’s face. The wild tongue thrashing toward her madly. Anna touched her hands to her face without thought as she gazed over the wet oozing bumps of the monster’s face. In mocking, the beast raised its own, dragging its long black, dirty claws over and through the flesh along its cheekbones. Anna couldn’t look away as the flesh was picked off its bones around the gaping mouth. The beast began to howl madly, climbing to a taunting cackle. What started as a scoff, grew deeper into her belly, soon Anna found herself laughing wildly with the beast and she threw her head back in uproar.
The dripping from the faucet seemed to cut through the cackling and Anna became quiet with her head still thrown back. Slowly she brought her face down to see what was the dripping. Peering down she found her knuckles white, clenched to the porcelain sink’s edge. Letting the cool tap water run over her wrists and splashing a little over her face, she felt frightened to look back into those eyes. After staring off into the sink, she dried her hands on a near by towel, only looking back to her reflection for a moment more before leaving the restroom.
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