Face Me

Wake Up Veronica

"Wake up, Veronica," he whispered in my ear, "it's time to die."

I shot out of bed and swiped frantically at the air around my trying to fight my unknown assailant but it was no use. There was no one there just like usual. I did my best to calm my racing heart and placed my shaky legs on the floor.

Crunch.

I cried out as my bare foot shattered the Christmas ball ornament under it, the plastic cutting into my skin. He had left me another gift. I should have known better and checked the floor before getting out of bed. I had lost count of the number of gifts he had left me by now. Always little Christmas trinkets and always right beside my bed.

Wiping my foot off I then leaned over and flicked my lamp on. Why didn't I do that first? Stupid; I cursed myself. The light revealed a simple bedroom, just a dresser and the bed itself. He was nowhere to be seen just like usual. I was alone on the bed.

I sighed. I couldn't understand his fascination with me. What did he want? I was just a regular woman who had a 9-5 job. Maybe it was my looks. My thin figure turned a few men's heads when I walked past. With wavy long dark brown hair, bright green eyes, a short and petite face, and a figure to rival a magazine model, I was someone that guys often lingered their gaze on. At least, I used to be.

Five years. It had been five years since my first gift. I had gotten out of bed and found an ornamental star on my floor. I wasn't one to celebrate Christmas or any holiday for that matter and I had immediately called the police. They thought it was just a prank of some sort but sent someone to check out my apartment anyway. Nothing was found.

Nothing happened and I hadn't thought much about it since nothing happened for months after. But then one year later, I found another gift by my bed and again the year after. I even moved apartments but still found a gift one year later. A year ago things changed. The gifts started appearing every morning even if I spent the night somewhere else. I called the police again but still they did nothing, just told me to stay safe and call them if anything substantial happened.

He came later.

The evening before I had gathered all the recent gifts that had been left and thrown them away. Sometime in the night I heard his voice for the first time.

"I love you. I love you. I love you," he whispered over and over.

I had jolted out of bed and turned on my lamp but no one was there. I called the police and told them what had happened but when they got there they once again found nothing. Sleep hadn't come easy that night.

Two nights later I heard him again. He whispered "I love you" again and again and I yelled for him to stop. It was silent after that. I heard nothing for two months and thought that maybe it was over.

I woke up with another gift and when I looked in the mirror something was written on my face.

"DIE."

I scrubbed my face until it was red and raw but nothing I did would erase the words. I was hospitalized a few weeks later after I tried to cut the words out of my face. Nobody understood my pain. I just wanted it to all be over.

He left the gifts every night even in my special room in the hospital. Every other night it seemed that he would come and whisper either "I love you" or "time to die" and I was going crazy. He never gave up.

When he left the ornament ball I thought maybe this had been a true gift. I took the biggest plastic piece I could find and held it to my wrist. This is it. Freedom at last. I was ready to slice my skin open.

He touched me.

Cold scaly fingers rested on my neck one by one until his entire hand was on me.

"Don't," he whispered.

Then he was gone.

I stood, trembling in place, my hand gripping the plastic shard so tight that it started to bleed, hovering over my wrist. The nurse found me later, curled up in a ball on the bed, still clutching the plastic tightly. They saved me. Why did they have to save me?

They placed me under constant surveillance after that. They moved me to a new smaller room and even put a camera in it to watch me. The gifts still mysteriously appeared. He still whispered to me but I was the only who could hear it, the cameras caught nothing.

I don't know what to do anymore. I can't escape but I think I must. I ignored the gifts, just letting them pile up one by one for days. Every morning I wondered why the nurses didn't clean it up when they brought me my food.

For months, this went on. I ate, I slept, I ate, I slept, and the gifts piled up. I started to get sores from doing nothing but sit on my bed and they took me to bathe me. I tried to drown myself in the water but they pulled me out and put a special jacket on my when they were done. I couldn't move.

That night he came again. I was all wrapped up in my jacket unable to move when I heard him whisper.

"Tonight's the night," he said.

I felt his cold scaly hands on me, they started on my neck and slowly made their way down my back. I screamed and blacked out after he bit into my neck. Hours later I woke up in a hospital alone.

I fell out of bed and wobbled toward the bathroom. I used all my strength to push myself up and looked at myself in the mirror. Someone else stared back. It took me a second before I realized that it was my face that stared back at me.

My bruised and bandaged face so badly damaged it was nearly unrecognizable. What had happened to me? They took me back to the special place soon after, back to my special room with the tight jacket. I overheard someone say that they couldn't understand why I would do this to myself. They would understand if they could hear him too.

If they could hear my demon, then they would probably do the same thing. In the middle of the night I woke up and found that one of the straps on my jacket had come loose. I wriggled around until I was free and tied one end of it to the ceiling fan and the other around my neck. I stood on the edge of the bed and stared one more time at the pile of ornaments by my bed. Then I jumped.

"Hello," he said, "I'm so glad you're here."

I blinked my eyes and saw that I was alone in some dark place. I turned and there he was. My demon. He was dark gray from head to toe, scaly skin, sharp claws instead of fingers, and he had no face. There's was no face at all on his head, just darkness.

I couldn't move, his claws clacked on the floor as he shuffled toward me. I couldn't move as he sank his sharp claws into my forehead and tore my face off. All I could do was scream.

"I'll take your face," he growled.

I fell to the floor but heard one last thing before I blacked out again.

He said, "Welcome to Hell."