Part One

Not many people understand me. I don’t like to smile, I don’t like to run around and play, or be loud and obnoxious. All of these loud and bright actions attract unwanted attention. I was forced to laugh. I wasn’t supposed to, though. I knew something bad was going to happen when the first harsh breath of air escaped my lungs, and laughs climbed out of my throat in dry, short heaves, but as I said before, I was never supposed to smile, or laugh.
School… I absolutely hate school, people are constantly smiling. It concerns me more than it should. My mom kisses my cheek as I walk to my car. I climb in and put the key in the ignition, and pull out of the driveway. Five minutes later I’m at South Hill High School, South Hill Ravens logo shining with pride. I open the doors and walk into the loud shouts, laughter, and smiling faces. Wesley Jacobs, (the most popular kid on campus) was beating Alexander Bentley up. His scrawny body lay there, receiving cuts and bruises with every hit. As usual, I walk by, minding my own business. It happens every day. Some kid gets beat up because they looked at someone the wrong way. Given the reason I keep my head down. I head to my locker, #173. 19-41-02. The click of my locker unlocking ensures that I have done this with no flaw. I tug on the handle a few times, and it protests, but gives in and finally opens. I grab my History books as the warning bell rings.
One minute to get to class. My mental reminder that occurs naturally. I briskly walk to class. Opening the door to history right as the final bell rings, sitting down in my desk. Four rows to left of the teacher’s desk, 2 desks back. Mrs. Martin walks up to the board and writes: “Just… Smile…” Shocked, I stare at the two words in awe. I blink, they’re replaced with “Read pages 57-72 by Wednesday” I grab my assignment journal, write it down. Class ends after an agonizing 57 minutes of lecturing. The next three classes were as expected, long and boring.
Lunch came around. As usual complete and utter crap. I didn’t get lunch. Rumor spread around there was a new girl. And soon enough, I found out that was true. She had her “ham” and “bread” on her tray, and sat down across from me. It was awkward for the first few minutes. I sat there, glancing at her every now and then. She broke the silence 5 minutes after she sat down.
“I’m Lynn Kimberlee.” she says so quietly it is almost inaudible.
“I’m Cyrus,” I reply “Cyrus Berkman.”
“You don’t look like a Cyrus. You look like a Reese.” she smiles, her mood changing almost instantly.
She smiled, dammit. This may not go well. I should get away, she is definitely too cheery.
“I need to g-” I say, but we spoke at the same time.
“You’re kind of cute, maybe we should go to Mae’s Shake Shop, I heard their smoothies are awesome.”
“Sure,” I say without thinking, it has been so long since I have had someone call me cute. “I mea-” is all I manage to say before she happily skips to the trash and slams her Styrofoam tray in the garbage can.
“What the heck did I get myself into?” I mutter to myself.

Eventually, Friday rolled around. I could stay home, and let her down. But if I did so I’d feel like total crap. I got on my nicest clothing, which I didn’t have much of. I got a soft black undershirt I got from American Eagle Outfitters, I also put on my black, red, and pink crazy plaid button up shirt that I also got from American Eagle. I put on a dark pair of pants, and put on my grey and white Vans. I got into my car and thought, where do I go. And as if on cue, a text popped up on my phone.
“7054 Middle Vista, -Lynn”
“Well isn’t that convenient,” I chuckle.
Dammit. I chuckled. What is wrong with me? I pulled out of the driveway before seeing a emaciated creature run across my yard. I get scared and just start driving, as if it would stop the fear.
I find Lynn’s house and knock on my door. I brush down my pants and realized I forgot about my hair, I just whipped it to the left and let it be. She opened the door. She was beautiful. She had on almost the exact same pants I was wearing. A black tank top with a loose fitting Slipknot jacket.
“Hi.” I said sheepishly, dang, am I stupid. Compliment her, Cyrus!
“You look,” I search for the right word. “Really pretty.”
“You do too.” she replies, blushing.
“Well lets get going. I don’t want to stand here too long. I heard they only stay open till 9.” I say, lying, I actually said it because that emaciated creature, was sitting on the stool in the kitchen. Grinning. Its mouth to big, the grin stretched from one ear to the other. Literally, cut open ear to ear carved into a permanent smile. I’m surprised I didn’t scream like a little girl. Instead, I calmly turned around and took one step forward, and heard the door shut behind me, the lock twisting. And felt something jump on my back. I gasp and almost scream but it’s Lynn, her soft laugh behind my ear. I have never given someone a piggy-back ride before. I frown, my mom use to always give me them. So I did what she did. Secured her legs in my arms, and walked with a little hop in my step so it seemed like I was happy. Which I was, but that was the only way I could express it, I was so unsure of how to express happiness. She was laughing. I laughed back, and it felt so good to finally laugh. She hopped down and fixed her long blonde hair that reached down to the bottom of her shoulder blades. I noticed a Wine Red stripe in her hair, a cute little detail that made my heart skip a beat. Her midnight blue eyes met mine and my hazel eyes met hers.
This is awesome. I think to myself.
I open the door for her and she gets in, and she says, “Thank you,” she looks at me for a moment and jokingly says, “Prince Charming.” and laughs, I laugh too. But this time, it didn’t feel right. It felt like something was clawing out of my chest. But I ignored it. I got into the car and looked at Lynn, her face bloodied and eyes dark pits of red. The same crude black smile etched into her face, the same as the creature. Hair burned off in several places. But most of all, her stomach was ripped open crudely, blood rushing out of it, in the rhythms of her heart. I scream and shut my eyes. But when I open them she’s looking at me like I’m an animal.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, just thought about if you were a spooky old zombie trying to eat me.” I lie
“That’s mean.” she jokes, hitting my arm.

“Just messing with you.”
She laughs. She grabs my hand and squeezes it.
She is really in love with me, she just met me on Monday. What the heck? I think to myself.
We pull out of the driveway and arrive to Mae’s a half hour later.
We go in and sit next to each other in a booth. I didn’t realize it right away but under the table, she was holding my hand. I was about to say something to her but our waitress came and asked us what we wanted.
“You order first,” I tell her, “I don’t know what I want yet.”
With my free hand I grab the menu and decide on a cheeseburger and strawberry-mango smoothie. Lynn just orders a blueberry smoothie. The waitress goes back to give the order.
Lynn looks at me and is about to say something. But instead, kisses me. I dont know what to do but sit there. She pulls away after 3 seconds or so and smiles at me. The waitress brings us our smoothies and my cheese burger. We talk, laughing and smiling. The laughs back to normal. We talk about the last Slipknot concert and how it was weird how we both ended up there. Her saying that she got a backstage pass and met Corey Taylor himself, and showed me proof with a picture on her phone. When we finished it was 8:47. I payed the bill and I drove her home.
She fell asleep by the time we got to her house. I picked her up and she kept sleeping. I brought her to what I guessed to be her room. Slipknot, Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold, Nine Inch Nails, all of their merch was everywhere, posters, pushes, masks, other knick knacks. I noticed that her parents room was nowhere to be found. So I went back to Lynn’s room. She was awake.
“Can you stay the night with me?” she asks.
I am 18, graduating in one month.
“Sure,” I reply. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Cyrus?” she asks, “Can you sleep in here. I usually have bad nightmares. I want someone by me.”
“I will.” I reply.
I lay on the floor.
“Cyrus?” she says more than asks.
“Yeah?” I say.
I roll over and look at her, she pats the side of the bed and I laugh. I climb into bed with her and within minutes she’s back asleep. But the only thing keeping me awake is the scraping metal in the kitchen. I swiftly but quietly get out of bed and make sure Lynn is still asleep. The noise has moved to the bathroom. Soft moans and wails escaping from the location. I sneak to the kitchen and grab the largest knife I can find. I softly walk to the bathroom. Someone is throwing up. I peek into the bathroom and see the creature leaned over on its knees. Fingers with too many knuckles and at least 6 inches long each grabbing at the back of its head, nails that are 2 inches long at the end of the long fingers. Its arms too, had too many joints, as if it had 3 or 4 different elbows. But each arm, hand, and finger were different sizes than the other. It was vomiting blood. Pure blood. But it didn’t look like blood, it was more of a blackish blue. I shifted my weight and the board creaked and I froze with fear. I couldn’t move as the creature’s head turned 180° around and sick cracking and crunching noises followed along. Its eyes were dark pits missing the actual eye itself, but it stared at me as if it had eyes. It had the black smile as I noticed earlier. The black blood gushing from the mutilated abdomen. Its hairless head lined with scratches. It bellows a deep guttural scream and lunges at me, and it’s then that I move. I dart out of the way in time and the creatures slams into the wall. Leaving the wall smashed with the imprint of its’ body. The creature bellows again and stands up completely. It’s 10 feet tall, arms too long and reaching down to its knees. Its’ nails seemed to increase in size, now touching the floor, at least a foot long. It doesn’t slow down though. It gets back down on all four and starts chasing me. I start running as well. I realize I still have the knife in my hand. I turn around and chuck the knife at the creature. The knife spinning top over end until it meets its target, the blade burying itself into the monsters left side of it’s chest. It only bellows louder. All of the glass in the house shatters. My eardrums pop and I fall to the ground grasping my ears. Blood is leaking from my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my ears. It stands over me and grabs my neck and sits on me so I can’t get up. Our skin contact burns my flesh, leaving behind swelling spots and blisters. The fingers wrap all the way around my neck overlapping its wrists. It takes one of it’s nails and puts it on my cheek. I am crying, screaming for Lynn. But it looks me in the eyes, and I forget how to talk. It slides its nail through my flesh all the way up to my ear. The pain is unbearable and I scream even louder and punch it square in the nose, stopping it for a moment, but continues while black blood drips from its nose. I am flailing and crying trying to get it off me. It starts on the other cheek and I stop fighting it, I only cry. It finishes with my cheeks. But it is not done. It shoves a few nails in my left eye quickly, as if it’s getting tired with me. I feel the nails closing around my eye, the flesh separating. And tears out my eye. My vision goes out in that eye and I hear it eating my eye. It shoves its nails in my other eye and does the same. I am now completely blind. I feel it’s other hand rake across my stomach multiple times. I feel my intestines fall out of the gashes. And at my last effort for survival, I feel for the knife that is buried in it’s chest. I find the handle and repeatedly start to stab the creature. But all it does is repeat.
“I’m helping you smile. You’ll be happy. It hurts now. Once a year. You will do the same as I. But if you don’t I will come back… And I will end your happiness.”
Then it’s gone. The pain. The monster. I have my eyes back. I’m fine. Lynn is standing in her doorway with her phone in her hand, and asks,
“I heard someone scream, are you okay?”
I nod.



Lynn and I live together now. We moved out, she’s a psychologist, I’m a police officer. We are getting married in July of 2015. But once a year. I have to cause that same pain to someone who is sad, I go through the pain and the sorrow that the monster went through. And I know that I helping someone, even though they may just go too far, and kill their host.