"What Face Will You Wear Today" by Matt Bliss

You remember the day it happened, don’t you?

This came out in earlier sessions, but perhaps hearing it again will help. You are so young, after all. Young enough to see the world through an orange haze of carelessness, yet old enough to remember the day with a cellular clarity. Only to repress this memory along with… the others, of course.

If you close your eyes, perhaps you can see it. Steam pouring from the cracked bathroom door. The static hiss of the shower drawing you closer. You grab the handle, warm and slick in your small hand, and you jar the door just enough to see her.

Your mother.

She stands hunched over the sink with her back facing you—nude except for the towel wrapping her hair. You watch closely, following each little knob in her back as they compress and straighten, rising in the mirror before you. But in that reflection, what do you see?
Well, you see that her face… is gone.

This, perhaps, could be a child’s overactive imagination, but your brain… is special. You see things differently, and what you see, is a bone white hollow lined with her same sun-kissed flesh tracing your mother’s hairline, to her ears, to the tip of her acute chin with only emptiness between.

You jerk your hand back, but you can’t look away, can you? You watch through the opening as she reaches for the far left drawer, sliding it open to reveal the face you know. She lifts it to her head and snaps it into place. Eyes move and lips flex. She presses one cheek toward the mirror and then the other, inspecting the fit.

Then, her eyes lock onto you.

You run, sprinting through the hall, leaping into bed and tossing the covers over you. You tug at your own face, searching for a seam, or latch, or button to open it, but find none. When Mother comes to explain—to calm you—you refuse to listen. How could you? To you, this stranger looks like your mother but isn’t. It is wearing her face. Only, her whisper soft voice is exactly how you remember, isn’t it? And when she strokes your back, pressing nails ever so slightly, your trembling stops. When you finally peel back the covers, you see the same honey-brown eyes you’d always known.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” she explains.

Still, you don’t speak. Instead, you imagine that empty space you’d seen only moments earlier.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is the only face you need to remember. This is the face that will always love you. No matter what.”

She smiles and lets you touch her face with both hands, pinching rounded cheeks and tracing her ears, searching for a seam but finding none. What you saw doesn’t matter then, because she is your mother and you can feel it in your bones. Like a newborn cub instinctively knows which teat to suckle. This is the same face that smiles when she tickles your toes. The same lips that kiss the part in your hair each night. The same eyes that crease only the slightest when she says she loves you to the moon and back.

What more can you ask for in a mother’s face?

Ahhh… you do remember this now, don’t you? Yes, I can see it in your eyes. This is what you tell the first responders, and much later the doctors while under hypnosis. How she leads you to the kitchen after that and makes you the biggest bowl of ice cream you’ve ever seen, complete with chocolate syrup, sprinkles, and a mound of whipped cream.

But you know the truth of it all now, don’t you?

You know this never happened, yes?

Good… good. It must be a hard pill to swallow, I imagine, and I don’t mean because of your… condition.

Where are we? Yes, the truth of the matter.

Your father is a very ill man. His brain is special, like yours. So when he sees something—something that isn’t there but his brain tells him it is—he acts out on it, even though it isn’t rational.

He makes you watch, doesn’t he?

He makes you watch through the steam-filled bathroom and the static hiss of the water because the sound keeps the voices quiet for him. And he places the knife to her face, and he searches for a seam that isn’t there. He removes her face… in front of you.

Please, I know this is hard, but it is all part of your recovery. You have to live the reality, not the fantasy.

You stay with her after that. You waste away for days until they find you. You’re alone, and tell them your story, but they figure out what truly happened, don’t they? And your father is nowhere to be found. But days later, when you see his face, when you read that bold headline above his photo on the news, what do you do?

We don’t know how you found the knife. Perhaps you pocketed it from a careless employee, but you don’t know the reality of that, yes?

We find you just in time. It’s amazing how your derangement is so deep, you can almost finish removing your own face, only to pass out from blood loss before it’s complete.

The surgeons try their best with you, but they can only do so much. The nerve damage and scar tissue leave you… well, let’s just say, altered. And while it must be difficult—living this again, knowing the truth of what transpired—you know why we must go through this, yes? There are gaps in the story. Gaps only you can help us fill in. So please, whenever you’re ready, pick up that pen and paper.
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We would like to speak to your father… if you’d be so kind as to let him out. You know he’s inside there with you, yes?

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Matt Bliss is a construction worker turned speculative fiction writer from Las Vegas, Nevada. His short fiction has appeared in Diabolical Plots, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and The NoSleep Podcast among other published and forthcoming works. You can find more on Matt and links to his work at flow.page/mattbliss.