I wake up in a cold sweat, a sharp pain on my face as my arms push me off the ground, trying to blink a fix on my surroundings. Everything is...foggy, muddled. Distant shapes were visible, and I could tell that I was definitely somewhere, but it's as if everything was mottled up by a thick layer of a barely translucent sheet, like, like a strip of skin, wrapped tightly around my face.

I...okay, first thing's first, where am I? I slowly stand up, my legs shaky and painful as if they hadn't been used in some time, an unpleasant tingle shuddering through them and threatening me to collapse. I don't let them weigh me down though and I eventually force my way upright. Good, good, looks like motor controls are all fine and coming back. I flex and tighten my fists and fingers, looks like those work too. Now the matter at hand, I look around and examine my surroundings the best I can.

Dark, very dark, slightly cramped, with relatively featureless walls. No, wait, some of my vision's coming back. I can see some cracks, chipped off from age it looks like, with some jagged edges; stone? Am I in a cave? Maybe, I think I can faintly hear water dripping in the distance, but it's muffled and hard to tell. I turn my head, and I see one patch of darkness much darker than the others, like it's been dug through or hollowed out. Wait, it looks darker, is this room lit up? I look up and can faintly see some kind of distant light source, but...I can't tell what it is. It could be a sun or a lamp for all I know and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference; one thing for sure though was it was way too far for me to ever hope of reaching it. Looks like I won't be getting out from there.

Left with not much choice, I will my legs to start walking for what very well may have been the first time I ended up here, could have been a few hours, or even days, but I was chugging along...relatively well. There was a cold pit of dread in my stomach, and not just because of the small and lingering doubt that I wouldn't be able to escape, a very possible scenario that the only path presented to me was just a dead end. No, that wasn't the main thing that was bothering me now, it was the fact that I was dreadfully hungry. I clutched a hand to my tummy and found it of little soothing to the discomforting pressure I could feel emanating from my stomach and up to my dry throat. I need to eat something. More importantly, drink something. There was water nearby, right? I know for a fact that I heard-

Ow!

I stumble back in pain, clutching my face as I realize I had walked straight into a wall; clumsy oaf I am, that could have been a pit. Though anxieties I would have entertained about a dead end are quelled when I feel the brush of cold wind against my side, and I turn my head into the entrance of a large, open chamber, visually distinct from the narrow tunnel what with its small circle of grass in the center, brightly lit under a faint beam of light. I look up, but once again, I cannot discern what the actual light source is. It has to be the sun, that's the only thing that makes sense, and yet, the color and the sensation felt entirely off, more like some kind of industrial lamp. Even if it was the latter though, that was good! It meant there was some kind of human habitation going on down here, enough for electricity to function.

I stepped into the room, grass smushing underneath my feet, a surge of hope rising up in me. As I walked, I could see ahead another passageway, this one marked by some kind of gate, formed of stone pillars, old and dusty. They were hard to see with my impaired vision, yet there was no doubt in my mind that they were manmade! Perhaps they were old and ancient from a bygone era, but nonetheless they indicated a design in the environment intended for people. As long as most of it was still intact, I should be able to-

Eep! Ow! Again?

I guess tripping is a step up from walking into a wall, but this is still embarrassing. I slowly gather my barrings and dust myself off, taking notice of the fact that...my skin looked strangely yellow. Huh? That's not right, and yet before I could even fully contemplate that, I turn around to whatever pebble tripped me...only to be confronted with a large, yellow petaled flower that was definitely not there before. I blink incredulously, and yet my confusion only blossoms further when the center of the flower's bud twitches and quivers, shuddering in a way that was far too erratic to simply be wind. Before I knew it...something on the flower just..ripped, or erupted.

There, dead in the center, between all its cheerfully colorful petals...an eyeball. It took me a moment to recognize the shape, let alone come to grips with why a human eye would be on a flower, but there it was; milky white and seemingly rotted with the dryness unveiling its veins. I found myself frozen, not blinking or breathing as if time had slowed down to a crawl, a crawl that I wasn't making a single inch of progress on. The flower made the first move, blinking, the surrounding world having grown so quietly that I could hear the squish of its eyelids.

"Face."

A voice came, whispering and raspy, and it wasn't mine. I stared incredulously at the one-eyed flower, attempting to speak as well but failing completely, only able to concentrate my brain on the fact that the flower didn't just have an eye, but a mouth as well. It was crooked, the right lip sliced all the way to the side of its pupil-less eye, malformed yet clearly coherent. That's not possible, that didn't make any sense, there's-there's no way a flower could be talking. I wasn't given another moment to think before I heard the voice again.

"Your...face."

The flower was talking.

What the fuck.

II backed away instinctively, legs all to happy to push me away from this...this thing. I didn't have the slightest clue of what was going on, of why this flower somehow had a grotesque face worthy of a birth defect, or why it was apparently so damn interested in my face. Am I losing it? Am I seeing things? This quickly? I must be, because I'm hyperventilating, and yet it doesn't feel like any air is reaching my lungs. I try to steady my breathing, slow down and take long, deep breaths, and yet...when I try to suck in air, I find it getting stuck in front of my lips. But that didn't make sense, my mouth was open. I try again, breathing in to no avail, instead only feeling my lips slightly sink in between my teeth. I raise a hand up to my mouth, only to find that, in the place of lips and an opening, there was only skin.

I didn't have a mouth.

What the fuck.

The flower watched on in either curiosity or amusement as my shaky fingers continued to trace over where my mouth was supposed to be, continued disbelief painting my mind. I couldn't breathe and my panic was rising. The more I panicked, the more I tried to breathe, and the more I tried, the more I suffocated. My hands scrambled up, finding a small outward dent where there should have been a nose, further up and more loose skin where there should have been eyes, only the solid outline of a skull conveying that anything was even supposed to be there in the first place.

I don't have a face.

WHAT THE FUCK.

This doesn't make any sense. Since when? How? Why? How did I not notice this earlier? How am I able to see without any eyes? Why does it still feel like I have a nose and mouth? Why did I only notice when the flower point it out? Did it have something to do with this? Did the flower steal my face? Why can't I breathe? Oh god, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm scared.

"Watch...out..." The flower spoke again, its voice a mocking, raspy whisper while I sat there with my skin freezing and wordlessly stared back, quivering legs weakly trying to push me backwards as I continued to suffocate. I'm scared. I can't breathe. The flower's mutilated mockery of a human mask is as equally indecipherable in its intent, that same rotten mouth seeming to dribble a viscous liquid, and what I could swear was a few ingrown teeth just plopping down to the ground. I can't breathe. I couldn't even tell if the flower was really smiling or if it was just the nature of its deformity, but by the time that thing hissed out its next words I was on the verge of blacking out from a lack of air, yet I heard it all the same. "Watch out...for M_O_M_M_Y."

I feel a pair of warm arms wrap around from behind me, and everything stops.

...

...

...

Everything's so...quiet.

...

...

...

The flower's still there.

It doesn't move, or saying anything. It just stares.

...

...

...

I look down at the arms, nestled gently down my shoulders and in front of my chest. They're...soft, gooey, a set of big, damp, fluffy sleeves.

...

...

They're long. I can't see the end of them. They feel limp like the ones of a stuffed doll.

...

...

My head moves up again, to look at the flower.

All I see is a pile of ash on the ground, smoldering.

...

I turn around, slowly, meeting at first a set of tattered and frayed robes, riddled with rips. It's damp, dripping with transparent, yellowish liquid. Petrol? I hesitate for a moment, before turning my gaze up.

I see a mass. A face. Or a garbled mess of a face. Faces. Plural. There in the very center, a sagging mouth held up by its sides like loose laundry, its teeth missing or sharpened as two holes above on a flat nose weakly hiss out air at an imperceptible volume. One eyehole, is scrunched up and empty, another stretched impossibly and also empty, the entire skin as deathly pale as a freshly peeled egg, while smelling intensely like a rotten one. I see another face, merged so intrinsically against the side of the central one, that it looked like a prosthetic jaw, just hanging off to the side and breathing weakly, eyes entirely obscured by the third head above it. That one only had a single eye, filled with a visible eyeball, looking down at me with familial love. A small horn jutted out from its head, alongside a flabby long ear. On the other side, another horn, far, far larger, sticking up like a broken bone piercing out an elbow. Another face below that side, and another one, and yet another, and yet even more, all squeezed so tightly together like a happy little family.

The mass, it cocked itself to one side, and opened its mouths, gracing my ears to its multitude of deep, motherly voices.

" m Y

Ch i LD? "

...

...

...

Someone.

Please.

Help me.

I don't know where I am right now but

Please, god.

Someone.

Anyone.

Help me.

HELP ME.

HELP ME.