All Around Me Are Worn Out Faces Novels & Stories

Maddie Inside my room, I stood facing the giant wooden mirror in front of me, surrounded by the omegas who swarmed around, always ready to provide humble service. They looked terrified, some shaking, others just bowing their heads and staring at the floor. Not a single word escaped their lips. The atmosphere felt heavy and serious, casting an awkward and strange feeling, as if I were alone in the room. “What’s wrong with your faces? Why do you all seem down in such beautiful weather? Your feelings don't match how good the day was.”

He too wasn’t the person he used to be. I placed my hand on his cheek and stroked it with my thumb, his usual soft and clean-shaven face, now sprinkled with a rough stubble. Putting my other hand on his face, I lifted his head so that I could truly see him. He kept his eyes closed, and as I inspected his face, I could see that he looked so tired and like he'd given up on life. I continued to stroke his face and his eyes gradually opened, allowing me to really look deep into them. They were still beautiful, but the deeper I looked, the duller they became. It was like the life and sparkle had been sucked out of them.

The other tourists milled about, but the change in them was a cold slap. Yesterday, they’d been vapid, sun-drunk vacationers. Now, they moved with a listless, shuffling gait. Deep, bruise-like shadows pooled under their eyes. Their skin had a waxy, pallid tone. They looked drained. Not tired. Siphoned. The cheerful facade of the island was cracking, and the rot beneath was starting to show. My gaze swept the beach, landing on a man staring blankly at the waves. He was closer than the others. A test subject.

The city stretched endlessly below. The hours spent staring into empty rooms that still carried echoes of someone who no longer belonged there. My reflection stared back at me. I looked at the shadows beneath my eyes, the tension in my shoulders. The exhaustion etched across my face, it made me look like a defeated man, according to the papers. A broken man, according to the gossip columns. I studied that reflection for a long moment, then I straightened slowly. Outside, the sunlight had grown brighter, spilling across the towers and streets below.

All that remained was our congregation screeching, writhing, rocked with spasms of pain I can only fathom. They had done as Johnny had bade them. They’d taken off their masks. One by one they had torn into their flesh and pulled off their faces like old, tattered wallpaper. Glistening red faces peered back at each other in wide-eyed panic, each face a look of shock and surprise, their lipless mouths frozen forever in toothy smiles. I staggered toward Johnny’s place on the stage. He was leaning against the microphone stand, his shoulders rising and falling with deep, labored breaths. I don’t know if he was still caught in the trance of the music. He was still wearing his shades.

Their clothes are torn, their faces pale, and grief weighs down every movement they make. I stay close to Leo’s side like he told me, my steps cautious, my eyes darting from ruin to ruin. Every charred wall, every broken doorframe, feels like a wound carved into my chest. I can still picture children running across yards like this, voices raised in play. Families gathering by firepits. Now all of it is gone.

Like a Free Bird At the door, there’s this tall, lanky fellow, with a week-old stubble on a pitifully undernourished jawline and a face with unusually white patches of skin standing with a tilt to his right. He has an aluminium forearm clutch in his right hand and he is emitting a strong stench of inflammable oil, a stench which is common among city bus drivers and conductors, diesel engine technicians working with the Railways or in the car-repair workshops. For me, it has really been hard to recognize people in the neighbourhood, because in this colony, people keep moving in and out. In the last eight years, every time I came for my vacations, I met at least one new family in the immediate

“You will never see the world you trully belong.” I was like fell to slumber the longest of time. I wake up to see the blinding of light that soring the deepest wound in my eyes. As if there's really invisible wound that keep aching as the light meet my eyes. I yawned and see the outside that was desolated. “This place...” The breeze of wind far from being chilly was brought me a shivering thought. I gasped when the thought of something replace by the face of young looking man, raising his eyebrow to my messy state. “Yeah, right!”

My bag bumped against my hip with each step, loud in the silence. I was almost at the door when he said it again. “Autumn.” Something in his voice made me stop. I hated myself for it. Slowly, reluctantly, I turned. That’s when I really saw him. Not just the outline, not just the exhaustion painted across his features, but the raw decay of him. The overgrown hair. The hollow cheeks. The lines etched deep around his mouth. He looked like someone who had been chewed up and spit out by the world.

I faced the mirror as I brushed my teeth and I barely recognized the person staring back at me. My eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, highlighted by the dark circles of sunken skin underneath them. My cheeks were red and raw from rubbing away the tears that had fallen throughout the night. I washed my face in cool water, hoping to soothe the inflamed skin but it was useless. Giving up, I showered quickly and dressed in some faded jeans, a black t-shirt, and some black biker boots, then headed out the door.