“Alan!… Alan…!” I shouted. He sat there staring ahead at nothing. It was sudden and out of the ordinary as just moments before we were talking up a storm. He stared ahead at the groups of lunch tables ahead of us in our school cafeteria. But, it wasn’t lunch instead it was just before the beginning of the day. As for our last year at high school, we decided to race each other to see who could make it first. Of course, we arrived early as the lights weren’t even on and we sat there in the darkness.
It was unsettling sitting there in all the emptiness whenever I arrived earlier than him. The lunchroom had windows so whenever it was around the time of year whenever it was still pitch dark in the morning around when I arrived the unsettlingness was ever-present. As I sometimes sat there on the lonely bench looking out at the tables, motionless I was, and sometimes I starred in fear that in the darkness within the split seconds of my eyes being closed something would appear. Something grotesque with a darkened form of nothingness almost something just there not in any fear of the possible harm it might cause but just the sight of something that just shouldn’t be there. But then Alan would walk in and all fear will fade away.
“Damnit Alan stop looking like that.” That’s when the mumbling started. “There are faces in the darkness… There are faces in the darkness… There are faces smiling.” My friend’s face began to twitch as he began to smile and turn his head to face me. A wide toothy smile stretched across his face. “ They’re happy, happy smiles in the darkness… Can’t you see there are faces in the darkness… Happy smiling faces in the darkness.” His eyes began to bleed as simultaneously blood began trickling from his nose and ears.
It was then I saw the faces. Oh god, those smiles. They were very still in the darkness. Twenty or so spread out throughout the cafeteria. Happy, smiling faces. Large eyes of blackness and grins reaching wide. I looked back to my friend and as the blood was poring and the twitching grew in scale as it reached nearly his whole body. He kept repeating over and over, “Happy smiling faces, happy smiling faces.” He paused for a second struggling. “Please… don’t let them take me, Daniel.” His twitching ceased and he slumped on the bench sliding to the floor as if he were a ragdoll and in a blink, he disappeared into the darkness. Pulled away by those… those happy smiling faces.
I awoke in a sweat on the bench shaken awake by one of the teachers. I saw that the lunchroom was now lit and the teacher noticed my shakiness and of course the drenching sweat he asked if I was okay and I told him that I was fine and I just didn’t get enough sleep last night and I had a bad dream. He nodded in understanding and told me to get to class and the whole morning I just kept thinking about how vivid that dream was and couldn’t wait to tell Alan. Fourth period rolls around and it is one of the classes I had with him I couldn’t wait to tell him and he wasn’t there. The end of the day rolls around and nothing. He never answered any messages and by the end of the day, his parents report him missing. The farthest they’ve gotten so far is knowing he made it to the school because his car was in the parking lot of the school. But due to the cameras not working outside of the school they don’t know what really happened. Two theories have been floating around. Number one being he was kidnapped while walking up to the school. Second, he just ran away, just another runaway.
But, I still go to that bench every morning in that complete darkness, and as I stare into that darkness I know what really happened to my best friend. And some mornings if I stare just hard enough I can see a familiar happy smiling face staring back at me and I can’t help but give a wide smile in return.