I. FacelessThe light of her world died the moment she stepped foot on this wretched, cursed isnd. Even today, she could still hear his cries echoing in her sleep. He was so young, so energetic, his innocence shining through with every wide smile. The cabin still smelled of salt and sun-bleached wood. A suitcase y half-unpacked in the corner, a child's swimsuit folded on top. She hadn't touched it since that night. And now he's gone; they took him away from her, her sweet boy. He's gone now, and nothing in this world would free her from her grief. It was suffocating; staying alive only meant being reminded of her failures as a mother. Is this the life she wanted to live? She can't bear the pain anymore, the weight of her sins, like salt in an open wound, weighed her down—like her own twisted cross, one that she must carry, alive or dead. She forced herself to take a breath, but it wasn't enough; it never was. Her nails dug painfully into the wood. She wanted to scream, to rage and curse everyone. But she knew this was nobody's fault but hers.

  They force her to remember. "Mama, look!" Lincoln said, tugging her sleeve. She nodded, barely looking up from her phone. Just a second, baby. Just a second. But those seconds are long gone. Now, it was too te. She could see that now. This trip was supposed to be for the both of them, but at this moment of stark realization, she understood that she was selfish, running away from her demons like a coward, refusing to confront memories of him—the man that ruined her life. She desperately wants to believe in the notion that she did her best, but as every night creeps in, the memories of her lost son slowly chip away at her sanity. She ran her fingers over the worn-out teddy bear, the fabric thin from years of restless hands gripping it in the dark. A bitter smile curled her lips. If love alone had been enough, he would still be here. A night calm and tranquil morphed itself into a disturbing event, leaving its mark on her forever. The memories surged forward, flooding her with images she refused to confront—images that had been deep-seated in her psyche.

  It was a peaceful night. She was in the kitchen. Her sweet Lincoln, with his precious face and deep blue eyes, stuck to the TV, ughter pouring out of his mouth as cartoons bred on the screen. She sat down on one at the dining table, where she could smell the rich aroma of the pasta sauce she had been cooking. A content smile formed on her face. The house, with its warm and inviting walls, was newly painted. The wood flooring of the kitchen with its brown tinge is pleasing to the eyes and pleasant for her tired feet. The home was an antique, a two-story cabin that stood along the beach—beautiful and charming in every sense of the word. She walked out onto the rear balcony and took a breath of the cold night air. The moon had been present, a constant, its silver light falling gracefully across the beach.

  She took the time to reflect and breathe. She sank into one of the chairs; her tired, aching muscles rexed and decompressed the moment she sat down. She removed the hairband tied to her hair, and at an instant, she felt the strain and numbing ache in her head disappear. "It's been a long time since we've had an opportunity like this. This is worth it," she told herself, trying to convince her mind of the belief that she and Lincoln could finally heal—that this could be the start of something new. "Just the two of us, away from everything." She looked behind her, the windows to the house—a crystal view of the interior. Inside, she saw the heart of a wooden stove standing there, providing warmth and a steady sense of stability. She could hear and smell the crackling of firewood. Tangy with a delicate fuggy, that brought a comforting warmth to the cabin. Below, people—families and children pyed in the sand, their ughter carried by the howling sound of the wind. She closed her eyes and felt genuine contentment. How wrong and dangerous these thoughts were.

  AAAAAAAAAAAA! Her son's scream tore through the night. Pulled back to reality by this visceral scream, her heart felt like it would burst open from her chest. "Lincoln?!" She raced through the door; a wave of terrible panic instantly crashed at her heart. What was it this time? Is this about his nightmares again? He would wake up at random times during the night, crying for reasons she couldn't understand. It broke her inside and made her feel inadequate as a mother. She tried easing it herself, guiding him into peaceful sleep, but on every occasion, she always failed. Lincoln's night terrors had been a regur theme of every single night they had. She had hoped that this vacation, away from everything, would somehow help his mind and calm him from whatever it was that terrified him. He looked at her with terror on his face. He screamed and pointed at things only he could see. He was shaking; his face, which had always contained innocence and vibrancy, was reduced into a shivering mess. The white of his eyes, repced by the obvious red of tears, the small veins on his head, bulging from the strain all this crying and paranoia is causing, his hands, unable to stop themselves from shaking, clutching one of her arms. She took her son's small body and pulled him closer, trying to calm him. Shhh, my love, tell me what's bothering you, Lincoln, please? Through choked-up tears and fragmented babble, she was gradually able to make out the words of her son.

  "Mama! Please do something!" I don't wanna stay here anymore! "He wailed through broken sobs and trembling whimpers." Her heart splintered into tiny pieces at hearing his voice like this. I don't want to stay here anymore, PLEASE Mama! Her attempts at consoling her son only seemed to make his crying worse. "They're here again! They won't leave us alone!" All they do is watch and stare, and now they're back again! They don't have faces, and they're mean! They keep shouting in my ears, and every time I tell them to go away, they WON'T leave! They all sound like Dad! That was two weeks ago, her son nowhere to be found, dead or alive; she does not know. The uncertainty of it killed her from inside. Like a mole, searching with blind, useless eyes, grasping at what few straws of details were left in her hazy memories. The bodies of the same families y like a mess of sputtered gore, their guts and organs littering the pristine and white sand of the beach. Small birds of prey—an omen, taking care of what's left. Flies were buzzing around near their corpses. Bodies of children split in ways that exposed their guts; people who used to be alive with their woes, loves, and stories now y dead, with a cloudy, empty look in their eyes. Now stakes y beside the mess of these bodies; who put them there and when, or even how, unknown to her.

  Her memories came back to what was—A tiny detail that seemed to be irrelevant at the time. It was the night her son was taken. It was such a disturbing image for a child to have. It's darkly ironic to her that it was her son's cries—something she assumed made no connection to anything before- that made her understand now. They are "faceless," just like he said. A thousand thoughts are running through her mind, desperate for an answer but reaching none. All she could ever do was try and calm him. At the time, her worry was the same as most parents. How does a mother calm their scared child? To lull them into peaceful sleep and provide a sense of stability and security. That was her duty—her job and at that, she failed tremendously. The imagination of children is ever so votile. Chalk it up as one bad night, one strange occurrence. If children have their imaginary friends and little worlds of their own, her boy was left only to vivid waking nightmares that she's powerless to stop. "Imaginary." The ugly and cruel face of irony struck her like cold water. Imagination? Figments of the mind—given flesh. Oh yes, tangible flesh that's present in this reality. It was one night—one moment that she ignored. The accumution of her choices led to this moment. Lincoln is gone, and these twisted creatures have found her. How was she supposed to maintain her sanity? Does she truly know that what she sees is real? This isnd exists as a powerful trap. An alluring one—A trap no poor misfit should see. Products of her son's imagination or otherwise, right now, her mind screams and tells her they're real.

  The forest's presence loomed over her, branches of trees stretching out like freakishly long arms, forming a grotesque web of canopy that drowned out the moonlight. Her right leg, twisted at an unnatural angle, screamed pain to the rest of her body. Behind her trailed the voice of her son, screaming and mocking her—distorted beyond recognition yet painfully familiar. "Mama! Come back, please! Where are you going?" From every direction, their voices wrapped around her like a terrible net—enveloping not only her surroundings but her mind. She could hear them repeating the same phrase over and over again. "Mama! Don't leave me; come back!" The things are a travesty of the human form, their shape twisted and stretched past the natural. Their arms stretched inward, their joints bent in pces they shouldn't be bent, as if created by hands that did not know the shape of a man. Their heads are smooth and featureless—nothing that would make it seem like something that breathed. And yet it was alive, moving in grotesque angles that highlighted its gaunt and nky figure. They simply remained there, frozen in some warped form of contemption, their posture unnatural, alien—nightmarish. They waited, listening. The veins—God, the veins looked disgusting. They bulged beneath its skin, thick and distended, writhing as if something inside was seeking to break free. It pulsed, sluggish and sickly, stretching against their white skin like roots binding the earth.

  At the things' core and center y a huge gaping hole. There were about four of them, cornering her in every direction of escape. They're talking. How could a creature with no mouth talk? "Mama! You said you'd stay by my side forever, but you keep leaving! You make me sad, Mama. Don't you want us to be together?" "Leave me ALONE, PLEASE! STOP! I'm begging you!" "God, please, someone help me!" She was crying now, tears flowing freely from her eyes, disgusting snot exiting her nose, memories of her sweet Lincoln reminding her of what a pathetic excuse for a parent she'd always been. What was the point in all this? What was there left to struggle for if every day for the past two weeks had been nothing but a succession of everything a mother fears? The thing on her right side, with arms disproportionate to each other and cws covered with slimy muck and dirt, moved unnaturally; one of its legs looked dead and limp. Yet it moved terrifyingly fast in her direction. Their voices—God, their voices. They sounded like children, like a hundred voices stacked upon each other, distorted and broken, yet somehow resembling Lincoln's. What struck her most was the smell. It changed the air, thick and heavy, noxious; they smelled like pus and dead rotting flesh that had long been exposed under the blistering sun. It clung to her nostrils, penetrated deep into her lungs, and numbed her tongue.

  The creatures reek of death. Not just normal death but of death long past. Their skin was fking in wet, peeling pieces. It overwhelmed her. She felt bile rising its way to her throat as she struggled to contain it; she was filthy. "You're a liar, Mama! Even Dad hates you!" "How could you possibly hope to be good, Mama?" "You ruined our family! Everything's your fault! These things—whatever they were seemed to revel in her suffering. With a broken leg, a body on the brink of colpse, and a tormented mind, she pushed forward. She grabbed a nearby stone, jagged at the edges, her fingers covered with dust and dirt as she curled her entire palm on one of the rocks and hurled it into one of the things. It struck them straight on the side, having little to no effect. If anything, they seemed to enjoy watching her struggle and fight. The things continued to ugh—until they didn't. The previous mockery died at an instant, like a vinyl breaking mid-spin. They stared past her direction, their bodies unnaturally stiff, moving in a manner which looked as if they were sniffing—detecting something in the air. The thing in front of her, with its smooth, featureless face, began to sob uncontrolbly.

  For reasons unbeknownst to her, the creature tore at its skin, cwing at its face—or where a face should have been. Its crying and wailing intensified, muttering incomprehensible gibberish. It picked up a huge rotting log and began to fil it around, the same way a child does in the middle of a tantrum. The creature moved in all sorts of wrong ways, its arms and legs making sounds of bones breaking from inside because of its erratic movement. The log it held in its long, deformed hands spewed out tiny splinters into the air. Its featureless face was now a cwed, spluttered mess. Witnessing this window of opportunity. She turned to run deeper into the forest. In this state, running might as well be a Hail Mary to whatever gods rule this universe. Despite her broken leg, the only choice left to her was to run—and so, run she did. Limping, dragging her leg as she could hear the things closing in on her, and to her surprise, they didn't run to chase after her; instead, they walked slowly—deliberately, the same way a person would walk with leisure and rexation.

  A bitter ugh escaped from her lips. "They're taking their time... because they know I'll die anyway." The faceless things left one of their own to its crying and childlike tantrums and focused in on her. She could feel her head spinning, the moments stuck in a critical blur, a Life and Death situation wrapped in a terrible, distorted version of a kaleidoscope. The trees looked even more grotesque, more pronounced and overwhelming. The rocks looked at her like skulls, threatening to swallow her essence whole. Her right leg spasmed and convulsed. She can feel the searing pain of her dislocated leg, working its way to her body, spreading its agony like a cancer, slow and invasive. "Mama, we were just pying. Why are you are you running away?" The things behind her returned to their voice, the voice of endless chiding and malice. Their long, distorted fingers with their translucent cws that stretched far into their thighs—a far cry from the hands of a human- brushed against her neck, just inches away, like tiny deadly prickles, trembling with eagerness to sever her head off. She felt her skin crawl, and the immediate fear for her life surged in her mind: to ESCAPE, RUN, HIDE, SOMETHING! ANYTHING! Until it was there, her salvation between the gnarly trees, she caught the glimpse of something impossible: The beach! Sand stretched on across the horizon, spreading itself in the ground, like the falling dust on an hourgss. Quiet, beautiful, and eternal—a beautiful contrast to the madness unravelling before her.

  Then, as if an image straight from vivid dreams, a tree stood in front of her, the likes of which her eyes had never seen. The tree, with its strong roots, bound itself to the ground, like the veins to a person's feet. Its trunk, a hulking mass of solid and rough wood, looked like it breathed somehow. A foot above its roots y a huge, cavernous hole; its edges looked like sharp and unforgiving teeth. Like the mouth of a giant in a state of slumber. Its darkness swallowed what little light the moon's grace provided. She knew what she had to do. And, like the corridors to an infinite room of awful futures, y two imminent possibilities: to die at the hands of these faceless fiends or take the only opportunity present to her. She'll go inside the tree. To live or die is irrelevant. She has to escape somehow. She won't permit herself to be endlessly tormented by the things that belittle her grief. And so, within arm's reach, she held on to one of the tree's thick roots, dragging her injured leg, limping towards this tree of possibility.

  Her hands felt the sharp edges of the wood, splintering her. She wanted to scream for her son—her sweet Lincoln. But would this act of desperate plea and stubborn defiance against the unnatural bring back her missing son? Cruel. These were the st thoughts Julia had before losing her footing, falling through the darkness below, her consciousness slipping away from her grasp as her body fell through the heart of the towering tree.

  .......

  He is a FALSE saint!

  He who sat upon his golden lions

  He who heard their plea and shut his ears!

  He who turned a blind eye and doomed us all!

  BETRAYER!

  DAMN his soul to the depths!

  His sins know no bounds, for they are deep!

  Like roots binding the earth!

  "The Ramblings of a Mad Zealot"

  Lighthouse Poems and Writings. - I.