The Thing Without a Face

It doesn't have a face.

It has a head, but no face—no eyes, no ears, no nose or mouth—just flesh. Smooth, slick, pallid. Its skin is stretched tight over a tall, slender frame. It walks upright, with long limbs that end in prehensile hands and feet, each digit spindly and gnarled.

It is standing in my bedroom doorway, watching me without eyes, hearing me without ears. It stares into me. I can feel it thinking. I cannot move. I am frozen with fear. The thing without a face seems curious, almost skittish. It tilts its head like a dog trying to understand an unspoken command.

I want to speak—to scream—but my throat refuses. My heart slams against my ribs, but I can't look away—can't turn and run. There's no fight-or-flight response, only this heavy, inexplicable paralysis. It steps across the threshold, arms hugged to its sides, creeping cautiously, deliberately, as if not to spook me.

There is something beneath the flesh where its face should be—the faint impression of a skull under the surface. A shadow of hollow eye sockets behind translucent skin—a cranium connecting to a jawbone. The jaw moves underneath, opening, elongating—stretching the skin tighter over whatever yawns beneath.

It towers over me now.

Its long fingers wrap around my biceps and pull me in—sensing, inspecting, smelling? I'm terrified the flesh over its skull will retract, revealing rows of jagged teeth—that it will devour me, or worse. It leans in. Its forehead presses gently against mine. Despite my racing heart, I hear something. A low, muffled murmuring—not in the air, but inside my head. The sound grows louder.

Suddenly, the world shifts.

I am no longer staring at smooth flesh. I see only color. Every color in the spectrum, pulsing and shifting, hyper-saturated. I hear the colors now—radio static and sine waves, harmonic tones crashing and colliding in my head. I'm falling, weightless and speeding through light. A kaleidoscope of incomprehensible patterns spins around me. My brain sparks like a pinball machine—thoughts erupting without context, fragments of memories out of sequence.

Then, the voice. Not spoken, not heard—but felt.

It doesn't speak a language. It communicates in impressions. Feelings. It projects its emotions and overlays them with mine—curiosity, confusion, a sense of vastness, of something ancient and unknowable. It sorts through me—rummaging like fingers through a record bin. Every secret, every shame, every joy—decades of experience absorbed in moments. My arms ache. Its grip tightens.

Drenched in sweat and tears. Breathless.

It lets go. I crumple to the floor.

My limbs won't respond. Every muscle protests. It watches me with that blank face, the smooth mask of skin betraying nothing. My skull feels too small—pressure building behind my eyes. My thoughts scramble.

It extends a hand.

It wants me to take it.

I don't want to. I can't. But I do.

Or rather—it moves me. Lifts my arm. Places my hand in its own. Its fingers wrap around my wrist. Squeezes.

The pain vanishes.

Suddenly, I'm standing again. My knees tremble. Every fiber of my being quakes and cowers. It releases me and withdraws, backing slowly through the doorway and vanishing into the darkness.

Silence.

Then—I vomit.

Black sludge hits the floor with a sickening slap. It steams. It moves. There's something in it—wriggling, pulsating, writhing. It stirs like something hatching, not yet aware of itself. It smells like scorched plastic and bile. I watch it twitch and thresh, aching to take shape.

After a couple of editions of POP 'N' PIZZA dedicated to republishing old, forgotten stuff, I thought I'd end October with something new—something I've had in the drafts for a while. I hope it disturbed you. Happy Halloween!