A little boy woke in a frightful scream in a bed he wasn't familiar with, in a room he had never seen before. He didn't even know the clothes on his own body.
Even when trying to recall who he is - nothing came up.
He remembered nothing.
Nothing more the vague, blurred images, things that whatever dream or nightmare he was trapped in.
Not being able to name anything of what he saw, it soon began to fade away from his mind.
The single bed he sat in seemed huge for his size, and was decorated with red and white sheets in different patterns; The walls of the room were white and bare, with no pictures or mirrors to adorn them. There was only a heavy, red curtain drawn over the window so there was very little light filtering in.
A drawer cabinet and a closet were positioned in two corners of the room, both bearing a wooden texture that combined with the red lighting were reminiscent of dried, clotted blood.
The kid cringed and shook the thought out of his head. He didn't even know what it was but it frightened him.
He kept scanning the room to distract himself. There was a single light fixture in the middle of the ceiling and one night light on the cabinet's counter next to the bed, and what looked like a blue rug at the other side, on the floor.
Something else was resting next to the little light on the counter. It was a small animal - the word "bear" and "teddy" came to mind - with initials D.V sewn to the bottom of its feet.
"Di...vi..." the boy mouthed, turning the little toy in his hands to see if there was any other letters but there weren't.
Divi. Was that his name?
He couldn't remember, but figured he needs one. This will do until he'll remember his own name.
He left the stuffed animal on the bed and shuffled off it.
His feet were bare and his clothes, although short sleeved, were a size or two bigger than him.
A slight chill filled the air and made the boy shiver. He walked to the window and peeked out to see gray, cloudy skies. The ground was wet and a nice, soothing smell seeped into the room.
Bits and pieces of information slowly resurfaced - it's winter. He's going to need warmer clothes.
Divi walked to the big closet, finding inside a couple of shoes that were clearly too big for him, and giant, dusty suits. Among the moth-infested threads, he found a newer-looking long, red coat, that seemed to be more fitting to his size.
Standing on the tips of his toes, careful not to stumble over, he reached for the coat, eventually succeeding in pulling it off its hanger.
It fitted nicely on his body and was warm, making the shivers disappear.
Not picking up any sound from outside the room, Divi stepped towards the closed door, that - just like the bed - seemed huge to him.
He reached his hand to the handle and closed his fingers around it, surprised to feel another shiver rocking his body from head to toe for a few seconds. He thought the reasons for them was that he was cold, but now with these warmer clothes, it seemed like a new mystery for the young child to solve.
A little hesitant now, Divi pushed the door open, recoiling as it made a slow, long creak until it was wide open.
He looked over the frame of the door, making sure there was really no one else around to hear or see him.
The hall he now stood in was empty and covered with a layer of dust that already tickled the kid's nostrils.
There were two other rooms other than the one he was in; the floor adorned a long, blue rug similar to the one in the room. It kicked up clouds of dust when Divi set his feet into the soft material, which floated and twirled upwards until reaching the ceiling, where a single light fixture was lit despite the light that was clearly coming from the outside.
Even with its light being unnecessary, the cloud of dust created a soft halo around the bulb, like a miniature sun. A small thing that made the little boy feel a little better.
Treading carefully to not lift too much dust into the air, Divi looked on to the end of the hall, where it opened up into a bigger area – the words “living room” popped into his mind, and sounded just about right.
Even from afar it all appeared to be dusty, making the boy wonder just how long has he been there.
Walking further towards the living room, Divi noticed one of the doors in the hall was slightly ajar. Curiosity soon took over and he turned from the seemingly empty space to the inviting little opening.
Pushing it inside, ever so slightly, the door made no sound as it moved on its hinges just enough to allow the curious tyke to peek inside.
His breath got stuck in his throat when he saw another person inside, almost twice as big as he was, wearing a similar red coat, and lacking footwear of any kind – almost like a bigger version of himself.
Divi stared bewildered at the towering figure as they straightened a broad-rimmed hat on their head and ironed the folds of their suit, mesmerized by the mystery surrounding this new person, until he suddenly realized that he's standing in the middle of the room, within an arm's reach from the man in the big, red coat.
A sudden shiver crept down Divi's spine as curiosity took over, and he tried to get a little closer to try and catch the person's reflection in the closet's mirror. So entranced by the appearance of the mystery man, the kid didn't notice how much closer he got until the man straightened up.
Divi's breath lodged itself in his throat as the man started to turn, and was released in a panicked scream when they came face to face – as his were completely blank.
There were absolutely no hint of any facial features on the man's head – if he even was a man, or human, at all. Not even the slightest dent on the pale skin.
Panicked, Divi turned around in an attempt to run away, but his little bare feet lost grip on the dusty, floor of the room and he fell face first to the floor.
“Are you alright.”
The voice was void of emotion and had practically no intonation to it, while sounding almost as if it was coming from behind a glass wall.
It was impossible to tell whether he was asking if he was okay after the fall, or assuring he's fine – despite the sentence's clearly indicating that a question is being asked.
Still in quite a shock, the kid pushed himself up with trembling hands, staring down at the little reddish droplets trickling from his nose to the floor, acquiring a muddy texture when mixed with the layer of dust that covered the bare floor like a gray plume.
The pulsating feeling of pain occupied his mind so much that he didn't notice the hand reaching to his face until it suddenly covered it.
Images of fearsome things he couldn't comprehend flashed in front of him and his breath ceased again on its own.
For a moment he thought it was just a matter of time until the lack of oxygen will get to him and make him lose consciousness, but after just a couple of seconds he felt the gloved hand gently moving away from his face, feeling something soft being placed under his nose.
The man was holding a soft, fabric handkerchief under his bleeding nose, letting Divi hold it for himself as he turned around to face him again, flinching as he met once more with the blank facade, this time up close.
The man took the cloth again an carefully, being surprisingly gentle, he cleaned the rest of the blood from the child's face/
“Hold this under your nose.” he instructed, and Divi couldn't even see his jaw moving. He just barely convinced himself that it was his pale complexion that fooled his eyes.
“You must be Divi.” he spoke again, again with the same bland, distant voice.
Divi just nodded back.
“Please don't be afraid. My name is Tris.”
“Trish?”
“Tris.” he corrected the confused child.
“Tris...” The kid nodded, still fixated absent minded on Tris' lack of face.
“We found you unconscious outside. So we brought you here.” he explained in order to relieve the kid's apparent confusion.
“ 'We'?” Divi wondered, trying to distract himself from how unsettling the expressionless voice became the more they spoke. “There's someone else...?”
“Yes. His name is Vince. You'll meet him soon.”
Divi fell silent.
He wasn't sure what else he wanted to know.
Or what he needed to know.
He just stared back at the empty face, mesmerized.
“You're curious.”
Tris' vague claim snapped the kid out of his thoughts. They were composed on the fine line of being either a question or a conclusion.
“Uh...I'm...I mean...” He stammered, not sure how to voice his thoughts. “What-?” he tried starting with a question, but it lead him nowhere.
“I see that the faceless issue had thrown you off a bit.” He mentioned in the face of Divi's incoherent mumble. “You want to know why I don't have a face.”
Once more, the toneless voice made it hard to understand whether this was a question or a statement, as some things he said could have just as well be with poor grammar.
“Y-yes.” the kid decided to go with an appropriate answer for both cases. “Yes, I'd like to know that.”
“Unfortunately, I can't tell you.” He answered, much to Divi's disappointment, who was really curious about the reason. “It was a long time ago. Something happened. I don't remember most of it. But I have been somewhat of a circus show for grown ups and children as curios as you are. Maybe even more. Most of them were scared.”
This time Divi couldn't tell if Tris was sad, or maybe taking pride in how others reacted to him, and what he'd been through. Or maybe he was just listing things that happened to him.
He decided to change the subject. “What about the other one? Vans?”
“Vince.” Tris corrected him, pausing for a second. “He's a fire-breather.”
“Really?”
“Maybe he'll show you one of his tricks.”
“Where is he, anyway?” Curiosity slowly pushed aside Divi's fears of the unknown.
“You'll see him.” Tris returned to his vague replies and stood back up.
“When?”
“Soon.”
Divi was about to press and ask on, but went silent when he felt something warm running down his arm.
He almost forgot about his bloody nose, and it appears that the now crimson handkerchief reached its absorption limit.
“We should clean that. Come with me.”
Tris grabbed Divi's free hand, which was also slightly stained with blood, and lead him to the bathroom at the end of the hall.
Divi shivered at his touch, feeling something strange even through the gloves covering his hands. Something felt overall odd about him, it was impossible to ignore.
But if Tris was unwilling to talk about his past – whatever he remembered of it – Divi realized he had no point of delving into the matter.
Once the reached the bathroom Tris helped the child to reach the sink and clean the blood off his face.
As the blood washed off, Divi found himself staring down the swirling, blood-saturated water going down the drain, enchanted.
A strange sensation suddenly gripped his guts. He felt uneasy and his head started to spin.
Everything started to move around and his knees collapsed under what little weight they carried, just before it all turned black.
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