horror

For months, Arthur had been hunting for the perfect mask to complete his Halloween costume. He found it at the back of a dusty, unnamed antique shop: a sleek, black-and-grey facepiece with a jagged, blood sented grin. The shopkeeper hadn't even charged him for it. “It needs a proper home,” the old man had whispered.

The party was a blur of loud music and cheap drinks. Everyone praised the mask, asking where he got the hyper-realistic glowing teeth. But by midnight, the plastic began to itch. Arthur excused himself to the bathroom to peel it off.

Standing before the mirror, he gripped the edges of the mask and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

He pulled harder, digging his fingernails under the synthetic skin. A sharp, blinding pain shot through his jaw. He looked closer into the glass. The edges of the mask had vanished. The dark, textured material had seamlessly melted into his own forehead and cheeks.

Panicking, Arthur grabbed the bathroom sink and yanked with all his might. The sound of tearing flesh filled the small room, followed by a thick, dark splatter against the porcelain. He wasn't peeling away plastic; he was ripping away his own face.

The glowing red teeth in the mirror didn't part when he screamed. Instead, a dark, viscous fluid began to pour from the glowing seams of the grin, dripping heavily down his chin. His vision shifted, darkening at the edges until everything looked cold, gray, and dead—except for the brilliant, burning crimson of the blood and the light.

Then, his own hands stopped obeying him. They dropped away from his face.

In the reflection, Arthur watched his own head tilt forward into the shadow. His eyes, now completely dark and sunken, stared back with a horrific, alien hunger. The glowing mouth stretched wider, splitting his cheeks in a jagged, silent laugh.

Arthur was screaming on the inside, but out loud, the thing using his mouth only whispered one sentence to the mirror: