Behind Polite Smiles.

He awoke to bright lights blinding him. The white walls stared back at him blankly & unfeelingly.
He looked around for a short while, tried to search for a familiar object, place or sound.
He found nothing, just the bare walls & blank ceiling towering over him as he laid there on the cold floor, almost unable to move.
A white shoe came into his view on the marble covered floor. He looked up the also white leg attached to it. The trouser leg was crisp & perfectly ironed; a single crease followed its way up the leg until it reached the crossing of another. Past there, a white shirt hung loosely & openly around the other boy’s torso, barely hiding the scar he had caused in his last visit. The other boy knelt down & gestured a hand toward him.
He held it & pulled himself up. It was warm, soft & delicate. He was suddenly very aware of his own scruffy hands, where his nails where bitten & small scars from his childhood scattered there way across his palms. As he stood, he came to meet the face of the other boy.
“Um…hi.” He said sheepishly, looking down at the ground as he spoke. The other boy merely nodded a little.
“Well, it looks as if he has returned again. Hmmm…let me think on how to explain to you of my ideals.” The other boy took a brief moment thinking time, mostly taken up by him playing with his white blonde hair flowing down over his shoulders. He pulled his shirt open further still & pointed out the scar on his chest.
“This happened to you, too.”
The boy unbuttoned his own shirt slightly & peered down into it.
It was true; he now had a small scar, practically unnoticeable without studying it.
“How?” He inquired an inquisitive & also slightly scared look on his face.
“You will see, in time.” The other boy told him, almost parent-like.
He looked around for the disciples, they where nowhere to be seen, their generic-ness of face, body & sound where completely gone. Now only he & the other boy where present in this white haven. The silence remained, however & every millisecond not taken by the two talking was drenched in the stuff, only the release of conversation would have kept the other boy sane for 16 years in here, although he seriously doubted his own sanity lately. Standing in this corridor with a boy dressed completely in white like some divine being…and listening to every word he said. Now he knew he was cracking up.
He stoked his forehead, puzzled at what was happening, believing he was still just in a dream. But it was so real; everything he touched had a real presence, every smell, every tiny vibration in the air felt real. The other boy stood there, taking up space, breathing & talking, not at all like you would expect in a dream, he was real, had to be. He talked of his past…his past, as if it where his own, like he’d done it all before. Dreams seemed more & more like reality these days, probably due to all the electronically powered games & violent movies he’d been watching these past few weeks, he thought to himself.
The other boy gestured towards the door in the middle of the wall, the small movement of his hand spoke pages as he waved it in the generic direction of the bloody room.
“I…I’d rather stay out here, thank you.” He said, his nerves starting up again & his heart beginning to pound out of his chest, thumping loudly against the abstract silence of the corridor again. The other boy showed a little frustration on his face. The long, white blonde hair that flowed generously down onto his shoulders, brushed back by his hands as he swept them through the white main captivated him as it swung around his neck like in all the adverts. He honestly thought he was about to say, ‘because your worth it.’
He smiled at him a little then gestured again, providing the same movement of his hand as he had before.
“No…really I-” But before he could finish his sentence, the door appeared before him, leaving only inches between himself & the wall. He reached out & touched it, the cold metal hurt the bare palm of his hand, and it shot through him, up his arm & into his brain. The cold overcame him & felt compelled to venture inside…& he did.
Regaining control of himself, he was standing in the centre of the room he knew from his last visit. He didn’t dare open his eyes for fear of the sight that would greet him. The blood stained walls where burned into his retinas for life & the disciples sat around the boy was an image that he would remember for life.
“Open your eyes child.” The other boy beckoned from behind his tight eyelids. “Please do, I think you’ll like the redecorating I’ve done.”
For some reason, he did, every word the other boy said seemed like a spell that transfixed him, controlled him even. No mater how much he tried, he couldn’t disobey, couldn’t defy the other boy’s requests. He knew that he was completely helpless here, & that the other boy was always in complete control. The fact scared him, made him shiver to the bone as he thought of his helplessness in the face of his step-father.
When he’d opened his eyes fully, he took in the pristine white of the walls & also, the new furniture that that had been placed there. A bed, large & domineering over the small space, loomed over the back wall, made completely of glass, the shining, glimmering posts reached high to the ceiling. He couldn’t, however, make out if there where sheets of anything else on the bed for thick silken curtained wrapped their way around it, hanging loosely from the ceiling, covering the internal bed & finally trailing onto the floor they gathered there, it looked like it had come from a fairytale. There was also a wing-back chair in the centre of the room, taking up no space, however. The legs where also made of glass & the padding white as keeping in with the rest of the room’s color scheme.
“See, no more blood…tell me, you wanted to see me for a little while, didn’t you? It just floated around your head for a small while, didn’t it eh? What if?” The other boy spoke knowingly from behind him.
“Erm…no…not-“ The boy was interrupted again.
“Yes you did, you see the room, my new clothes, and all are due to you accepting your true self, even just for a second…so imagine what doing it for life would do eh.” He butted in, like a parent stops their child from answering back. He spun him around by the shoulders, now facing him square in the eyes, he spoke softly. “You remember what happened last time?” He pointed at the scar, yet again, “Don’t let it happen again!”
The other boy looked angry, small lines built up on his forehead as he shook him back & forth.
“That girl…Kat…Kathy…ah, Kate, you enjoy her…company, yes?” He asked, seizing the shaking in an instant. He spoke again before he could answer. “Act upon it. Ask her to do something, anything, be yourself.” He put too much emphasis on ‘yourself’ for his liking & he began to feel uncomfortable again.
“No…I…I can’t, its Kate & I’m me. I can’t do that!” He stuttered & fumbled in his words. He always felt that everyone was too good for him, that they all deserved better.
“Nonsense!” The other boy had read his thoughts again; there was nothing he could hide from him, at all. “I know exactly what to do.” The other boy placed his hands on his face. Now he could see only the other boy’s palms, clouding his vision, a bright light shone from those very palms for only a second. He could only imagine that this is what heaven itself felt like. A fain noise irradiated from his hands as the light continued to flow from them, the sensation was intoxicating, a drug that had no define source or effect, but felt…perfect. The boy took his hands away, the light stopped & the sound disappeared.
“I’m not going to ask her. I can’t, I mean have you even seen me, been around me, you don’t know me.”
“Ah, sounds like someone needs a hug.” The other boy gestured with open arms.
“I’m not a very huggy person.” He backed slowly, enclosing himself against the door again, fumbling to try & reach the handle.
“Then how about a massage?” The other boy was persistent.
“No really, I’m fine!” He was becoming very uncomfortable now.
“Then how about a kiss?” A serious look appeared on the boy’s face as he stared into his eyes.
Still scrabbling around for the handle, the boy questioned, ‘Ar-are you flirting with me?”
“Now why would you say that?”
“You just seem kind of…forward, is all?”
“Really, you say the funniest things! Now how about I smear cream all over your body & lick it off?” A sly smile crossed the other boy’s face. He knew now that he…may be joking, although it still wasn’t clear.
“There you just did it…again!”
“Did what?” The sly smile again. He couldn’t be serious. The other boy came closer…
“You won’t find the door there.” He was right, as he looked across the room; the door had moved as to be on the complete opposite side of the room. He came closer yet, until his bare chest pressed up against his own & his breath was warm on his neck.
He then broke out in laughter, muttering word that where hardly audible except for “you should have seen your face!” & “Just go…go, my other self, my poor naïve other self.”
His only response was to scream at the top of his voice. “You aren’t me! I would never take advantage of someone else’s insecurities like that, your…your not me!”
The boy stopped laughing immediately as slashes appeared on his torso, as if invisible swords swung at him frantically. The wounds appeared & kept on appearing until they numbered twenty or so. As did the small scar on his upper chest, they healed instantly & faded into scars, except there where much more noticeable. The curved marks now plagued his body like rats in a sewer.
Infuriated, the other boy stormed towards him & pushed him through the open door that had recently appeared before him. He fell into the darkness, falling downwards constantly until he hit something flat. He awoke with a start & a cold sweat on his brow. He read seven am on his clock, threw on his uniform for school & went to the bathroom, trying to forget the other boy in the white room for good. He brushed his teeth hurriedly & splashed his face with water, raising his head to look into the medicine cabinet mirror; he fell backwards into the laundry basket.
The person in the mirror, it couldn’t be him, couldn’t be. He remembered doing the exact same thing the day before & he remembered his hair being short, blonde & untidy. His face reddened with acne & his teeth slightly aloof. He pulled himself up & dared himself to look again, but sure enough, the person in the mirror was not himself. He had longer wavy blonde hair, brushed to perfection, a clean & crisp face & his teeth had straightened back their designated place. The boy he was seeing in the mirror wasn’t himself at all.
What had the other boy done to him?