Phobic.

Molysmophobia.

Mysohphobia.

Rhypophobia.

Verminophobia.

Bacilliophobia.

They were all the same to me.

Despite the long words and the confusing sounds, those five words were the bane of my existence, the worst thing in the world. They were the epitome of fear, the horrible little things, crawling over ever surface, everywhere, contaminating everything.

Disgusting germs.

I thought that to myself as I sat in the doctors office. A doctors was meant to be a clean place, but I could see it, see them, crawling across the desk, the floor, the chair I was perched on. I shuffled further to the edge and watched as they wriggled across the floor.

You aren't meant to see germs with the naked eye, are you? But I do, somehow I know they're there, mucking everything up. My harsh gaze shifts to the white jeans and white shirt clinging to my skin, and even though these clothes are clean, I can see the germs, filtering through every fibre, and it makes me sick.

Aphenphosmphobia.

There's another one.

A new one this time, just new this morning. The doctor had told me, staring warily as I wriggled, obviously uncomfortable in my all white outfit, bleached white hair. It means I have a fear of being touched. I'm scared of the filthy people touching me, brushing my shoulder with theirs and passing the filthy germs on to me. I didn’t need telling that, I already knew, it was nice to have a name to it though.

The doctor had left me a while ago, left me to think, and, even though I wouldn't admit it to him, to build up the courage to cross the minefield of germs to the door and back home to my room, the only place I considered truly clean. I took a deep breath of the rancid, filth ridden air and pushed myself from the chair, already feeling the germs claw up my legs, attaching to the white jeans I knew I'd have to put in the wash as soon as I got home.

I hurry out the surgery, knowing people are staring at the boy in white with the pale face, the one who dodged the old lady stood by the door as if she was some awful disease, which, to me, she was. She was this disgusting, germ ridden, disease filled corpse that could kill me.

The feeling of the metal door handle was dulled by my thick white gloves, and as I stepped into the cool air outside, it didn’t bite like it should, thanks to my long-sleeved white t-shirt, white jeans and white trainers. I wasn’t taking any risks, that was for sure.

The street was a hundred times worse than the doctors surgery. The germs weren't just littering the floor, they were swarming across the tarmac, crawling all over the filthy skin of the public without them caring. I almost feel the bile in my throat at the disgust.

I decide to take a shortcut through the park, figuring it would be quicker, and hopefully less crowded than the sickening streets. I kick the black gate of the park open with my foot, unwilling to touch it, even with a gloved hand, seeing as billions of people have walked through it and pulled on that gate with their filthy hands since it's last been cleaned.

I slip through the small gap my gleaming white shoe had created, and the smell of the freshly cut grass meets my nostrils. I hold my breath against it, knowing full well I could breathe in whatever bacteria was lurking in the grass, and is now swarming through the air. I hurry along the small path, and as I turn into the main area, lawn with a huge fountain where I see all the normal kids sat. I blink, harsh and long, and when I look at them properly, I see them how they really are. Corpses, pieces of rotting, diseased, germ ridden flesh, ready to kill me with a single touch or breath. I recognise them, from school, and I know they recognise me – the weird boy all in white who sits at the back and waits until everyone else has gone before moving.

I cast a nervous glance at them and they twist their mouths into smiles, horrible, mocking smiles, and I see them as bodies, hollow eyes and hollow cheeks, rotting flesh falling from living corpse.

I don’t smile back.

I walk on, my eyes never still, darting across, looking, dodging, keeping out of harms way. Something, someone catches my eye though, a boy. He's not a corpse, I don’t see the maggots crawling between bone and muscle or the germs crawling and nesting.

I see a boy, a person, my age, in skinny jeans, like mine but a dark colour, a jacket, a black one, zipped to his chin. He looks lost. I would ask if he was, but I didn’t know him, he might touch me, leak his germs onto me and kill me. Instead I avert my eyes and walk on.

I guess he doesn't see me though, since his shoulder knocks straight into mine. I scream, panic cutting off the end and constricting my throat. I feel bile force it's way up instead, and I look at my shoulder, see the germs, green, black, yellow, crawling across my shoulder, eating through my shirt and into my skin.

"Sorry." He mumbles, before looking up from his Sidekick and realising the scream was mine, realising I was frozen to the spot as the filth chewed through my flesh, "Hey, whoa, are you okay?"

He reaches out and touches my shoulder, to try and reassure me, but its even worse, bare skin against me, I feel the slime slip from his pale skin onto mine and the bile retches my stomach. I run, to the nearest bush, clump of trees, and I'm sick. Horribly, violently, achingly sick, my lungs gasping for fetid, germ ridden air.

"Hey, mate, are you-" I don’t hear the rest, I didn’t need him to follow me, and I whirl away from the bushes, crawling with bacteria, and worst of all, my vomit. I don’t look at the boy directly; blushing horribly and still feeling the bile rip through my throat. I just wanted to get home, get my clothes off and burn the bacteria from my skin.

I started running again, away from the questions of the boy, and the laughter of the people by the fountain. I run and run, frantically dodging everyone in the street, until I reach the white door of our house, and let myself in, knowing the door would be unlocked.

I breathe a sigh when I get to my room, and take a long, calming look around. Stark white walls, white furniture, a few essentials placed with almost military precision along the surface, white bedspread, white curtains, everything enabled me to see the germs, enable me to get rid of them.

I lean down and unlace my shoes, placing them on a piece of plastic in the corner of the room, making a mental note to clean them later. I pull off my jeans and shirt, feeling the germs crawling all over my bare skin instead. I hurry downstairs, glad no ones home, giving me time to do what I need. I tug open the washing machine and shove in my jeans. I look at my shirt though, seeing the germs have eaten it beyond repair, and there's no way even a hot wash could destroy them. I reach up to a shelf above the washing machine and pull out a lighter, white of course, and lean over the metal sink in the corner. I flick the lighter on, and hold the shirt over it, before letting the flame lick the fabric and catch it in a strong fiery grip. I drop it into the sink, and watch, captivated, as the flame reduces the fabric to ashes. I reach out shakily and turn on the cold tap to put the flames out, and quickly turn it off, reaching immediately for a bottle of disinfecting hand gel. I squeeze a copious amount in my hands, and rub it in, right up to my elbows, and I feel a little bit cleaner.

I hurry upstairs back to my room and through a white door to the small bathroom my parents had let me have when they realised I couldn't share one with them, no way I was catching their germs.

I strip off my boxers and put them straight in the hamper, leaning into the shower to turn it on, turning the temperature as far as it will go, scalding hot. I reach into the immaculate cupboard, the bottles and tubs placed with, yet again, military precision, and pull out a bottle of Dettol, kitchen cleaner, germ killer, the one with the 'kills 99.9% of germs' advert. I take it into the shower with me, and wash my hair, scrubbing ten times as hard and washing it countless times under the scalding hot water. I watch as my skin reddens under its attack and smile a little, knowing the germs are dying and washing down the plughole.

I reach for the Dettol and see my hands shake. I don’t use it all the time, just when someone touches me, or I fall in something, only when hot water wont do the trick. I pour a little of the bleach on the sponge and scrub it all over me, paying special attention to my shoulder, scrubbing and scrubbing with the stinging liquid until my shoulder is red raw and a simple touch makes me yelp in pain. I stand under the water so hot I can barely stand it, and watch as the bleach swirls its way off my body down the plug and when I switch the shower off I sigh, despite my beyond painful skin.

I'm clean.

I reach out and get a stark white towel from the cupboard and gingerly rub myself dry, towelling my hair dry. I drop that towel into the hamper straight away and hurry into my room, and my wardrobe, where I pull out another pair of white jeans, another white t shirt, this one with short sleeves this time, seeing as I wasn’t going out anywhere.

I pull on my clothes and go straight to the cupboard, needing something to calm me down, and only one thing could do that. I pull out a scrubbing brush and some carpet cleaner from the box of household cleaners, and set about cleaning my room. My ma would say it was clean, but she couldn't see the germs I could, so she left me to my own devices.

I'm halfway through scrubbing my stark white carpet, when I hear the front door open and click shut.

"Ben?" I hear my mother call.

I don’t even stop scrubbing as I call out back to her, "Up here Ma!"

I hear her make her way up the stairs and there's a quiet knock on my door as Ma asks gingerly, "Can I come in Ben dear?"

"Shoes off, gloves on please Ma." I say back through the door, and I hear Ma take a pair of latex gloves from the box near my door and slip off her shoes. I pretend not to hear her ill disguised sigh.

She opens the door and I see her tired, almost expectant face for a second before I look back to scrubbing.

"Did you go to the doctors Ben?" She asks, going to step into my room properly, and my head snaps up to glare.

"Stay on the plastic Ma, I'm cleaning." I say sharply, indicating to the piece of clear plastic Ma was stood on, like a doormat, similar to the one my shoes were resting on. She doesn't try to disguise her sigh this time, and I remember her question, "Yes, earlier."

"And?" She questions.

"He gave me a name for it, the not wanting to touch people. I cant remember the exact name. He told me things I already knew." I say simply, carrying on scrubbing.

"Oh... I smelt smoke downstairs Ben. Did you burn something?" She asks, cautious of breeching the subject.

"A tshirt." I say simply, scrubbing viciously on a piece of carpet that wasn’t quite clean.

"Oh Ben, why?"

"It was dirty Ma!" I screech, looking up at her through my bleached hair, "It was disgusting! A boy bumped into me at the park..."

"Ben..." She sighs softly, running her hands through her hair, and I watch as the movement dislodges a cloud of germs into the air. I resist the urge to yell at Ma and tell her to get out.

I carry on scrubbing my floor, reaching into every last corner, preoccupying myself so I didn’t have to think about how painful my skin was or how raw my throat felt.

"Ben?" Ma asks, after watching me for a few seconds, "Did you use bleach again?"

I know exactly what she's saying, but I don’t want to admit it, "The boy bumped into me Ma! He was filthy, I was filthy! I needed to get it off!"

Ma sighs and leaves, closing the door behind her, and I mirror her sigh as I carry on cleaning, scrubbing the carpet, my furniture, the windows, making and remaking the bed I changed only this morning, and rearranging the things on the top of my drawers countless times.

When I'm finished, finally, and the cleaning box goes back in the cupboard, I glance through the disturbingly clean windows to see its nighttime, black already covering the sky, and I sigh again. I place my clothes in another hamper, glad I have lots and lots of changes of clothes, and pull on a clean pair of pyjamas, white and covering, of course.

As I climb into the crisp, clean sheets, I wonder what scared me the most today – the germs the boy spread when he touched me, or the rush of lust and the tug at my stomach when his skin touched mine.