I’m not exactly sure where she slithered out from. My guess is somewhere dank and grimy, cobwebby and dark; the recesses of my mind, or a scab I couldn’t stop picking at.

But there she was. It was sudden, though it seemed that she had always been there waiting in the shadows. Her eyes were wide, on account of her having no eyelids, and her lips were crudely sewn together. Her eyelid-less eyes rolled around like bloodshot marbles until they settled on mine. And then she smiled. Not with her sewn-shut mouth, but with the gaping wound that stretched across her throat.

“Hello dear, what’s your name?” she asked in a whisper, the incision on her neck opening and closing and bubbling with crimson as it spoke. It was mesmerizing.

“S-S-Sadie… Who are you?” I shivered, pulling my blankets up to my chin. Her throat smiled even wider, nearly stretching all the way to her ear-less earholes.

“My name is Courtney…” her voice dripped, adding to the spreading stain of red on the front of her gown, “And I’ve come to be your friend, Sadie.”

“My… friend?”

“Of course, everybody needs a friend. Don’t you think?”

I nodded my head, and she sat beside me on the bed- throat still grinning, eyes still rolling.

“What… what happened to you?” I couldn’t help but wonder as I took in her scarred and mutilated features. Courtney reached forward, offering her hand. Hesitantly, I took it. Her fingers were cold and rigid against mine. They felt like love.

“Well, when I was younger,” she began, “I saw some things. And I heard some things. Some things that I shouldn’t have to see. And some things that I shouldn’t have to hear… So I knew I had to tell someone. And I really tried to. But when I did, they didn’t help. Now they knew, but they did nothing. And after that… Well, things only got worse and worse. So I still saw. And I still heard. But I stopped trying to speak.”

She held the razor up, peering at her reflection on the blade. Her lugubrious face did not match the ever-widening smile across her throat.

“So now I’m here to be your friend, Sadie. I’m here to help you so you don’t end up like me. Because I think we’re a lot alike… I think you’ve seen some things. I think you’ve heard some things. And… I think some things have happened to you.”

She turned my palm over and carefully placed the razor in it. The metal was sharp and reassuring. It felt like hope.

“This is my gift to you… For everyone who turns a deaf ear and a blind eye- open their ears, open their eyes,” she explained, closing my fingers around the blade.

“And for the one who hurts you…” she laughed and a stream of gore poured out of her wound, “Make them smile the way I do.”