The room is heavy with the scent of deterioration, young screams of terror echo through empty morning halls at the motionless body sitting in Vera Marsh’s seat, you hear the sirens blaring outside and a rush of footsteps towards the room, a police officer comes up to question me to ask what happened but  I couldn’t answer, I didn’t know how.

A WEEK BEFORE THE DEATH

     Today a girl named Vera Marsh has enrolled into my third year class and everyone is anxious to see who will fill the empty seat, but no one does, or tomorrow or the day after. Slowly everyone's curiosity begins to wane. On the fourth day the seat was no longer empty, in fact it was the only one that wasn’t, she had arrived well before anyone else.

 I head over to introduce myself, she turns around before I begin to speak. 

     Visible discomfort shows through me when I see her face, there’s nothing there, no nose, mouth, eyes, nothing but a dark gaping hole, like looking down a sink drain but it’s speaking, asking me all sorts of questions, the usual questions any new student would want to know. Something strange and terrifying acting completely ordinary.

     Soon another student arrived just as delighted as I was to see the occupied seat and they stayed that way, excitedly greeting Vera, answering all the questions I couldn’t.

 discomfort replaced by fear itching at my shoulders when realization of what was happening became painfully clear.

     They didn’t see it, not one person who came in saw what I could. The idea of madness and hallucination would have been viable if it had disappeared but it never did.

     The week went on only ever hearing of Vera's beauty and I couldn’t see anything but that gaping hole where all those alluring features would be. 

     The day is almost at its end when the teacher announces the student assigned after school clean up, Vera’s name is called and no… no, no, no. my name slips out of her mouth. I glance over at Vera knowing she’ll be looking my way.

‘ is that the right way to phrase it? she doesn’t have any eyes to look at me with’, I think to myself.

      But sure enough she’s facing my direction happily waving to me from across the room and reluctantly I wave back. The rest of the day sweeps past in the blink of an eye, and the only thing I can think of is how I’ll approach her, I won’t be able to look at her or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe I won’t be able to look away. 

      Someone calls my name, when I look up Vera is standing next to me holding two brooms, I stand up taking one of them and keeping my head down, her voice fills the room while we clean, talking about her first week at school, making friends, favorite subjects, how its started and ended with meeting me. I couldn’t listen anymore acting like she's normal, like I'm not traumatized by her mere presence. Then words come out before I can swallow them.

‘STOP! Stop talking,  just stop acting like your normal, like that big gaping hole in your face is normal please!’

      The room is silent, I leave out of embarrassment but then remember I'm still holding onto the broom she gave me, when I go to set it by the classroom door I take a glance at Vera, she's looking at me, actually looking at me tears streaming down her cheeks. Eyes , she has eyes and everything else I couldn’t see before, completely shocked by how beautiful she is. ‘Sorry’ I say before leaving, the image of her teary face stained in my head. The whole weekend I could think of nothing but how I had screamed at her like a crazy person when she was completely normal, eyes, nose, mouth everything. 

       Monday came and I left to get to school early hoping to be able to apologize to Vera. When I step into the [classroom I see her sitting at her desk.

‘Vera I wanted to apologize about the other day, I didn’t get a lot of sleep, I was tired and irritable, I’... I’m sorry’.

       No response. I walk over and tap her on the shoulder. ‘Vera? Did you hear me?’. Her back hits the seat, face towards the ceiling and I see it once more, that gaping hole, but it’s different, it's bloody and no words are coming out.