It was summers ago, the best years of my life. Listening to Dinosaur Jr. on vinyl and cassettes while skateboarding. I didn't give a shit about anything. The weather and the women had two things in common: blissful and warm. This was back when cops weren't on everyone's asses about everything. My favorite skateboarding places where around....well everywhere around the town. It was only a small town among the tight knit bible belt of the eastern-south. Where everyone and their mother were ass hurt about their tight ass life. Never exploring, never wondering, and sometimes as it seemed....never human.

 It was also mid June, the beginning to the summer experience, I only had a short number of friends that I could count on one hand. There was Zach, Bob and Krist. Zach was a pothead, goofball who loved fast things as mostly every boy his age. Cars, girls, and money, the unholy trinity. Bob was that cool guy who studied everything, never making rash decisions, maybe too serious but he knew how to get down. Then there was Krist, oh how beautiful you were. Your warm embrace comforted me through the awkward years of pre-teen life. Even now as it can be assumed, Krist was the only girl in our <nowiki>''posse''</nowiki>, but were united by two things: skateboarding and Hip-Hop. Damn, did we love those things.

 Bob always carried two boomboxes, both having all the new (hard to find on the format) releases. From MF Doom to OutKast. We also had, obviously, a soft spot for Dinosaur Jr., Krist had cassettes of every album while I had them all on vinyl. Our favorite spot was in the towns park named <nowiki>''</nowiki><em>Ashbury Park</em><nowiki>''</nowiki>. The park was mostly covered in the forest but there were so many rails and newly laid concrete....it was almost too tempting. The forest was deep and the park kinda just ended near, I guess, what was the mid-section of the forest. Our parents came off as strict but in reality didn't really care as long as we didn't end up dead the next morning. So with that freedom, we spent so many nights in that park, just vibein' to natures rhythms. It sounds hippish now but that's what we were. Anyways, it was the middle of June in 2006. We were in the normal spot near the borderline of the park and the mid-section of the forest. The sun was setting with that beautiful orange you see only in cheesy romance movies.

 We were just scoping out the scenery of the forest, smelling the cool, dampness of forest combined with the beginning of summer. Zach was lighting up another joint, about the 5th one this afternoon. He sighs back into the soft grass after a puff of marijuana smoke slowly rises from his mouth. He sits up and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>yo guys, do ya know what we should all do?<nowiki>''</nowiki> We shook our heads and waited for his answer. He laughs that famous stoner laugh and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>we should spend a night in the forest. ya know? Maybe just chill with the bears and shit<nowiki>''</nowiki>. He pauses then returns with <nowiki>''</nowiki> a-yo Bob! Yo boxes got nuff foe dat?<nowiki>''</nowiki> Bob laughs with his deep voice, natural bass rattling his voice, and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>oh hell yea! You know!<nowiki>''</nowiki> Then gives Zach a half assed high five. I look at Krist, with her long, curly hair and said <nowiki>''</nowiki> ya down with that?<nowiki>''</nowiki> She responds with a smile and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>Maybe....I think it would be fun<nowiki>''</nowiki>. Zach gets up and says like a noble adventurer <nowiki>''</nowiki>Then it's settled then! Imma go get a tent and fill my backpack with the essentials, you know like some Rakim, Organized Konfusion, and maybe some ATCQ<nowiki>''</nowiki>, To which Bob butts in with <nowiki>''</nowiki>And yo favorite bag of weed?<nowiki>''</nowiki> They both laugh and Zach says <nowiki>''Maybe''</nowiki> with a big ass grin. Zach starts to head for the equipment when Bob turns to us and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>Now ya'll don't do anything I wouldn't do<nowiki>''</nowiki>. Krist and I laugh and Krist says <nowiki>''</nowiki>In your dreams Bob!<nowiki>''</nowiki> Bob responds with <nowiki>''Oh hell yea!''</nowiki> Bob then turns to leave, laughing his way off.

 I look at Krist once again and ask about the craziest shit she's ever done. She responds with insight and attention. I thought to myself <nowiki>''</nowiki>It was so natural between us, never awkward but with all the other girls at school, when I did go, I felt like Too $hort surrounded by nuns<nowiki>''</nowiki>. While at the same time paying full attention to every word that came out her perfect, smooth, natural, perfectly red, lips. To this effect, I finally realized that ,after all these years, I was in love with Krist. She ends her story and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>you know your the only guy that pays that much attention to me right?<nowiki>''</nowiki> I laugh at the insanity of anyone not paying the attention she deserves, let alone none. I say in disbelief <nowiki>''Really?''</nowiki>. She nods and says <nowiki>''</nowiki> a lot of guys don't understand what you, Zach, and Bob are about, ya know?...They say I'm as ugly as The Faceless One. That stopped me in my tracks, not only infuriated that guys would say she's ugly let alone compare her to that....thing.

 The Faceless One was an urban myth of the forest, about some old mental hospital in the middle of the forest where <nowiki>''doctors''</nowiki>, if they can be called that, did horrible experiments to the people there. You know, defying genetics, playing God? Auschwitz type shit like that. There was this one dude, nobody knew where he came from, not even the <nowiki>''doctors''</nowiki> fucking him up. He looked like any other guy but his mental state suggested otherwise. It is said that his illness wasn't even that bad. Just tourette's and was always quiet.....always. One day, during one the many experiments the <nowiki>''doctors''</nowiki> did on this guy. They sliced his torso open and tired to replace some of the internal organs with an animal's. So on this day, one <nowiki>''doctor''</nowiki>, had the audacity to take all of his senses away except only hearing, to see how he reacts, these experiments seemed more like pointless torture than scientific. Neither the less, they peeled back any skin that covered his face and removed many facial muscles, along with his eyes, than sowed what was left back, leaving a mass of flesh for a face. The hospital was later closed due to <nowiki>''unpaid bills''</nowiki> but not without sixteen <nowiki>''patients''</nowiki> escaping including The Faceless One. That is when the killing started, first it was the <nowiki>''doctors''</nowiki> that wronged him, removing all their organs just as they did to him and drained them completely of blood, then it shifted unto hunters in the area thus cementing his legend. They say all that you hear is the sound of a slight breeze and a rustle of grass then the unsheathing of a long, large, blade like a long razor, finally, the sound of it going through your side, not the pain, carving out through the side, ending up through the chest and pulled out, leaving blood to spew out the wounds and God knows what happens after that.

 Krist laughs at my seriousness and says <nowiki>''what is it?''</nowiki> I change my stern expression into a smile, laughing, then saying loudly and with disgust <nowiki>''</nowiki>those guys are such assholes to even compare you to that creep<nowiki>''</nowiki>. She smiles that bright smile of her's and says with a tint of mystery <nowiki>''</nowiki>you know they say he lives right in this forest, in the ruins of that nut house<nowiki>''</nowiki>. I shake my head at the thought and take her hand to get her up as I do. She giggles and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>come on! Let's explore!<nowiki>''</nowiki> I respond with <nowiki>''</nowiki>but what about Zach and Bob?<nowiki>''</nowiki> She smiles and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>They'll find us, they'll probably just think were making out or something<nowiki>''</nowiki>. She runs off and I laugh nervously as I follow her into the depths of the forest. By this point, it's dark as we run throughout the forest, lighted only by the beckoning Moon, smirking with mysteries and uncovered horrors. There's as much light as in those samurai movies with one dude fighting fifty-two different guys with the might of Shaolin, no wonder RZA and the rest of Wu-Tang dug them so much. She runs in slow motion, hair flowing and intertwining with such grace, the world at her heels. She giggles like the innocence she still had and I envied her for that. She understood the dangers of conformity, which is why she hangs with me. I am captivated by all of this, that I don't notice her full stop, mouth open wide with awe. I almost fell but quickly caught myself the looked upon the horror she gazed upon.

 A lonely, desolated, and collapsed, two story building, that appears in my vision, it looked like it use to be a.....hospital. Krist mutters in horror <nowiki>''</nowiki>oh.....my...God....it...is..real<nowiki>''</nowiki>. There was enough trees collapsed around the building to make it appear that God gave this hell hole a special light but it wasn't God who gave the unholy light. Krist looks at me and says in frozen fear <nowiki>''</nowiki>we should turn back<nowiki>''</nowiki>. I agreed and started walking back. We were both silent, amazed at what we just saw, till Krist, broke the silence with <nowiki>''</nowiki>surely it was just an myth....right?<nowiki>''</nowiki> I reassured her but she saw the fear in my eyes just as she saw in the depths of her own soul and hugged me so tightly, I mean actually hugged me! Even in fear of my own death and her's, this is what it took to break the fear of certain doom only for a second. The feeling only returned when I looked ahead of her shoulders, ahead of myself and her were bodies slumped across all the trees in sight like some sort of complex massacre. They were long dead, bones shown through decayed flesh.

 That is when I heard it...the breeze and rustle of grass, breaking the abyss of silence that enveloped both Krist and I. I used all of my adrenaline and built up strength that I mustered to pick Krist up, running and carrying her off like Genghis Khan or something. I ran for what seemed like forever until I jumped with her ,over my shoulder, into a ditch, sort of hole and hid, stunned by fear. She silently wept till she looked towards the Moon for mercy but darkness reaches no hand. She looks at me with tear filled eyes and says <nowiki>''</nowiki>if....we....die....know.....I...love....you.....always have, ever since we were awkward kids<nowiki>''</nowiki>. I hold her close and whisper in her ear ever so softly <nowiki>''</nowiki>I love you too, Krist<nowiki>''</nowiki>. With that came the breeze, the rustle of grass. I was ready when I heard  the unsheathing and heard it tear through my back, to my side, up to my stomach. I quietly told Krist with blood silently running down my mouth, to run and she follows suit. With the blade slowly going up my stomach, I muster throughout the blood slowly pouring out my mouth <nowiki>''</nowiki>.....Leave....her alone.....you....bastard<nowiki>''</nowiki>. I feel a presence lean towards my ear and whispers, in a inhumanly deep voice, deeper than anything you have ever heard among the years existing on the planet earth, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Your love intrigues me but more of which is your preparation for your timely epilogue, I will pass mercy on the woman but I can not say the same about dear Zach and Bob<nowiki>''</nowiki>. To which thoughts of them being torn into pieces so violently along with my life. I feel him nodding wisely saying <nowiki>''</nowiki>Yes.....yes.....that will be suitable<nowiki>''</nowiki>. My last question appears out my mouth almost as an whisper <nowiki>''</nowiki>Who.....are....you...<nowiki>''</nowiki>. He subtly and quietly retorts with <nowiki>''</nowiki>I am everything you love and fear.....I dwell in the hearts of all of those that you hate and I embrace your absolute hate with pleasure<nowiki>''</nowiki>.

 Krist runs with fright but looks back and sees it's face. <nowiki>''</nowiki>You have looked upon pure death and have survived but everything you will try to fall in love with, will die and suffer like as your first love right now<nowiki>''</nowiki>. Fear carries Krist into the safety of the park, knowing the despair and regret to follow, all bound by something moving her not by her own will.

 I felt as the blade tore throughout my organs and sense them fail as it reaches my sternum. As the blood spews, oh so quietly and slowly, I fall down, I feel death's bittersweet kiss but not before catching a glimpse of The Faceless One's supposed face and died with terror in the deepest depths of my soul.



<em> The day is July / 6 / 2006: Today's top news. The body's of two teens around seventeen and eighteen, have been found in <nowiki>''Ashbury park''</nowiki>, both male and still our prayers go out to the missing teen still gone with no trace since late August. </em>

Written By MC Chriz