Life with The Smilers

A noisy meeting

In where I am living right now, there is and urban legend about what they call as The Smilers. A few people would say that they are spirits that comes into your dreams and turns it into a nightmare. Some of these nightmares would turn you into a mentally unstable person. Most of the victims were young children. It also occurred on some adults on the age of 25-38. When they were interviewed, all they could remember was, in their dream, everything was dark. Trees, corpses and shadows were alive. Chasing you down on an endless forest. When you were stopped, you have nowhere to go. They have different descriptions of what their dream was about but two. They remember a sharp smile and cat-like eyes. People say they come from the demon world, or people of the past who wants to take revenge on somebody they knew.

Yeah right. As if they knew it was from those selections. I know better. It's because I've met them.

It was just a time when I was looking at my window because I couldn't sleep. I was feeling uncomfortable of my life in a new town. I'm a new girl around town. So I'm still not used to new places. It's because of my father's work. It's my first time to move to another place after 14 years of existence. I just kept on looking at the window, when I heard a noise from downstairs. I was thinking, "What's father doing in the middle of the night right now?" He is somewhat you call a doctor for mental patients. He has been up all night looking at different papers with faces of different people. Comparing them with each other. With a sticky note with the words, Sharp teeth and smile. Cat eyes. Shadow man. He then compared it to the town's urban legend of the Smilers. Somehow, he had the conclusion, but he shrugged it off because he didn't really believe in the supernatural.

I can still hear the noise getting louder. Then I heard a laugh. Then there were two laughs. Does father have a visitor right now? They're too loud, despite the fact that I didn't sleep. I decided to go down to check on him.

I am just by the stairs, near by my father's office. I could hear something being thrown around. Somehow his door is slightly open. I was a few steps by the door, when it suddenly opened and a book flew past my face. I feel my sweat glands activated after that. I got pissed that I ended up charging inside his office.

"What's with all the noise and flying books in the middle of the night?" I shouted at the top of my lungs with my eyes closed. When the noise stopped, I opened my eyes. The office was a mess. The tables and chairs were all lying down on the floor. Some books and papers were misplaced. I saw my father raising his hands onto something in the air. I could only describe that something as a shadow with a mouth and eyes (Well, an eye). Its shadowy face was shaped in a cat, eye was like a cat, the other eye was scratched like it came from a cat, and sharp teeth making a grin like a Cheshire cat. Okay, almost everything of it was like a cat. It was floating from the floor, holding a book on one hand, ready to be thrown.

"Justine, did we wake you up?" said my dad.

"No. I was still up. Then I heard this noise from here. What's going on?"

"Well . . ."

"So this is your daughter, eh?" said the shadow. It floated towards me. It was too close to my face that I had to step back. Then it encircled around me. After that, it floated back to my father.

"Well, I don't see anything bad about this girl. Except the fact that she couldn't sleep because she's troubled of being in a new place." The last part surprised me.

"How did you know?"

"Justine. Remember that urban legend that was told by people of this town? Right now, it has proven to be true."

"Except for the part that we come from the demon world or restless people of the past." It came from behind the door. I saw another shadow figure. It looked similar to the other shadow, only its eyes are different. Right now, it was frowning at me. It black-and-white eyes are creeping me out.

"We actually come from the thoughts of the young people who were bullied in their years as children and adolescents. There were so many thoughts of revenge and pain that it gave birth to us. So, we are so-called the dark wishes of revenge for the bullied." said the shadow beside me.

"So, these people in my files, are your victims? What are the things that you've done to turn them in their unstable condition?" asked my father.

"Somehow, we only wanted to disturb them in their sleep, in order to wake them up. When they fall asleep again, we disturb them again. Repeat the cycle. Yet, we got carried away that our nightmares are now stuck in their heads that they are now seeing hallucinations of our creations." said One-eye.

"These people were actually bullies?"

"Bullies without conscience of what they've done, yes. There's too many to mention of what they have done to their victims."

It was my turn to ask questions.

"Excuse me cat, how did you know about my thoughts minutes ago?" I asked One-eye.

"That's another type of ability we have. We can enter human minds and look at their memories and hear their thoughts. Also, we didn't introduced ourselves to her, did we brother?" One-eye bowed down to me like a polite person.

"I am what you know as a Smiler. My name is Ches. I got that name from the Chesire Cat." No wonder.

The other shadow also bowed down to me. As it showed its face, it was grinning with a pointier grin. I felt my skin crawl.

"And my name is Jest. I got my name from the word Jester." I can now see it's like a clown, a creepy clown.

"We are known as the Smilers. We are pleased to meet you and your family."

Something tells me they are going to be a big difference in my life.