The ceiling above is stained a dark, yellowed brown, looking like it’s about to collapse at any time. From the rusted sink, a water droplet falls, echoing through the tiniest apartment New York City could forget. The wallpaper curls inward at the edges like it’s trying to escape. The windows are cracked and covered with tape, and the flickering lights tremble across the room, casting shadows even when no one is moving.
I lie here on this bed, thinking, this is where I would die. Alone.
But smiling.
I didn’t go to the hospital. I didn’t contact anyone. Everyone in this city already knows. People don’t leave their homes, and if they do, they wear a mask. Not to stop a virus or an incurable disease, but to keep a smile away from the face. The smile that took everything from me.
It all started with her.
The ache in my cheeks deepens, the corner of my mouth rises every second I lie here. But before I lose control completely, I need to record and write down the truth. I need to tell the story that people won’t believe in centuries later.
I have to tell how this all happened, how I lost my daughter.
She was always headstrong. She never listened to me, never cared for caution, and was always certain she knew better than me. Once she set her mind to accomplishing something, there was no way of stopping her. “Mom, I know what I’m doing,” she tells me all the time. I used to admire that fire and curiosity that was deeply planted in her until the day it consumed both of us.
That day, the Times Square 42nd Street subway station was packed beyond reason. Announcement echoed overheard, trains screeching, luggage rolling around, voices tangled in a million different directions. She held my hand, but only for a moment. “Mom, I’ll be right back,” she said, and before I could stop her, she slipped away into the crowd.
It wasn’t unusual for her to wander off, so I tried to follow her, calling her name, but she had already run into the women’s bathroom. The bathroom she entered was filthy – sticky and wet floor, graffiti covering all corners, teenagers vaping by the mirrors, a man splashing water on his face, and the air smelled like a mixture of metal and dirt. But she didn’t care. Nothing bothered her. What caught her attention was something small, something simple: a nicely packed sugar cookie lying on the floor. It looked fresh. Round, perfectly shaped, white icing, two small dots for eyes – and a red, wide smile.
Without any hesitation, she picked it up. And without a thought, she shoved the entire cookie into her mouth before I could stop her.
Minutes later, she was gone again, swallowed by the sea of bodies. I tried to chase her through the hot and thick air, past the flashing lights and glow of billboards, shouting her name. Then I saw her. The back of her coat disappeared into a train crammed with people. I reached out, but the doors clamped shut just before I could grab her arm.
Her face appeared smushed against the window – smiling. I kept mouthing, telling her to meet me at the next station, but she kept smiling. At first, I thought it was just a normal smile that she understood what I meant. But then it began to grow. Very slowly. Unaturally. The corners of her mouth trembled, then got pulled back, split wider, wider still until they got stretched to the point where they strained like wet paper. Her lips peeled back so far that her gums showed, a red, raw grin. Her eyes became huge, pupil blown, the red threads in them spreading like cracks in glass. Tears glazed the surface, making her eyes seem like they could pop out from her skull. She scratched her face trying to stop it, but it kept growing – as though magnets were forcing her face to stretch farther and farther.
The train did not move. It just sat there, humming low and wrong, and so did I. I froze, stared, blank and still, watching through the glass, my body locked in place. Soon, the woman next to her finally saw what was going on; She jumped, her hand brushed her arms.
That was all it took.
The woman’s mouth began to tremble, her lips jerking upward against her will. Her eyes widened, but the evil smile kept growing until her face was about to rip open. The passengers around them started to panic, clawing to get away. However, it was too late. One by one, their faces cracked open with the same joy, and the sound of quiet laughter soon echoed beneath the station lights.
The doors suddenly popped open. A pile of people stacking on top of each other, screaming, fleeing, some hid their faces with their palms, some wrapped themselves in their coats.
I didn’t run. I didn’t scream. I didn’t shout. I just stood there and, before I could react, once again the door closed and the train disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.
Her face was the last thing I saw, twisted in panic as people shoved past her. The world around me is running in chaos. However, all I heard was silence. Fear held me like a stone. I had to let her go.
The city changed overnight. The NYC Government issued a warning and an alert: STAY INDOORS, AVOID ANY PHYSICAL AND EYE CONTACT.
By the morning, news anchors wore masks on live television, voices trembling when reading their script as if they did not understand what they were saying. That is when the truth came out; it has been revealed that the Smile Company was trying to make a cookie that brings people joy, and it has been suspected that one of the testing cookies was accidentally taken out of the lab.
Soon, the city that never slept went still. Streets were only filled with several people with thousands of layers of masks on. Their eyes were darting nervously, avoiding eye contact and reflection. But for many, it was already too late. The laughter and chatter in the atmosphere were soon replaced by a low hum. The sound of people trying not to breathe too loudly behind their masks.
Her name was on the news, but not a single phone call. The news reports called her “The Subway Girl,” the one who started it all. No one knew where she went after the train ride.
I stayed in my apartment, watching the busiest cities in the world collapse and shut down through my window. Every social media page described individuals’ faces stretching into the possible grins, people clawing at their cheeks as their skin split and sliced open. The smile just doesn’t freeze an individual’s face, but it would physically consume one, and the skin would rip open other body parts, and all skin would soon decay, leading to one’s death.
That night, I looked in the mirror. My reflection smiled first. I didn’t feel it in the beginning, just a small twist. But then it spread, slow and sure, until my jaw ached and tears ran down my face. I tried to cover it with my hands, with clothes, tried to resist, but it was useless.
Now, lying here, I can feel the numbness on my face and other parts of my skin ripping open. Tears slide down my face as the corners of my mouth stretch higher and higher. My cheeks cracked, my eyes blurred, but I can still remember her smiling in the train car.
They say a smile can light up a room, a person’s mood. However, this one, this one smile burned the whole world down.
