The scariest monster doesn’t have fangs or claws. It has the face of a friend.

He held my friend’s face in his claws, the transplant was halfway done. It had been years since the great fire. My house had been surrounded by flames, but my friend didn’t care. He didn’t care about the heat or the smoke. He only cared about saving me. He had ran through the flames to save me, and had his bravery rewarded with disgusted looks from passersby. The flames had melted him, and no surgeon was skilled enough to repair the damage. No surgeon, except for HIM. They called him a monster, a patchwork abomination. His flesh sculpting experiments had lead to his medical license being revoked, but he still practiced his craft in secret. Only a select few knew where his clinic was, and even fewer knew how to get an appointment. But I was determined to help my friend, to fix his face, to end the whispers and stares of strangers. The monster had been intimidating at first, but I knew that this hairy giant was my only hope. After applying enough sedatives and pain killers, the monster had delicately removed my friend’s molten face from their skull. He looked at it for a few moments before placing it in a medical waste bin. Then the ritual began. He turned to me and said “how do I look?”. I gazed upon his new face, smiling a genuine smile for the first time in years. “With your eyes, Bert!”