OOC: This is a dream, it will have no effect on the game other than to develop Shawn's character. Anything may happen in this thread

"Shawn...why didn't you do anything about it? The Clown came to visit me and it just cut my nose right off. Just right off with a large pair of scissors. I don't have a nose now. How am I ever going to drop you off at acting lessons with no nose?" Shawn's Mom said. And Shawn could see the gaping hole in her face. In her left hand, she held the nose in her hand.

"Dad is going to be very upset when he gets home from work."

Shawn felt really bad about Mom losing her nose. He really hated to disappoint her like this. "I'm sorry Mom. I should've been nicer to the Clown. Maybe you could use my nose?"

Mom sat there for a bit, stewing in her disappointment.

"Well, that is very thoughtful of  you. You know, all of this- the family's reputation, how your Dad feels about you, how much I love you, the nose--of it very much depends on you Shawn."

She pushed a small, peeling knife across the table to Shawn.

"You've got a lot you are responsible for. Even the Cherrywinks Clown is relying on you. Not to mention Bobby and Ralph."

"I know, Mom. I don't mind giving my nose up - I know Mr. Cherrywinks will have a new one for me when this is all over." Shawn took the knife and started working it through the base of his nose. It was a slow, painful process, cutting through flesh and cartilage with the small peeling knife. At least, it should be painful, but to Shawn it felt like it was happening at a great distance. "Hey Mom, do you think if I kill Roger, people will like me?"

As, Shawn spoke, his voice changed to sound more nasely, a faint wheeze coming through his face as he removed the nose.

"I think so, Shawn. I think so. I mean, I'll probably love you more because it means that I won't die. And your father won't die either. So he'll love that. We'll be happy."

"But I'll only be proud of you if you get a really good role in a movie. You know that, right?"

"Are you going to help Rubert get his blanket back?" Mom asked, just to be polite. She didn't really care, if she did, she would have remembered that his name was Ralph, not Rubert.

Shawn finally sawed through the last scrap of flesh that attached his nose to his face, and he handed it over to his Mom. It hurt, in a distant way, and gaping oozing hole where his nose used to be looked hideous, but he was fine with it; it was what he deserved, after all.

"I know I can get into a movie, Mom, I just have to try harder. Maybe giving you my nose was a good idea - if I can just find all the bits of me that aren't good enough and cut them off, people will have to like me, right?" Shawn looked at the peeling knife thoughtfully. "I don't know if I can get the blanket back. Mr. Cherrywinks would be really mad if he caught me, I'll bet. I don't want him to cut off Dad's nose too."

Mom nodded her head, listening intently to Shawn's explanation of the blanket and the difficulty. Then, returning to the subject of the pieces of Shawn:

"I've always said that you took after me Shawn. You're a real smart thinker. If you cut off the worst parts, then only the good parts of your will survive." Mom said.

"Why don't you see if you can get the part of you that only thinks about yourself? I know it must be in there somewhere. The deepest part maybe. The part you try to keep hidden with those well-praticed smiles of yours. And how well you say that you want whatever it is in the moment that I want or what Dad wants. See if you can get at that with the knife now that you have a wonderful-looking clown hold in your face."

"Go ahead...stick the knife in..." Mom urged, just like she would urge Shawn during a second take of a scene.

Shawn nodded agreeably. It made sense; all his problems, all the bad things in his life came from the times he put himself first. Sure, he tried to hide it and suppress it and lie and do what other people wanted, but wouldn't it be easier if he just cut that part out? Then he could just really be the person Mom and Dad and Mr. Cherrywinks wanted him to be instead of just pretending all the time. He could stop faking if all his lies were simply the truth. "You're right, Mom - I hadn't thought of that! I would be so much happier." He took the knife and started working it into his gaping nose-hole. His motions were a little awkward - he wasn't sure what exactly he was looking for, so his stabbing motions were more probing than cutting.

Mom was smiling with a happy, expectant and buoyant look. The kind of look that Shawn hadn't seen for a while. A long while before the acting had began. Shawn knew it was because he was finally shedding all of the outer layer of lies and deceit that he had built up as his exterior.

Shawn tried to stab at something. He found whatever it was that he needed. He was at the point of that knife. It was a soft, and Shawn could feel the knife grinding its tip into whatever was deep within his face.

Shawn smiled, genuinely, like he hadn't really done in a long time as he wrapped both hands around the knife handle and pushed it deep into the part of him that wanted things, the part of him that disagreed, the part of him that asked why he had to make other people happy all the time. He could feel it punctured and bleeding, so he took the knife out and stabbed it back in with even greater force once again. And again. And again. Soon he would be perfect, the movie star Mom wanted, the straight-A student Dad wanted...maybe even the killer Mr. Cherrywinks wanted. For all that, giving himself up was a bargain!

Shawn could feel hot blood pour down his face as he extracted the object that was deep inside of the gaping hole he had formed in his face. Pulling it out, there was a little 'snick' the could be heard as it broke free of whatever cartilage was inside, the object slick with blood the color of ichor, all black and inky.

Shawn wiped away the ink with one hand, as Mom nodded her approval from across the table, her own face having a hole where the nose once was.

His slippery hands wiped the object free of blood, or as free as it could be, to reveal what lay underneath: A perfectly round, perfectly smooth Clown nose. It was if it had been hiding in him all of this time, waiting for Shawn to dig it out. Waiting to transform him in the real, inner him.

"Oh it's wonderful!" Mom said, hands to her chest the way she did when Shawn performed particularly well.

Shawn looked at the nose, confused and unsure. This was the representation of the "real" Shawn, the Shawn inside of him that was greedy, was cowardly, that said one thing but meant another. It was the Shawn that had sold out the other children to the Circus, that resented his parents, that hated his job. He hated that Shawn, wanted nothing more than to make him not exist, to never have existed.

He wanted to throw him away, to bury him where no one would ever find him, but having him here, just in his hand, he found himself hesitating. Part of him, a selfish part of him, didn't want that to go away. He looked towards his Mom for her advice, still holding the nose. "What should I do? Moms are supposed to know what's best, so please tell me."

There was a pause as Shawn considered what to do, reflecting on both sides of himself. Then Mom spoke, breaking the silence

"Maybe you should try yourself on." She said, a wheeze escaping the hole that was her nose, flaps of skin vibrating as she spoke.

"You should see how the Shawn on the inside looks, once you wear him. I'm sure that he's been wanting to get out all of this time. To do and say the things that he's never allowed to do, because he's never been set free. So lonely deep inside there." She said, a note of sad regret and pity as she looked at the Clown nose that was in Shawn's hands, caked in the black ichor which stained his palms.

"You're right, Mom. I should be nice to other Shawn, even if he's awful sometimes. It's the least I can do." Shawn put the bloody, pus-coated clown nose to the hole in his face where his real nose used to be.

Instantly, Shawn's head jerked forward. His elbows shot out and he felt pressure in the center of his spine, forcing him to double over and look at his feet. His shoes exploded as his toes burst through the fabric, sticking out all malformed, nails yellow and curled.

He could feel his hair growing shaggy, feel the frizzy curls of a Clown wig forming on top of his head, hear the sound of nylon fabric brushing against itself in between his legs.

"Oh that's wonderful!" Mom explained. "You used to be Mommy's little butterfly and now....

You're Mommy's little Killer Clown!!!"

Shawn' Mom help up a hand mirror and just as Shawn was about to position himself so he could see, he woke up.

OOC: End thread