Wipe Head – Chapter 4: A Face the World Rejected
The hospital doors slid open with a soft mechanical hiss, and William stepped outside for the first time since the fire.
Cold air rushed to meet him, sharp and unforgiving, brushing against his skin and searing through the thin hospital gown. He flinched, instinctively pulling his shoulders up. White bandages wrapped tightly around his head, concealing the left side of his face, his jaw, and part of his neck. Only his eyes—deep, tired, and far older than an eleven-year-old boy's—were visible. They were windows to a soul that had seen far too much, eyes that had watched innocence burn away.
No one waited for him.
No mother to adjust his collar.
No father to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
No Emily, balloons bouncing behind her, laughing with delight.
Just silence.
A nurse handed him a small plastic bag containing medicine and creams, her hands trembling slightly as if afraid to touch him. She smiled, but it was forced—careful, distant, the kind of smile that tries to hide the absence of words.
"Be careful," she said softly. "Your wounds… they'll take time. Some things… may never fully heal."
William nodded without looking at her. He already knew. The fire had shown him that.
The car ride to the orphanage was quiet. The social worker driving didn't speak, her hands gripping the wheel tightly, eyes forward, as if William didn't exist. Shapes blurred past the windows, the city reduced to streaks of gray, blue, and yellow. But William didn't notice. He only saw the memories of fire, smoke, screams, and the flash of twisted metal.
The orphanage appeared at the edge of the city like a gray monolith, cold and lifeless. Its walls held no warmth, no laughter, no love.
"This will be your home now," the social worker said, her voice flat, mechanical.
Home. The word felt like a cruel joke.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of disinfectant and fear. Children's voices echoed down long hallways—laughter, running footsteps, occasional cries. Life continued around him, but William felt like a ghost, invisible and untouchable.
The caretaker glanced at him briefly, eyes flicking to the bandages, then quickly away.
"Room seventeen," she said. "Follow the line. Dinner is at six."
No welcome. No hug. No sympathy. Only instructions, flat and lifeless.
Room seventeen was small. One narrow bed. One wooden cupboard. One cracked mirror on the wall.
William froze.
The mirror.
He couldn't. He wouldn't. Not yet.
He turned away immediately, heart pounding. His reflection terrified him more than fire ever had. The twisted, burnt flesh, the uneven lines where skin had melted and hardened—the boy he had been was gone. Only a stranger remained.
That night, William lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Whispers drifted through the halls. Giggles, cries, footsteps. All the sounds of life continued outside his door. But he didn't cry. He had already cried enough for a lifetime.
The next morning was worse.
As he walked into the common hall, conversations stopped mid-sentence. Eyes followed him, dissecting him, weighing him, fearing him. Whispers began like a low hum that quickly grew louder:
"What's wrong with his face?"
"Is he burned?"
"Ew… don't look at him."
A boy laughed nervously. A girl pulled her friend aside, shaking her head. William lowered his gaze, pretending not to notice.
At school, the torment continued. Children pointed, whispered, and laughed openly. One boy stepped in front of him.
"Hey… what happened to you?"
William didn't answer.
Another boy snorted. "He looks like a monster."
The laughter spread, sharp and cruel, echoing in his ears.
Then came the name. A whispered taunt that spread like a virus.
"Wipe Head."
"Hey! Wipe Head!"
"Don't touch him! He'll scare you in your sleep!"
From that moment on, William's words disappeared. He stopped raising his hand. Stopped eating properly. Stopped engaging with anyone.
He avoided mirrors. When he accidentally glimpsed himself in a window, his stomach twisted. The bandages only hinted at the reality beneath: a face the world could not accept.
At night, the memories returned. Emily's laughter. His mother's soft voice calling his name. His father's strong arms lifting him onto his shoulders. Then the fire. Then screams. Then nothing.
One afternoon, in the orphanage yard, a boy shoved him hard.
"Move, freak."
William hit the ground, scraping his palms. Dirt mixed with dried blood. The children laughed.
He didn't cry.
Something inside him… shifted.
Later that night, alone in his room, he faced the mirror again. Slowly, trembling, he unwrapped a section of the bandages.
The skin beneath was destroyed. Burnt. Twisted. Alien. He gasped, but no tears came. Only a cold, burning anger that grew with every heartbeat.
He stared. And stared. And stared.
"This… is me now," he whispered.
His reflection offered no comfort, no answers. Only cold, unfeeling truth.
Sadness began to rot into something darker. Anger. A desire. A hunger.
The world had taken everything.
Then mocked what remained.
Days became weeks. Weeks became months. William learned silence. Learned to vanish. Learned to use pain as fuel.
When the children mocked him now, he no longer flinched. He no longer reacted. His eyes, once soft and trusting, had gone cold. Very cold.
Some nights, he clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms, imagining screams that would never escape. He remembered his father's words, spoken before the accident:
"Never let the world break you, son."
The world had broken him.
But William learned.
Far away, six friends laughed as they finalized travel plans for a trip to the mountains, unaware that a broken boy was slowly learning to survive hatred and cruelty.
In the quiet of his room, William whispered to himself:
"I will survive. I will become… something else. And the world will fear me."
He thought of a place far from the orphanage, far from cruelty, far from the city—a place his father and he had built, an old wood house in the mountains, hundreds of kilometers away. It was untouched by mockery, untouched by fire, untouched by pain. It would be his refuge.
The first day he made the decision, William began planning. He would leave the orphanage. Alone. Silent. Determined. He would face the cold, climb the snow-capped peaks, and disappear into the wilderness. Pain, grief, and rage would be his teachers. And in that solitude, he would become unstoppable.
As he lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, he no longer felt small. The boy who had been innocent, trusting, and fragile was gone. In his place stood a child hardened by fire, shaped by cruelty, and fueled by vengeance.
The world had rejected him.
The orphanage had mocked him.
Life had tried to break him.
But William would not break.
He would rise.
And one day, the world would fear the name whispered through the shadows of the mountains: Wipe Head.
The world has made him broken , the words of people will haunt him , now he will be haunted by people's words
But little people don't know what a monster they will create, that the world will be known as wipe head a brutal monster what a world would fear