Smoke, Mirrors and Masks

Act 2: Part 2 - A Mask of his Own

The world was cold without her. The little comfort he had once found in solitude was gone; the isolation left him numb. School hours were joyless and spent hunched at the back of the class, or playgrounds edge, where Edward would cast a low-jaw glare over the blank pages of his sketchbook, staring through the mask wearers as one stares through the fog on a winter window. The day's end bought no joy either. Returning to the easel he'd at least humour himself by taking a brush in hand before allowing his glassy gaze to settle through the unfinished portrait. He sat as a statue sits, brush in hand, as bars of sunlight crept down from the wall and onto the bedroom floor as the sun drew the day to its end. It's brilliant light fading: white, orange, red, purple - black. In this time a spit of fire still flickered inside the boy, urging him to continue. It would bring the tip of his brush to the canvas edge where it would turn to lead and his trembling arm would be forced to recoil. And it was when the nights would settle into themselves that fire flickered out, and the brush would drop through Edward's fingers. His half-sleeps were afflicted by torrential nightmares, which would cast a twitching upon his limbs as he tried to shake the words from his night. Only death may pay for life. It was an infection, a mantra that coiled through his mind like a snake. Words of venom that stirred a deep cauldron, in the bottom of which his spirit sat, boiling away into a thick, black ooze that dripped through his ribs. Only the morning could dispel such indisposition and he'd wake, gasping for breath with only his blood-shot eyes to speak of his night-terrors.

It rained one afternoon. Edward sat still beneath the heavy down pour as it clapped around him, casting a dull mud aroma from the earth which clogged the air. His back faced the playground, his attention fixed on a single snail that

toiled across the foot of the hedgerow, mapping out its journey with its gooey feelers. The poison stirred; Only death may pay for life.

Edward's heart punched his ribs as he spied a stone beside him in his peripheral. The poison filled Edward with a sinister delight as he took the stone in hand. He inspected it, wiping the wet lumps of dirt away with his thumb. Only death may pay for life. The boy's sullen expression rolled back to the snail. Only death may pay for life. The stone quivered in hand! Only death can pay for life. The poison turned to power in his chest! Edward flashed a snarl amidst the rain, one that bore all his teeth. Only death! Only death! Edward slammed the stone down and the tiny creature exploded into a pile of goo and splintered shell. The poisons power faded, his body shaking from the sudden withdrawal. Edward watched as lumps of the critters body twitched and curled, as if desperate to cling to life. Sadness hit first, then guilt, a surging wave that flooded his conscience. Horrified, he cast the stone aside and clambered onto his unsteady feet. Then ran. The downpour continued and he was thankful for it. For the torrent of grey disguised the tears that rolled down both cheeks.

The days that followed spared him no grace as his nightmares follow him from his sleep. Edward was skulking down one of the corridors when it first happened. The other mask wearers in the corridor vanished, melting into the floor as the plaster walls, littered with work of various students morphed into sheets of corrugated iron. The incandescence bulbs overhead blinked from existence one by one and darkness took charge of the corridor. Thin light rays sliced through the black, shooting out like arrows from rusted holes that had gnawed through the sheet iron cladding the walls. Edward's brow grew cold with sweat as a sudden gust raced down the hallway, bringing a foul taste that hit the back of his mouth.

Edward froze, spying a figure that lurked a few feet away in the dark. It let out a low grunt before shuffling into the thin beams of light. The creatures wet, twitchy nose was pressed against the grimy floor and it huffed obliviously as it trotted forward. Dread filled Edward's chest upon sight of the creature. He couldn't face it and he turned to the flee but was met with another wall of iron behind him. The metal chattered, as if laughing, as he banged his fists against it. It remained upright though Edward's managed to punch a small hole through the thin metal wall.