There is a saying, a quote whose origin has been lost, eroded into dust by time, reformed and passed down through the ages to be bastardized for modern listeners.
"Everyone wears a mask."
It's far truer than most people think. I know better than anyone else in the world. Though I know that what I can see and the saying have only a skin-deep connection.
As I sit here, watching the silvery needles of rain stab the grey concrete and listening to the faint hum of the dim electric lights overhead, I wonder how long I have left. I know that I have alerted the authorities to my activities and I know that they won't let me leave here alive, not when I could plant the seeds of doubt in the heads of the people who have lived under their secret rule.
It's useless to write or record anything, they'd find all records and destroy them. Eons of shadowy dealings have made them very cautious when it comes to any information about their existence.
They'll be here soon, I can feel it, but I don't know the exact moment and I don't know what face they'll be wearing.
But they will be here. This dingy little diner, with its bacon grease stink and cracked vinyl seats, will be where I make my final stand.
The knowledge of my imminent death angers me more than it frightens me. I had been so careful, so utterly meticulous in how I disposed of the bodies and destroyed all evidence of my involvement.
I was fast, almost mechanical in my efficiency, my knives parting their false skin and spilling their blood on rote. I made a dent in their ranks, but they've been here since before humanity learned to be afraid of the dark, breeding in the shadows like bacteria and infiltrating all aspects of society.
I remember when I first saw one. I was only twenty, my life had lost purpose and I was a few weeks away from ending it all when I saw the President's speech live on the air. I saw the things that stood behind him, watching him spew meaningless rhetoric with their lidless, flower-like eyes and smiling with their angler-fish teeth as if they knew a joke that no one else was privy to.
They were dressed like the president's personal escorts.
I was horrified to say the least, and I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me. But my mind was empty of all imagination back then, I didn't have the mental capacity for such hallucinations and on some subconscious level, I knew this.
Of course, I still tried to explain away what I had seen, telling myself that I was overworked and that the stress was playing havoc with my mind.
But then, one night, when I was out walking, letting the chill October air numb my senses and wondering if a noose or a bullet was the better option, I saw a man in a ratty, filth-encrusted hoodie watching me from the other side of the street.
I lived in a nice, cookie-cutter suburban spawn at the time, and the sight of someone looking so out of place made me uneasy; The man was an intruder in this peaceful neighborhood, like a spider in the flower garden and I instantly felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I tried to ignore him, but I could feel his gaze in me and I knew that he was following behind me, though he was silent in doing so.
The man kept up with me for several blocks, always getting closer with each step I took.
I chanced a look back and felt my blood go cold when the rays of the fading sunlight illuminated the writhing, blackened tendrils that squirmed under the hood and caught the gleam of rows of thin, jagged teeth.
The fear rose in my stomach like bile, making me choke and gag. The man was getting closer and the low, chilly breeze caught his rancid stink and blew it to me; He smelled like low tide and rotted vegetation.
