Telluric

Chapter XIV: Unmasking

XIV

After Noah had put on his now dried clothes, he thanked Diego with an embrace of passion and headed home in the dark. As he paced in a blistering happiness, he ignored the masked man who he knew was following behind him. He brushed his warmed hand through his short-curly brown hair that was trimmed longer in the center most of his scalp and shorter on the sides, making a sort of line from forehead to the tip of his scalp. As he did so, he passed the graveyard where Mayla had her undead-experience.

He stopped right beside the gate, and turned around to the Plague Doctor who stared at him blankly, but didn't say a word. Noah then continued on, the darkness of the night gleaming upon his antique brass colored skin. Walking meticulously, he slipped past almost half of gate before something brushed by him. Looking over his shoulder with the light of the street light from a distance away, he saw what he didn't before.

The entire street in which Graywood Manor resided was full of shadowy figures that moved awkwardly and soundlessly, slowly wandering around the area. They didn't seem to have seen Noah.

Transfixed upon the figures that moved like teenagers waking up, Noah didn't realize that the masked man was now approaching him, slowly making his way beside Noah. For the first time ever, Noah heard the voice of the masked man.

"The balance has been quite upset as of late," A gruff English voice muttered to Noah, startling the boy. He turned but the masked man reassured him quickly that he was no danger to the boy. They watched in an indefinite toleration as the slow-moving corpses did a sort of danse macabre waltz along the streets.

"Do you have any idea who did this?" Noah asked to the masked man, who replied only with a husky 'no.' Noah then turned to his menacingly ominous mask and stared him right in the glass-covered eyes. "Who are you?"

The man began to hold a finger to his beak (which was inches away from Noah's face,) but then halted and shook his head, dropping the black-gloved finger to his black robed body.

"I suppose I should tell you..." The man then lifted his hands to his mask, and began to pull. It took years for him to do so, or at least Noah imagined. The clothe seemed to slide indefinitely while the nonchalant zombies cruised neglectfully in the darkness surrounding them.

When he finally had finished, Noah gasped at the unsettling sight that lay before him.

Where the mask had been was a human skull, breathing silently into the night and staring darkly and sightlessly toward Noah. Noah backed away slowly and then turned to run, but the figure stood silently before him.

"Who are you...?" Noah repeated, in a gasping voice of obvious nervousness. He rubbed his hands and calmed his breath, seeing the figure had no malicious intent.

"I am death." The figure said grimly. "I am the snuffer of the candles of life." He seemed oddly tranquil, in a way that death often occurs. The infinite expanse of darkness that flowed from his skeletally robed body was all just a mass of numb oblivion; a sort of feeling that spread calmness and relinquished the horrid feelings of anxiety within the nerves. The insight into this seemed to calm Noah strangely, causing him to relax his hands.

"Death," Noah mumbled unintelligently.

"I will touch everyone, one day." He sung in a melancholy ballad. "Nothing you can do/ nothing you can say." The two then turned back to the massive moving graveyard.

"You're right." Noah closed his eyes and dropped his head. "Everything seems wrong. Clouds are darkening, or at least that's what Clary says." He turned to Death, but he was gone. Lingering words held in the air though. 'Tell no one,' the words cautioned.