𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐈𝐧 𝐔𝐬

"Two things can be true at once."

Everyone wears masks to hide who they truly are. Mal became aware of that fact ever since she enrolled herself in the famous Science & Technology school, in hopes of fulfilling her wishes to help her corrupted society understand criminal minds, to see what causes them to commit unspeakable crimes, and to help stop murder crimes across the nation.

Except that, when she looks at the file in her hand one day, to read about the prisoner assigned to her for her graduation project, she goes into full shock mode.

Hunter Ward, barely eighteen, who murdered his parents one fateful night, has been assigned to the scientist for her to research what caused him to commit such an unspeakable crime. He had spent two years in prison, arrested when he was sixteen, and was treated like a criminal, less than human, ever since his arrest. He begins to lose hope in ever being treated fairly, and he knew that with most of the years in his life would be spent in prison, he might just print the word 'criminal' to his forehead, as people would take one look at his profile and stare at him up and down in shame.

With Mal's full determination and curiosity to figure out why people kill, she brings out her and her step-brother's graduation project invention, the NeuroVisual Decoder, and gets to work. A wide screen with too many wires to count, and with the miraculous ability to read minds in the shape of encrypted video files. An invention that had just been approved by the government, and was guaranteed a bright future in criminal justice, just like her.

But everything comes with a price.

And having full access to her prisoner's thoughts, feelings, and intentions might just be the price she could never afford.

Trigger warnings: Mentions of foul language, drug-taking and forced drugs, self-harm, rape, murder, cannibalism and overall mature content. Proceed with caution.