Lucio's Seven Fissures

Rank #1 in Talent Awards 2017 (Romance)

"I see a man surrounded by a thick wall of a facade. He habitually wore a mask every day - showing himself to everyone the way he wants to be illustrated.

Strong. Cold. Brutal. Ruthless. These were his favorite masks. But I did not let those fake faces deceive me.

But there were fissures on those walls, and also holes in his mask. A closer and a keener inspection on those cracks and a peak through those holes reveal a man who's crumbling in beneath.

I got too curious. Intrigued, I dug too deep to know the man who wore a thousand masks. I found his true face that bore so many scars - and I wasn't disgusted by it and embraced every one. And that was my biggest mistake: that I showed him that I cared too much.

And because of that, he had his eyes set on me. He placed a cage around me - determined to not let me go. He wanted me. He needed me.

But there was one scar - it was the most dreadful of all of them. The one he safeguarded, concealed and disremembered - even from me. It was the scar that held the key to the destruction of every string of attachment between us. But the revelation was inevitable. Everything that was hidden in the dark always ended up being exposed to the light."

- Emily Gardner