The class finally ended, and Young Shane bolted from the room before the teacher could even finish dismissing them. Every other student filed out behind him, their whispers filling the hallway like a chorus of judgment.
"Man, did you see Preach today?" one kid murmured to his friend, the nickname dripping with mockery. "Going on about justice and morality like he's some kind of prophet."
"Yeah, it's getting weird," another replied, shaking his head with exaggerated concern. "I think he might have some kind of obsession. Someone should check on the guy before he completely loses it."
Despite their words, Shane didn't slow his pace. He didn't even glance in their direction. The familiar sting of their mockery had long since dulled into background noise—white noise he'd learned to tune out over countless similar encounters. They wouldn't understand—they never had. Years of being dismissed, of having his convictions ridiculed, had taught him to block their voices from his mind, to shut them out completely. They weren't worth his time or energy. He had better things to do—a world to fix, corruption to eliminate, injustice to destroy. The fire in his chest burned hotter with each dismissive laugh he heard behind him. But despite that fire, despite the overwhelming emotions that threatened to consume him, he could never act on them.
He always hesitated when it came to actually doing something concrete. The gap between his passionate beliefs and his ability to act on them yawned like an unbridgeable chasm. After all, he was only seventeen—maybe eighteen by now. His young body and mind wouldn't be able to handle the things he wanted to do, the violence he sometimes fantasized about in his darkest moments. It would shatter his psyche forever, leave him broken and hollow—a shell of the person he wanted to become.
He closed his eyes and kept walking, sinking deep into his thoughts like a stone disappearing beneath dark water. He didn't realize he was still moving until he finally opened his eyes to find himself standing in the middle of the street on his usual route home. Had his body been moving on autopilot while he was lost in thought? The realization unsettled him, sending a chill down his spine. *Why? How did I get here? When did I even leave the school grounds?*
But all those questions vanished when he saw it—a mask lying on the cracked pavement. It was white with simple features: eyes, nose, and mouth carved in basic shapes. Nothing elaborate, nothing ornate, yet something about it called to him. Like some unknown force, it drew him forward step by step. Something whispered in his mind, a voice he couldn't quite make out, urging him to approach, to pick it up, to put it on. It promised to grant him all the desires his heart had ever held, all the power he'd ever craved.
*What is this? What's happening to my body? Why can't I stop moving?*
He moved one step forward, then another, then another, his legs carrying him against his better judgment. His rational mind screamed warnings, but his body refused to listen. Finally, his body bent down, and his hand closed around the mask. It was cold—as a mask should be. Everything seemed normal about it, too normal, in the sense that normalcy itself felt wrong. From an outside perspective, the mask looked fine: no cracks, no stains, nothing unusual. It looked like a clean mask lying on the ground where masks usually weren't found, unless someone had dropped it accidentally. But then again, this world had magic flowing through its very foundations. Couldn't someone just use a simple spell to retrieve a lost item? Why would they leave something behind?
*Put me on. Please. You know you want it,* a dark, menacing voice said from the mask, speaking directly into his head with an intimacy that made his skin crawl.
Shane stared down at the mask, his hands trembling as he debated whether he should put it on. His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat a warning he chose to ignore. Then reality shifted violently, and he was plunged into a dark, endless room. The transition was instantaneous—one moment he stood on a sunlit street, the next he floated in absolute darkness. The white mask floated nearly ten feet away from him in the air, suspended by nothing. He could see it directly, illuminated by some sourceless light that defied explanation.
"But where am I?" Shane spun around, searching for walls, for exits, for anything. The darkness pressed in on all sides like a physical weight. It was pitch black beyond the immediate area. The only sources of light were the mask and himself, although he was illuminating very little—so little he couldn't even tell if he was glowing at all or if his eyes were simply adjusting to the void. The silence was absolute, oppressive, broken only by his own ragged breathing.
*Something wrong?* the mask said, its voice dripping with amusement.
Shane stared at it. The mask stared back, its empty eye sockets somehow conveying awareness, intelligence, malevolence.
*I see you're the conflicted type,* the mask said, floating forward toward his face with deliberate slowness. *One who has such deep emotions but never acts on those emotions. You feel everything so intensely, yet you do nothing with that passion.* The mask paused, as if savoring its next words, letting them sink in. *You, Shane, are a magnificent person. Your views on justice in this world are quite remarkable—far more developed than those of your peers. But your flaw—your one and only flaw—is that you never actually act on those emotions. You're paralyzed by fear, by doubt, by the weight of consequences you imagine but never face. But I can give you what you need to act. I can give you what you need to destroy the bad people of this world, to punish those who deserve it. I can give you what you need and want all at once, if you just put me on. If you put me on, you'll get anything and everything you could ever desire. Justice, vengeance, power, recognition—whatever you need and want.*
Shane stared at the mask, his throat tight with emotion. "I... I can't. I don't—"
*But you can,* the mask interrupted sharply, its voice cutting through his protest like a blade. *Shane, the only thing stopping you is not some outside force. It's not some cosmic interference or divine prohibition. It's yourself. You are stopping yourself from being who you truly want to be in this world. I can destroy all those restraints, all those fears, all those doubts that plague your every waking moment, just by you putting me on. I know this might seem suspicious to you, and I know you might be hesitant. But you've been hesitant all your life, Shane. When are you going to learn that life does not reward hesitance? It kills it. If you hesitate in a fight, you get hurt. If you hesitate in battle, you die. Hesitation is going to kill you eventually. You need to act, Shane. Stop hesitating and live your life the way you see fit. The only way to truly live your life is by putting me on. Because if you don't, you'll be hesitating for your entire existence, and you'll die wishing you could have acted sooner and changed the world. I know one of those thoughts will haunt your mind, and one of those will be your deepest regret when you die, Shane. So put me on, and I'll give you everything you've ever needed and wanted.*
The mask's words were convincing—too convincing. They echoed every frustration he'd ever felt, every moment of powerlessness he'd endured, every time he'd watched injustice unfold and done nothing to stop it.
Shane's hands shook as he reached forward. His fingers trembled with a mixture of fear and anticipation. "Fine," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'll put you on."
He reached up, grabbed the mask, and lowered it toward his face. The mask, which had maintained an expressionless face throughout their conversation, twisted into a creepy, uncanny smile—one that Shane couldn't see as it descended toward his skin.
*You foolish child,* the mask thought with dark satisfaction as Shane placed it over his features.
And everything else became history.
---
Back to the present day.
Shane—or rather, the mask puppeting his body like a marionette—had accepted the man's deal. The teenager with blue eyes and black hair turned toward the man, his movements somehow different from before, more fluid yet less human. There was a wrongness to the way he moved, as if the mask hadn't quite mastered the art of inhabiting a human body.
"Now that we have our second acquaintance," Shane said, his voice carrying an edge it hadn't possessed before, "what's the deal you told me about? What do we have to do for you in return for you getting revenge for my mother's death?"
Quinn leaned forward, his voice tight with desperation, his hands clenched into fists. The grief in his eyes was raw, unprocessed, a wound that hadn't even begun to heal.
The man stepped forward, his black clothing absorbing what little light existed in the already dark warehouse they occupied. "Simple. I need you to give me people. People that I can gain power from, people whose energy I can harvest."
Quinn stared, processing the request with visible confusion. "That's all you want? Just people?"
A smile spread across Quinn's face, relief flooding through him like a wave. "That should be easy enough. All I have to do is give you people, and my mom—I can give her the justice she needs, correct? I can make them pay for what they did?"
The man smiled down at him, his expression unreadable in the shadows. "Correct."
Then he turned to Shane, his expression hardening with sudden intensity. "But first, before you do anything else, I need you to take off your mask. I need to see what your face looks like, just in case we're separated or compromised."
*What? Interesting. You want to take me off, do you?* a voice answered in the man's head, dripping with mockery. *That's going to be very difficult for you to do. You think I would just let you remove me that easily? That's very funny of you, Dark King. Or should I say... Dale? After all, you're weak—way weaker than you should be in your current state.*
The man's face flashed to confusion, then smoothed back to his usual calmness with practiced ease. "How do you know my name?" he demanded in his head, careful to keep his external expression neutral.
*It's simple,* the mask replied with evident pleasure. *I have all the memories of everyone I've entered the head of—yours included. It's quite the collection, really. A vast library of human experience, suffering, joy, despair. It's strange, though. Why did you have to take over this kid's body? All he was supposed to do was destroy the demon realm and gather the intel he needed to further the Church of the Black Serpent's conquest for war. It is beyond me why he hated that black crystal so intensely, and it is beyond me why you now control his body. I know you're not the original person, the original Dale. So please, with your weak body, try to take me off. Please do. It won't end well for someone like you.*
James's eyes widened imperceptibly. *How did a simple mask penetrate my mental defenses?*
The mask smiled at the man through Shane's face. Quinn did not hear the conversation the two conducted in their heads, but that smile—the one Shane gave, depending on who was in control—was deeply unsettling. It didn't reach his eyes, didn't carry any human warmth. It was the smile of something wearing a human face like a costume.
That is, of course, if Quinn believed that Shane was the one in control. He was wearing a simple mask, after all. He could have been using it merely to hide his identity, to maintain anonymity in their criminal enterprise. But Quinn had no idea—no idea that the tables had turned, no idea that the mask was controlling Shane instead of the other way around. He saw only what he wanted to see: an ally in his quest for vengeance.
*And since you want to challenge me head-on, I'll let you,* the mask said with dark amusement.
The mask popped off Shane's body with a wet sound, and Shane collapsed to the ground unconscious, his limbs sprawling awkwardly. The mask floated in the air, suspended by invisible force, its expression twisted into a cruel smile.
"You know," the mask said aloud now, its voice echoing in the warehouse with unnatural resonance, "both of you seem to want a new member added to your little team. How unfortunate that won't be happening. But of course, I'll give you what you want—in a manner of speaking."
Dale's eyes locked on Shane's exposed face, taking in his features with clinical precision. "Why did you do that? I never wanted to fight you! I just wanted to see his face!"
The mask's smile widened impossibly, stretching beyond what should have been physically possible for an inanimate object. "Because that kid is no more. He'll remain in that mindscape I created for him forever, trapped in his own thoughts, his own fears, his own endless cycle of hesitation and regret. His body will soon grow dehydrated, hungry, exhausted, and he will die here—his body rotting like a forgotten corpse in this warehouse. No magic will be able to save him from the fate I have given him. Once I invade a puppet, once I take complete control, they never come back. It's as simple as that. It's irreversible."
The mask's smile grew even more sinister as a dark portal tore open in the air beside it, reality splitting like torn fabric. "You can try to find your new member for your little team, Dale. But know one thing: I'm always here, always watching. There's nothing you can do to get rid of me permanently. Goodbye, my friend. I'll see you when you finally decide you want to put me on yourself."
The mask drifted into the dark portal, and it closed with a sound like tearing fabric, leaving Shane's unconscious form on the cold ground.
*He's going to die here,* Quinn thought, his chest tightening with panic. *He's going to die here alone in this warehouse. I can't let anyone die. I know how death feels, how it tears through everything, leaving nothing but emptiness and regret. I know how death can shape a person, warp them forever. It shaped me when my mom died, left me hollow and desperate, filled with a rage I couldn't control. I can't let anyone feel the pain and emptiness that I feel at this moment. I have to keep him alive. I have to save at least one person.*
Suddenly, the boy's eyes snapped open. Shane quickly scrambled up from the ground, disoriented, and looked around wildly with the confusion of someone waking from a nightmare.
"Where am I? How did I—" He spun around, taking in the warehouse with growing horror. His eyes landed on the skinned killer that he—or the mask—had used his body to torture and kill. The body was wrapped in shadows, evidence that the man standing before him was not normal, not human in the conventional sense. "How did I do this? Where did the mask—"
But suddenly, he felt a sharp blow to his head. Pain exploded behind his eyes, white-hot and immediate, and he collapsed unconscious again.
"Why did you do that?" Quinn demanded, his voice rising with anger and confusion.
"Because," Dale said calmly, walking over toward Shane's crumpled body, "I'll explain everything to him when he wakes up. Him being this sporadic now, this panicked and confused, isn't going to accomplish anything productive. He needs to be calm when he learns the truth."
A dark portal opened with a whisper of displaced air, and Shane's body was quickly lifted by shadows and thrown into it without ceremony.
But soon after, Dale felt a surge of energy course through his body—a powerful, inflective energy he did not recognize. It entered him and flooded his entire being, filling every cell with unfamiliar power that made his skin tingle and his heart race.
*What is this power? Did my clones find some demons within the demon realm and absorb their essence? Is this their energy flowing back to me?*
"Come on." Dale quickly grabbed Quinn's hand, enveloping them both in writhing shadows. They sank into darkness, traveling back toward the demon realm—back toward the chaos that was about to be witnessed, back toward whatever carnage his clones had unleashed.