Ray woke gasping. Cold sweat clung to his hair and skin, and his heart thudded like a drum inside his chest. The dream had come again—the black void, the floating mask, the cracked violet eye staring at him, whispering his name.
"You were never meant to stay ordinary… Run."
He blinked, trying to shake it off, but the words lingered, pressing at the edges of his mind. He had hidden the fragment around his neck for years, a jagged, tiny piece of a mask he had found as a child, thinking it was just a trinket. Now it pulsed faintly against his chest, almost alive.
The sun filtered lazily through Duskreach Town's rooftops, gilding the streets in golden dust. Lanterns bobbed above in the festival winds, casting shifting lights across the cobblestones. Merchants shouted over the crowd, selling sweets and trinkets, while children ran in circles, laughter cutting through the ordinary day.
Ray tried to convince himself it was safe. He helped his mother at her shop, ran a few errands, and did his best to ignore the hum at the back of his head—the whisper that insisted he didn't belong.
You were chosen.
He hated that it sounded true.
Then came the hum. Low at first, like a tuning fork vibrating in his chest. Then louder, rolling over rooftops and across the square. Lanterns flickered, and the festival music stuttered. People froze. Murmurs ran through the crowd, growing into fear.
"Power outage?" someone whispered.
Ray's stomach sank. He knew better.
A scraping sound skittered across the rooftops. His heart leapt. Lanterns caught the movement, and in a flash of light, he saw them.
Tall, wooden figures, unnervingly thin, their limbs connected with black cords like marionette strings. Their faces were frozen in grotesque smiles, the red glow of their eyes piercing the square.
A scream shattered the air.
People scattered, tumbling carts, clutching children. Guards shouted, "Evacuation points! Everyone move!"
Ray should have run.
But something pulled him forward, toward the sound, toward danger, toward the whisper in his skull.
At the edge of the marketplace, he saw it clearly.
A Stray Revenant—a Mask Beast born from shattered fragments. Its body looked humanoid but wrong, bone and silver cords twisted together, a half-mask fused to its face. Its hollow eyes fixed on him.
The fragment around his neck burned, pulsing violently. "Take me," the whisper said.
Ray stumbled backward. No. Not now. Not this.
The Revenant lunged, claws shredding the cobblestones beneath its feet. There was nowhere to run. And in that instant, the whisper filled his mind completely:
"Let me in."
Instinct took over. Ray's fingers clutched the fragment, and it shattered into violet light. The world bent. Space folded, shadows twisted, colors inverted. The Revenant froze mid-lunge, trapped in a bubble of warped reality.
A mask shard appeared over Ray's right eye—glowing, curved like a smirking crescent. He didn't understand it, but he felt it as a power answering the whisper's call.
"Welcome, my vessel. Let's cause some mischief."
He snapped his fingers. Reality cracked like glass. The Revenant collapsed into itself, folding, imploding, until it vanished in a puff of violet ash. Silence fell, broken only by his ragged breathing.
He stared at his hand, shaking. He had just killed a Mask Beast with a power he didn't understand.
"This is only the beginning," the fragment whispered softly.
The sirens shifted tone. Drones scanned for rogue Mask energy. Agents in black coats sprinted toward the square. Ray's fragment dissolved into his skin, the light fading—but it was too late.
An agent spotted him, pointing with authority.
"YOU—! STOP! MASK WIELDER DETECTED!"
Ray's heart leapt. He backed away. The fragment's whisper hummed like laughter.
"Run."
And so he did.
He ran through the winding alleys of Duskreach, past overturned carts, terrified townsfolk, and the lingering scent of ash. Behind him, unseen eyes watched from rooftops, patient, calculating.
Ray didn't know who—or what—was watching. All he knew was the world had changed, and he had only one thought:
I have to survive.