He walked the hallway—one, two, three. Usual steps wrapped in the silence of the night. But... what was that feeling just now?
"Fear." No, it can't be. He shouldn't fear.
"Sorrow?" But he had long forgotten the meaning of it.
"Bliss?" W-What was that again?
Shishhh...
Wind blew throughout the majestic casements, cold lash forming its own speech.
Je-bre--el.
"I know." Facade responded to nothing but an illusion, just like he did before, and a day before that day, and a day before that previous day—for weeks.
He knew that he must stop answering those ordinary sounds—for instance, the clicks of telephone, the skid of cars, the chirp of birds. He could've ignored them all, and he did once, but the heaviness he felt after passing over that summon was unbearable.
It wasn't physical, to be particular—not even mental. Yet still, its nothingness made Facade utter simple words.
"I know."
The door jarred.
"I know."
The light flickered.
"I know."
The wind blew.
"I know."
Wasn't that enough to be called a Lucid? But strangely enough, only those illusions were able to clear his doubts—perhaps untangle his mixed emotions.
And tonight was a revelation of a new sentiment "Eagerness" which had minutely clutched his pace, something born out of nothing but a desire to rescue his only kin Jebreel.
"You are his shield—Glitch!"
Words hiccupped when Facade tried to recall, losing their worth in the tide of his thoughts. Even after years of enduring his memory gaps, Facade was unable to remember his cousin's whole form—just a mere presence that lurked in his imagination: a voice of a sparrow's call, a smile of curling warmth, and definitely his name.
Only those three features were enough to name him Jebreel—above all, to find him.
Ugh... Why can't I rememb—
But before Facade could lament over his selective memory, he suddenly halted. There was a piercing sting, a sharp, pointed pain engulfing his mind. Razor, knife, blade—it could be referred to any of those tools, like they were gradually passing through his skull.
It was then that he clutched his head, gloved fingers compressing the throbbing temples.
No questions, Facade. No. More. Questions...
Despite his cluttered cognition, Facade calmed the erupting queries, trying to ponder the consequences each doubt would bring—especially the word "why," which had always acted as a button to burning soreness.
The experience had already become a part of his character, something casual to have. The more he dug deeper into his misery, the more it stung the depths of his nerves, each question carrying a new wave of pain. It was as though it were a weight that must be endured to build logic behind his existence.
And Facade had already raised a question against the queer system, leading his intellect to gradually malfunction over time.
The throbbing partly decreased after a whole minute of tolerance, leading to deep breaths. In and out. "I don't get it," he asked the bordered wall, continuing to mount the stairs before him. "You are his shield, Facade." While eventually advancing on the sleek marbles, he refabricated the glitching belief into a somewhat feigned clause.
You are his shield...
It was the same line that resounded in his void dreams—the same that he wanted to recollect from the depths of his memories. And there lay a certainty of it being a part of his reality; he had definitely listened to this statement somewhere, by someone. Though that someone was still stitched in the depths of his core.
Identical to those obscured trails, there were a number of impermanent wonders to expose, and still, Facade remained undaunted by any. Not the pain that filled his awareness, not the questions that grazed upon his random thoughts—nothing. Because he was told to befriend unease; that it was the only way he could survive.
Facade jerked his head before pacing the lavish corridor on the second floor, notions totally immersed in multiple analyses. He nearly stirred yet another question when he instantly ceased, realizing that he had already reached the desired doorstep.
"Oh, welcome back, Facad—"
"—I've done what you asked for." Facade hastily cut the formal conversation, trespassing the doorstep of a luxurious office. While doing so, he noticed a man sitting behind a gleaming desk, almost slouched in his chair.
However, the man didn't give away any sign of surprise when he saw Facade barging into his office, but rather, he calmly positioned his masquerade mask, leisurely shifting forward to receive the guest.
"Okay..."
The mask glinted when he leaned in, a crow-shaped figure enveloping the surface of a coal headpiece. Yet Facade ignored the fine headdress and stood at attention, hands locked behind his back while his head stiffened straight.
"I want you to get Jebreel out of the way. We can't delay our mission," Facade demanded, his voice hoarse as always.
"Hmm..." The man stood slowly from his seat, letting out a brief, dismissive sigh in response. Despite that, straightening up revealed a whole new perspective of his faint contour.
Wrapped in a crisp white shirt, his attached suspenders distributed the weight evenly on his shoulders. The bottom was a classical trouser, making it a perfect fit with his eerie mask. "Oh, man..." Eyes dug keenly at Facade when he readied a sharp knife. "You're a real drag," he drawled, forcing the blade to swing around his gloved palms. Even though the stunt was clearly a sign of danger, it wasn't surprising at all.
Facade had long been attuned to the whisper of blades—some rusted, barely scraping the outer skin, while others soaked in wine red, thirsty for more blood.
Swish!
The knife tore air, the razor edge gleaming warm as it whirled.
Slash!
"I smell eagerness here," the man continued, his wrist busy keeping the hilt moving. "Well, you're really good at making your image, or should I say, 'improving your image,' Mister Facade?" He finally flicked his fingers, throwing the dagger deep into the table.
"Image is a fragile piece of reality." Facade, unshaken by any menace, squeezed his locked hands, heating them with the clasped warmth. "And every fragile thing is worthless to me. You should be more aware of it than I am."
"Aye... that's a dramatic line coming from ya." The comment left the man smirking, and he stretched his arms against the table rim, pressing the heel of his hand to carry a quarter of his own weight.
"You wish it's dramatic, Mister Dan." The taunt made Facade narrow his eyes on Dan, giving the impression that he meant every last word of it.
"Yup, I know it's not." Dan puffed his uncanny act at last, exiting his still position to reach for the coat rack beside him. Though it seemed too unexpected to collide, a concern had already invaded Dan's reasoning.
"An advice, Facade." He continued, "Don't offend Hood more than he can bear. If you really care, that is." Dan relayed the thing bothering him for nights, his brown-leathered gloves dusting the slender fabric of his coat.
He was someone in charge of confidential matters since before Facade's appearance in the organization, being the only one who stood shoulder to shoulder with the crown of this entire mansion—Hood.
It was only Dan who held power in affairs, his regime over the mansion far greater than anyone after Hood. Though he regretted being his flatterer to this day, ashamed that he failed to know what his companion was at his core. Only then did Facade join the system, rapidly changing the jarring flow with his deadpan humor.
"Maybe it's best to name it rivalry—or whatever name makes it easier to swallow, sir."
Dan was told a witty phrase, conveyed none other than by Facade when he was cornered to answer his oblique questioning. But it being a dialogue never changed the fact of how astonished Dan felt. For the first time, he had received a satisfying response from someone—no less, from a boy recently hired for espionage. And that was when he had accepted a mere fellow as his first pioneer.
"Oh, I don't care." But unlike Dan, Facade wasn't interested in anything. Being someone's pioneer or not, he turned a blind eye to everything that wasn't his concern.
"Heh. Thought so." Dan expected that dismissive remark, knowing that Facade didn't care about a thing except for saving his cousin—which was indeed the truth. What spun inside Facade's mind dawn after dawn was rescuing Jebreel.
He strongly believed that saving him was a part of his fate—the reason why he came to this wicked world. By achieving the desired purpose, there would be no reason left to continue his baseless journey.
But why? He couldn't solve it himself. Just one thing he could tell for sure: all the love and care he had forged as Jebreel's guardian wouldn't return the same way as he'd left with him. Jebreel would hate him more—like he had before, and would, forever.
"Can't deny that's rude." Dan complimented Facade's stern answers, fastening his embellished buttons after slipping on the sleeves.
"I'm not rude, sir. I just needed to be sure of my cousin's safety. The operation must begin." Facade again elaborated on his reason for dropping by, completely ignoring Dan's mocking tone.
"Yes, yes, I heard you alright~" But he smoked his excuses into the breeze. In contrast to Facade's frozen posture, Dan functioned without pause. He first reached for the polished drawer to his right, then took a full opposite for the cupboard filled with several documents, and again, paused behind his desk, all while pretending to find a lost item.
You're literally taking forever to answer me, Mister Dan.
Facade complained to himself when he found Dan loitering in circles, repeating the process two times in a row.
Okay, I'm totally sure he's loafing around on purpose.
But he never blamed Dan with words. Rather, he simply shot a veiled glare, enough to make Dan realize he was already busted. "It's too obvious, Mister Dan," Facade criticized Dan's acting skills, watching him pause all of a sudden.
"I... Tsk!" Being a complete coy, Dan hid his mischievousness behind a sheepish smile.
"Are you really playing with me?" Facade probed. He was as serious as a corpse could be, aloof to find Dan as his senior once again.
"Oh, kind of like that." He shamelessly winked at Facade, not taking into account the blank tone he received just now.
Damn... he's a mess.
Dan reviewed his progress on Facade, as though he were a stat window to calculate his overall metrics. It had weirdly become his second nature to rub Facade off his tranquil manner, pressing him to act on impulse for once. And almost like his previous attempts, this one was an utter failure.
"Man, you're too stern about almost everything."
The remark wasn't only from Dan; everybody among the societies perceived Facade as stubborn—he who had shaped himself in perfection as if the mansion's appendix were his uniform.
Abiding by polite hostility never changed the fact that most of his colleagues were a complete pack of jokers, not excluding a senior known as Dan. But nobody actually knew the true nature hidden inside Facade—something unknown to the world.
Deep within his rigid words lay a mocking tone, criticizing each and every person in silence.
Stern? What the heck do you mean by stern!? Just tell me if you deployed Jebreel and get over with it already!
Facade inwardly shouted at Dan's baseless responses, insisting those words remain inside his mouth.
"Okay, enough with that." Dan finally reached for his seat after much dawdling, pulling out a pile of papers from the bottom drawer at last.
What an irony...
Facade sighed, wishing to flee from his sight this instant.
"Jebreel, is that your cousin's name?" Dan asked, eventually forming back into a responsible fellow. "Yes," Facade nodded.
"Okay then..." The bunch that Dan's elegant gloves extracted from the lower compartment was a thick layer of deluxe sheets, several pages slipping out of his grip when he went through each bannered name, most of the papers stamped in golden. It was the same pigment used for any other legal documents, consisting of wiggling lines equidistant to one another, each end connected to an average-sized spiral as if the whole were an ancient symbol of the sun.
One of them shimmered on the polished table—a document attested under a bold name of an unknown stranger.
'Zick_Wallway'
Age: Unknown
Status: Unknown
Experience: Unknown
Classification: Deceased