“Shhhhhh,” Luciano soothes, gently redirecting his company with a guiding gloved hand to rest her head on the desk instead of the floor. “There you go...”

A sigh passes Luciano’s lips; he smiles, tipping his head back with closed eyes, curling his fingers into the unseen threads that bind him to every shadow. A tremor descends the ladder of his spine, and he is unsure of whether it’s one of fear or anticipation. Perhaps both.

Golden voices. Golden tongues. Golden air from golden lungs...

Luciano stumbled slightly, having to reach out and put a gloved hand down on the stainless steel tabletop. His lab was quiet--at least, to any outsider. To scientist who stood alone beneath the amber-cast glow of the laboratory chandelier, swaying so slightly in the unsteady haze of his own thoughts, there was a cacophony of noise, or breathy whispers spilling from silver lips with promises of power, of glory, of purpose.

C h o s e n. Worthy. You will be the shie l d and sceptre. Our sworn s w o r d. Smile, L u c i a n o, laugh, for you shall never shed tears again!

The re-educator shuddered and chuckled, pressing his palm into his eyes, dislodging his glasses. His head hurt. They wouldn't stop. He was free of the haze of his re-education, but still they followed him, their golden irises watching him from every shadow, every dark place. Their gleaming smiles full of perfect human teeth, tongues bulging behind the cracks... Wiping at his face as if trying to clear away the images, he craned his head back, staring up at the wall where his masks stared back with empty eyes.

His own gaze settled on the mask representing the firebird. The phoenix.

Rebirth, he called him; he was a fiery, powerful muse, a persona, meant to represent the second life of the re-educated--the flame of rejuvenation. It made him grimace to think of the procedures that mask had been privy to, as the others had--what sort of unholy and unwarranted manipulations of innocent minds he had performed in it. It all seemed so grotesque and twisted to him, now. Without the sunshine in his veins, he did not see the beauty in it. Only the monstrosity.

And yet, he could not look away now, his stare locked on the fine painted leather of feathers coloured with fire.

Chosen. W o r t h y. We are you. Y o u are us, Arevik o u r s.

He reached up toward the mask with both hands as if entranced; slowly, reverently, he removed it from its place on his wall, staring into the empty eyes. He could feel the heat of it in his palms, as familiar as hot sand. Like molten gold...

Like molten gold.

Luciano turned the mask around, and brought it up to his face, the sculpted leather nothing less than a perfect fit.

A thousand t h o u s a n d  F A C E S!

He gasped--molten gold bubbled from his pores, thick and hot and reaching, and his shout of shock and terror was swallowed by the paralysis that overtook him in his panic. He clawed at the edges of the mask but it would not let go. He could feel it--whatever it ws inside him, that terrible light, that hungry, insatiable shadows, winding in and taking hold of the mask and gripping it so tightly to his face that it pressed its lines into his skin--

--Luciano screamed, buckling over, as the painted leather and fire began to dissolve into the molten gold of his face.

He screamed and cried out and dug his fingers into his temples, his hairline, scrabbling to stop it, to end it, to wake up--but he couldn't. And what was only seconds felt like hours, and those hours were a flash of searing agony, and the terror gripped him to the bone while the golden voices laughed joyously through the hall of his skull. 

And then it was over, and Luciano quivered on his knees, once again alone but for the whispers and the e y e s that watched with all the golden light of a Smiling God.

Rebirth was gone. Beneath his skin, he felt heat like burning embers--until that, too, faded away.