Masks
I wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat.
“What is it?”
“The nightmare.” My head throbs.
“The same nightmare.”
“The same. It’s always the same.” And it is. I still see you falling to death, your stupid smile plastered on your face, and the sound of your maniacal laughter ringing in my ears. And you fall, and you fall, and you pay for your deeds, but your dying doesn’t bring back any of those you killed. Instead, it keeps reminding us of all the times we failed. All those times we didn’t arrive on time. When you were more cunning than us, definitely more evil than us, and bested us just for the laughs, and people was left lying dead in the process.
Until we couldn’t stand it any longer, that night fifteen years ago to this day, and we let anger take the best of us. And we laid our trap, and it was dark, and we beat you to a pulp and let you fall. And you fell, blood everywhere but your wicked smile.
And your laughter keeps resonating.
We never told anyone. Anyone. Oh, there were questions, and there were looks, but we’ve learned how to lie. And we have a reputation. A short time after that, we retired.
But the nightmare never abandoned us since then. And your laughter never ends.
An alarm goes off. We look at each other. That alarm should have never gone off. It’s been silent for fifteen years, and it should have remained so.
We jump out of bed, and I feel young again. And guilty, because I feel young again, and adrenaline has suddenly started pumping through my system, and I’ve never felt better in a long time.
A long time. Exactly fifteen years ago.
I touch a hidden button, and a section of the wall slides open. It leads to our secret lair, where we haven’t set foot in… well, fifteen years. But after all, it’s machinery, and it’s kept in check and working. We made sure of that. Otherwise the alarm wouldn’t have gone off.
Several monitors are already on.
“Engage. Full operations.”
The vocal command is recognized, and the rest of our machines come alive and online. I sit down. I can feel the chair adapting to my shape. Why did we keep in shape, by the way? We’re not young any more. But we did.
We have always expected this. Hoped for it, rather. And it’s here.
It’s a full attack. On our city, on our people.
Looks like you. There are traces of your style everywhere. The news crews show the dead bodies to us, decency forgotten. Those bodies carry your signature.
But that’s not possible. We saw you die. We killed you. No one could have survived: you were already dead when you fell. Your smile was but a death rictus.
“It has to be another one.”
“A copycat?”
“A child? Did he have any?”
I cringe at the thought of you having any offspring. Not that raping was above you, but we always considered it was too personal.
“I’ll check that.”
News keep coming. Fires. Car crashes. Even a helicopter. Bodies pile on.
“Channel Nine!”
They’ve got you. There you are.
“Shit.”
“It’s him. He hasn’t changed!”
They freeze the image, and it’s you. Undoubtedly you.
And the journalists ask publicly whether we can aid. Or are we already dead?
We nod. The key turns and the panel opens.
And there it is, our face, our mask, waiting for us, calling to us. Mocking us. As if it was telling us it knew we’d be back.
And we pick it up and place it upon our face, and it lits up.
We’re back.
We’re alive.
~~~~
This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: June 26–July 2, 2017 at the Writer’s Discussion Group on Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.
This week I’ve tried to reflect several aspects of the main character, and they’re not always good. Definitely many are not good. It’s also the second time, at least, I’ve payed homage to certain bat-based hero, though I’ve gone quite dark here.
