He walked the hallway without a sound. Every step he took made him realize what he was about to do. The wind swished through out the huge casements, each hush whispering one thing in his ears.
Jebreel.
Ages passed by and Facade could only remember him in pieces.
The voice that echoed his dreams, the smile which his eyes never saw. His name.
"You are his shield, —Glitch!"
The word hiccupped, losing its worth in the tides of his thoughts.
Why can't I remember the complete sentence?
But before he could lament over his selective memory, Facade suddenly halted in one place, an instant sting engulfing his clear speculations. The pain was to an extent that it made him clutch his head, gloved fingers compressing the throbbing temples as he stayed still.
To him, it felt like somebody was piercing his skull with a metal bat, but he never dropped an ear to that false reasoning, aware that it was nothing but an illusion of his mind.
No questions Facade, No more questions....
He calmed the erupting queries, trying to ponder over the consequences each doubt would bring. Especially, the word 'why', which acted as a button to trigger burning soreness in his brain.
The experience had already became a part of his character, something that was ordinary to have. The more he dug deeper into his misery, the more it stung the depth of his nerves, each question carrying a new wave of pain. It was, as though, a weight that must be endured to build logic behind his existence.
And Facade had already rose a question against the queer system, leading his intellect to gradually malfunction over time.
Once the throbbing halted to a degree, Facade took a deep breath. In and out. "I don't get it." He then continued to mount the stairs, focus barely attentive as the drifting questions made him feel uncomfortable.
"You are his shield, Facade." While advancing gradually on the sleek marbles, he refabricated the same glitching thought into a complete, feigned clause.
You are his shield...
It was the same line that resounded his void dreams, the same that he wanted to recollect from the depths of his memories.
He was sure about the clause being a part of his reality, certain that he had definitely listened to it somewhere, from someone.
Five years passed by but he couldn't recall the obscured narrator stitched in shadows.
Though, numerous wonders laid blanketed beneath the thick fog, Facade remained undaunted. No one could crumble his sheer will. Not the pain which filled his awareness, not the questions that graze upon his random thoughts, nothing at all.
Because being unsettled was a common trait to survive.
Facade jerked his head from uninvited hinderance before pacing the lavish corridor, Notions totally emerged in multiple analyzations. He nearly stirred yet another case to his mental space when he immediately ceased his unconscious thoughts, realizing that he had already reached the desired doorstep.
"Oh, welcome back, Facad—."
"—I've done what you asked for." Facade cut the formal conversation in haste, trespassing the doorstep of a luxurious office.
When he finally walked in the spacious room, he noticed a man leisurely seated 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 in his office, rather, he calmly positioned his masquerade mask, leisurely shifting forward from his laid-back stance.
"Okay..."
The mask glinted when he leaned in, a crow shaped figure enveloping the surface of a black headpiece. Its polished beak shimmered pale gold as light from the chandeliers stretched all along the pointed edge.
Eyehole were equiped with hollow circles, the black pair lined with silver boundary as it stood against the coal base.
To add overall texture, it was scratched with straight lines, giving it a vibe of a chilling presence.
Facade didn't give attention to the fine headdress resting on the man's face, instead, he stood at attention, hands locked on his back while 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 masked man stood slowly from his seat, letting out a brief, dismissive sigh. As he rose up, his attire revealed a whole new perspective of his faint contour.
Wrapped in crisp white shirt, his attached suspenders distributed the weight evenly on shoulders. The bottom was a classical trouser, making it a perfect fit with his eerie mask.
"Oh, man..." Concealed eyes dug keenly at Facade when he readied a sharp knife in his hand. "You're a real drag." he drawled, forcing the blade to swing around his gloved palms.
Even if the man's movement brought specks of danger and doubt, Facade still persisted on his placidity.
Swish!
The blade tore the air with each rotation, razor edge gleaming warm light when it whirled.
Slash!
But Facade had grown attuned to the sound of blades. Some rusted, barely scraping outer skin while others soaked in wine red, thirsty for more blood.
"I smell eagerness here." The man continued, his wrist busy to keep the hilt moving. "Well, you're really good at making your image or, should I say, 'Improving your image?" He finally flicked his fingers, throwing the dagger deep inside the table in one shot.
"Image is a fragile piece of reality." Facade, unshaken by any menace, squeezed his locked hands, heating them with the clasped warm.
"And every fragile thing is worthless to me." He finally finished.
"Aye...that's a dramatic line coming from you." The comment left the man with a smirk. He stretched his arms against the table rim, pressing the heel of his hand to carry quarter of his own weight.
"You wish it's dramatic, Mister Dan." The taunt made Facade narrow his eyes on Dan, giving an impression that he meant every last word that he had uttered.
"Yup, I know its not." Dan puffed his uncanny act at last, exiting his still position to reach for the coat rack beside. Though, it seemed too unexpected, a concern had already invaded Dan's mixed thoughts.
"An advise Facade, don't offend Hood more then he could bear. If you really care for your life, that is." Dan blurted out the thing that bothered him for nights, his brown-leathered gloves dusting the slender fabric.
He had been in charge of confidential matters since before Facade's appearance, being the only one who stood shoulder to shoulder with Hood, a man who ruled over the entire Mansion.
Regardless of it being his own will, Dan regretted being his flatterer for nothing, ashamed that he failed to know what his companion truly was.
'Features and expressions never mold a person's true nature, it can be forced, it can be changed'
That was what Dan realized after spending years with the person he called a friend.
But when Facade had joined the system, it rapidly changed the jarring flow between the the two, a complex relation unraveling a word to describe Dan's bond.
"Rivalry is as mighty as friendship"
He was told a cheesy line before, conveyed none other then Facade when he was cornered to answer oblique questioning.
But it being a dialogue never changed the fact 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.
That was when Dan had accepted a mere fellow as one of his true pioneers.
"Oh, I don't care." But unlike Dan, Facade wasn't interested in anything. Being someone's pioneer or not, he turns a blind eye to everything that wasn't his concern.
"Heh. Thought so." Dan expected a dismissive remark, knowing that Facade 'didn't care about a thing' except for his cousin.
It was verily the truth. What spun inside Facade's mind after each rising sun was... rescuing Jebreel.
Facade strongly believed that saving his cousin was what his fate decided for him. After achieving the desired purpose, there was no reason to continue his baseless journey.
Why? He didn't know either. But, he was sure about one thing.
All the love and care he had forged as Jebreel's guardian, won't return the same way as he'd left with him.
Jebreel would hate him even more. Like he had before, and would, forever.
"Man, that's rude to say. Well, if you die, you die because of your stupidity. " Dan complimented Facade's stern answers, fastening his embellished buttons after slipping on the sleeves.
"I just needed to be sure of my cousin's safety. And, I'm not in a hurry. I wanted the operation to begin as soon as possible. That's all." Facade again elaborated his reason to drop a visit, completely ignoring Dan's mocking tone.
"Yes, yes. I heard you alright."
In contrast to Facade's frozen posture, Dan functioned without a 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, halted 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.
Yes, he's again loafing around on purpose.
But he never blamed Dan with words. Rather, he simply shoot a veiled glare, enough to make Dan realize he was busted.
"It's too obvious, Mister Dan." Facade criticized Dan's acting skills, watching him pause all of the sudden.
"I...Tsk...its impossible to trick you alright." 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 he could be, aloof to find Dan as his senior.
"Oh, kind of like that." He shamelessly winked at Facade, not taking in account the deadpan tone he received.
Yet, in fact, Dan was attempting to revive Facade's sunken soul by goofing around intentionally, like he had done in their previous meeting before. It had weirdly became his second nature to rub Facade off his tranquil manner, pressing him to act on his wits for once. But, he was defeated once again.
"Man, you're so stern."
The remark wasn't only from Dan, everybody among the societies perceived Facade as a stubborn one, he who had shaped himself in perfection, as if the Mansion's appendix were his uniform.
While he abided to polite hostility, most of his colleagues were a complete pack of jokers, not deducting a senior known as Dan.
But no one knew the true form hidden inside Facade's core, the one unknown to the world itself. Deep within his rigid words laid a mocking tone, criticizing each and every person in silence.
...
Heh?
What the heck do you mean by stern!? Just tell me if you deployed Jebreel already, you jerk!
Facade inwardly shouted at Dan's baseless responses, however, he didn't let those words slip by.
"Oh, Jebreel? That's your cousin's name?" Dan finally reached for his seat after much dawdling, pulling out a pile of paper from the bottom drawer at last.
"Yes, its Jebreel." Facade mumbled in response.
The bunch that Dan's elegant gloves extracted from the lower compartment was a thick layer of deluxe sheets, several pages slipping out of Dan's grip when he began to go through each bannered name, most of the clutched papers stamped with golden ink.
The same pigmented stamp was used for any other legal documents, consisting of wiggling lines equidistant to one another with each end connected to an average sized spiral, giving it a form of an ancient symbol of a sun.
One of them shimmered on the jumbled document attested under a bold name of an unknown stranger.
'Zick_Wallway'
Age: Unknown
Status: Unknown
Experience: Unknown
Classification: Deceased