SUBMIT

08

"Good luck, everyone~"

Long eyelashes shivered as eyelids blinked open, revealing shimmering silver eyes. There was a moan of agony that escaped past their pink lips as they sat up, her long locks of hair pooling around her like a lake of black ink. The shivered, the loose airy clothing she wore was mainly white with small red horizontal stripes decorating the length of her sleeves, and a deep cut that stopped just above her belly button. A marking sat in the center of her sternum, right in between her breasts, and she gently traced over it before lowering her hand on the matted ground as she looked around. There were a few masks littering the ground, some hanging on the walls that surrounded her.

"Where . . . Is this place?" She stood up slowly, shifting towards one of the walls and knocking on it lightly, "Why is there no door? Is anyone here? Father? Kunitake?"

The young woman looked around the room, her head shifting from side to side to see if she could find anything that could help her escape. Eventually, it landed upon one mask that was laying on its face. There was an odd, violet hue coming from inside it, and she was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

She quickly dropped to her knees as she made her way to it, quickly glancing over the design and seeing it as a mask of an old lady. She hovered the mask over her face, her lips pursing together as she could feel suspension churning in her gut.

She released a shaky breath, dropping her head to lay inside the mask.

Her sight changed to see a medium sized dagger stabbed and embedded into a tatami mat. There was a shadow of a woman, her extravagant hair pieces sticking out from her hair as she stood before the dagger. There was an elderly voice, unamused as she scoffed, "Hmph, another trick."

"Who was that?" The woman asked as she looked around the room frantically, eyebrows furrowed behind the curtain of her bangs. She glanced back inside the mask, murmuring, "Is it the mask? Um, can anybody hear me?"

As she placed her face back inside the mask to see that the scene changed. This time, the person whose eyes she was looking through was hidden behind the sliding doors. There was a slight crack for her to look through, and in between that crack, she could still see the dagger in the floor.

Amused chortling could be heard to her left side, and she pulled her face away from the mask to see another mask. It was a smiling Buddha mask, lips wide and split apart into a grin. Like the mask in her hold, it was glowing. It held a warm, subtle orange hue.

Gently, she placed the mask in her hold down to grasp onto the one to her left.

Putting on the chuckling mask, her eyes widened amongst seeing a new location presented before her.

There was a hole in the middle of a hallway floor, dark and deep to the point that she couldn't decipher the depth of it. Around the circular hole, there were markings around it. There were claw marks and erratic scratches, but that wasn't what caught her attention.

It was someone dangling at the edge of the hole, only one hand grasping onto the edge that balanced them from life or death. They, too, wore a mask on their face as the eyes she was looking from held a sharp, broken edged weapon in their hold.

She whimpered, "Someone has to save him!"

The masked person looked up as if hearing her words, revealing a mask that was frowning. His voice was rough and bone-chilling, "I will pull you to death with me if I die!"

The one who held the weapon stabbed the person's hand, and when it came in contact with it, the girl immediately dropped the mask from her hold, holding onto her left hand. She could feel a muted sense of pain throbbing in the middle of her palm.