A Year of Stories (Collection Three)

The Blanched Mask

"I'm so glad that you've survived!"

"Do I know you?"

"No, I don't imagine you do Emory."

"How do you know my name?"

"We don't get many visitors, fewer still who make it as long as you have. I felt it only...proper to give you the benefit of a name."

"I don't understand."

"Nor should you try, instead rest a while, and allow me to give you a tour."

"Where am I?"

"A question I can't answer, not fully at least, no one can. For now, lets just say that I am the Caretaker, you are my guest, and this place you have found your way to by miracle or might – is called the Blanched Mask."

"How did I get here? I don't remember where I...where I was.."

"Calm, Emory. You are on The Hunt, it is only right that things you once knew, you now unknow. I suspect that there will be much more unknowledge in your future, before your journey ends."

"Why is this happening to me?"

"What is happening to you Emory, and why do you think I'd know 'why?'"

"Do you?"

"Of course I do, but I don't know why you would think that!"

"Please, just tell me...I'm so confused, so tired..."

"No, I don't think I will."

"Then I have to go..."

"Emory, please don't that do that. I fear that if I let you go in your current state, you may never see anything ever again, save perhaps for Void and Dragons."

"Dragons?"

"It's not important, and not what you think. How about this Emory, how about you and I make a deal?"

"I don't know...I think I should just leave."

"And I think that you shouldn't, and considering you look like something scraped out of a train wreck, perhaps my opinion should take precedence."

"Fine, OK, what's your deal?"

"You rest here, I show you my masks, you take one of them off of my hands, and I let you leave here the better for it."

"And what's the catch?"

"You have to listen to me talk."