(For you Red Markets folks, sorry, this isn't. It's a little thing I had to do for my friend's Mutants and Masterminds game to justify some power alterations. I just thought I'd throw it up here anyways.)
He sat in the conference room, listening quietly, sometimes talking. Small sentences, short replies. He did that when he was afraid.
Why was he afraid? He couldn't say. The lady across the table from him - a doctor, some kind of shrink, he hadn't really paid attention - was asking questions. They were intrusive, but he understood intellectually. They were being careful. They had to be careful. Max had made that emphatically clear not so very long ago.
"You're probably the most dangerous one here."
If he had been inclined, he could have laughed ironically. Here they were, scared of him, when he was scared himself. Hell, he'd named himself after a Greek god of dreams, nightmare in waking flesh. He scared himself sometimes. But scared of what?
He felt the racing of his heart, tried not to let the fear show. His vision contracted a little, started to go dark. He hadn't done that since before his powers showed up, before that silver mist and the scar on his chest splitting open again. He heard a noise, THE noise. A quiet buzzing. But it grew louder, and threatened to overpower his ears as he tried to hear, drown out his voice as he tried to speak. He tried to force his eyes open, but the darkness grew. And then he heard the word, and he heard nothing.
[OFFICE CAM 1 - 13:35 PST. User (PHANTASM) is talking loudly. He appears not to respond as the doctor rises. User (PHANTASM) begins shaking in his chair. User (PHANTASM) begins convulsing. Building Protocols activated: ALERT User (MARS, MAXIMILIAN) Begin Deep Monitor: User (PHANTASM).]
He was there again. He felt cold on his back. The stone under him like ice in the warm air. The smell of the candles. The sharp feel of the knife as it pierced the thin layer of fatty tissue over his breastbone. And there, sitting on his chest, seemingly unseen by the men around him, was Billy, grinning like a fiend.
He'd been here before, seen this vision before. He knew what Billy was going to say before he said it.
"You know, I could save you, right?"
He knew. He had. All he had to do was say yes. But this time was different. He heard a voice, a woman's voice. He tried to focus. What was it saying?
The grin left Billy's face. The knife kept moving. Billy looked around. He tried to look too, but he was frozen, looking at Billy. At the hand of the man who was carving his chest open. He always woke up before this. Sometimes he screamed, when he wasn't careful. Careful. Had to be careful.
"You know, that's awful annoying. I don't think I want her talking to you. I think it's time WE talked."
He blinked. And suddenly he was standing, in a featureless mirrored plain, looking at Billy. Billy wasn't smiling anymore. The teeth were showing, but it wasn't anything pleasant. They looked like the teeth of an animal.
He looked down, at his chest. Inky darkness poured from the hole over his breastbone, studded with bits of white light. He saw his face reflected from the mirrored ground. His mask was on. When did he put his mask on? He never had his mask on. Where was he?
The woman's voice was louder. He could almost make out the words. He tried to hear.
"Look, I SAVED you! *I* saved you! She didn't save you! She can't save you! I did for you! Now you do for me! Like you promised!"
What promise?
Billy reached for his chest. He wasn't able to move. He tried to move as he saw Billy's hand sink INTO his chest. It came out, the fingers scooped, holding a handful of inky spotted darkness, strings of it pulling from his fingers back into his chest.
"This is mine! You promised! I did for you and you promised! I want it NOW!"
And then he knew. Remembered, finally, the promise that he made before he woke up, alone and shaking in the woods. He never went back to see what happened to that place where they lured him to die. He was afraid of what he'd see. He never remembered. He never LET himself remember. But now, with Billy and the woman both yelling at him...
...he remembered.
And he felt free. His voice, HIS voice, rang clear as he could finally speak the truth of the thing that he couldn't remember, that Billy wouldn't LET him remember.
"You didn't save me, Billy. I saved myself."
He knew what to do. He reached up, slowly grabbed the mask. He pulled. The shadow that was the mask came free. He felt the skin come free with it, the face he showed the world, the face he gave to the world since that day Bi....HE saved himself.
The Billy- thing? man? shape? The moment when he took off the mask took away the illusion, but left an indistinct form in smoke, still trailing the bits of himself, PULLED from himself, the magic that saved him, trailing from his body to the - whatever.
"No! No, you can't! I won't let you! It's mine, you hear me? Mine! I WILL HAVE IT! YOU WON'T CHEAT ME -"
It screamed as he slammed the mask over his scar. The shadow that was his face melted into his chest. And he woke.
