When his mask cracks Novels & Stories

Nothing serious. Chris takes my wrist, his grip gentle as he examines it. “You need to stop breaking yourself in every haunted forest.” I snort, a little breathless. “I tripped on a corpse. Not exactly something I trained for.” Chris doesn’t smile. He just brushes his thumb across the side of my hand, as if steadying us both. “That mask… it had to be centuries old. But it looked fresh. Like it was only just left there.” A beat of silence. The flames crackle behind us.

I studied his mask, searching for an indication of what he intended to do. That was when I noticed the crack. A thin fracture had appeared beside the openings where my lips had touched his. It stretched upwards across the black material, almost too hard to notice. Shit. I must have kissed him so hard I had caused a dent on it. Damn mate bond. Hopefully, the crack didn't go further than that. The crack seemed to read my thoughts and decided to be a bitch. It started stretching upwards. "No… no… no." I had gotten into enough troubles for one day.

Who did he have to talk to when the mask he wore started to crack? “I don’t know,” I said, the words feeling strange on my tongue. “I think sometimes, people just need to be heard. Not fixed. Not solved. Just... heard. You know?” He stared at me for a long moment, his expression softening. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think I do.”

I wanted to expose the longing I had buried under a mountain of revenge. The moon hung high, a silent witness to our battle of wills. The mask remained in place, but I could feel the cracks. The ice was melting, and for the first time in two lives, I felt a flicker of hope. A stirring of... love. But as I looked at him, I knew the game was far from over. And in this kingdom of wolves, the game usually ended in blood.

she grumbled. When the patient, nerves already frayed, heard the word "mother" again, he quieted suddenly. He gave a despairing smile and sprinted toward the edge of the roof. The crowd began murmuring again. "How could she mention his mother? She should know that the patient's issues stem from his mother. How could she not know that?" "Shit! He's going to jump—" Then, their voices shifted to gasps of amazement. "Dr. Seville was so brave! Oh, my god!"

He had his sinister mask covering his face, and a wave of dread washed over me. But more than dread, a frustrated emotion tumbled down my belly on seeing him wear his mask back, hiding his face. Did he wear the mask because of the scar? My frustration deepened, and I could almost feel Crystal's growling reverberating through my veins like a raging river. We were both angry at his cowardly attempt to hide his face from being exposed to the public eye when it deserved to be seen.

He caught himself on the counter, knuckles white. “What do you want?” he whispered. “The truth.” He looked at me then and something inside him broke. “I can’t keep this up,” he said softly. “And you know I can’t.” His voice was raw. Honest. Terrifyingly honest. His mask had cracked. Not shattered, just a thin fracture that revealed the truth beneath. An Omega fighting extinction. His gaze flickered to my chest, to my stance then back to my eyes. Fear, Trust and Instinct.

Until I heard a mechanical robot-like voice talk on the walkie talkie and I almost threw it. "Holy shit—" I inhaled sharply. "Hello? Allura, it's me, Mask." He said. "Oh hi." "Can you hear me? Sorry if the audio is jittery, but can you still hear me?" "Y-Yeah sorry, my soul left my body for a second." I replied. "Oh," he chuckled. "Anyway, I can hear you." "Mask, may I ask why are we talking here instead of on your phone? He paused for a brief moment before answering. "I-I just broke my phone."

He always knew what was best for me. Suddenly, the mask that had been my shield for the night just felt suffocating. In a surge of emotion, I tore it off, the elastic snapping sharply against my fingers. I looked at it in my hand; the very thing that had given me the courage to be someone who I wasn’t. I hated it. Without thinking, I crumpled the mask in my cold fingers, feeling a combination of satisfaction and sorrow fill my chest as I felt the lace and plastic break beneath my grip.

Slowly and carefully reading the situation, when I felt like he had loosened his cold attire, I swiftly pulled his mask up, out of his face. BOOM