"This is going to hurt, Revan Kaiser," the Recruiter whispered over the stagnant lull of a night breeze passing by.
He looked around in confusion at his surroundings, unsure what she meant. There were no lurking threats he could make out. Just swaying grass which extended to the dark forest on the horizon. After accepting the Recruiter's offering, he stared at the mask in his hands, and it stared back at him. The object was anything but lifeless, the golden swirls dancing with animation. He flipped it in his hand, examining its plain-faced interior. There was no color on its inside, only darkness, the two eye slits serving as looking glasses into the outside world.
"I don't… I'm not sure I'm the right person for this anymore," Revan said, wanting nothing more than to be whisked back to his apartment and wake up in his bed like this was all just one big nightmare. Her voice sounded so serious when she communicated the threat. This is going to hurt, Revan Kaiser.
"It's too late to get cold feet now, darling," she purred, waiting for him to put on the mask. He flashed her a quick look of despair that didn't even begin to express the fear he felt. He wanted to run away as fast and as far as he could, but this land of nightmares was an unfamiliar place to him. He'd be no safer running from this mysterious woman than he was directly by her side. "Time does not exist in this place, so I have all day," she continued, crossing her tattooed arms over her perky breasts. She was mocking him, of that he was sure. Dragging his feet would get him nowhere. Whether he put the mask on now or in an eternity, the horrors awaiting him were going nowhere.
So he lifted the mask, peering through the empty sockets as his hands reluctantly inched closer and closer.
Then, when only a few short centimeters remained between his flesh and the inanimate façade, the mask sprang from his palm and suctioned to his face. There was a snapping sound that resembled a magnet clicking into place against a sheet of metal, or perhaps the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle finding its home. Revan's hands immediately went to remove the mask out of reflex, only to find that its edges were gone—fused with the skin along his jawline, temple, and forehead.
Revan strained in silence for a moment, doubling over as his fingers attempted to find purchase beneath the mask. The Recruiter had warned him of this. She'd said the mask would fuse with his central nervous system, but knowing that ahead of time did little to provide comfort in this moment.
Revan had never been overtly claustrophobic, per se. Sure, he wasn't one to go cave diving for fun, but put him in an elevator, a crowded room, or an economy airline seat and he'd be fine. But this mask was not the same as a small, windowless room. It was a choking, smothering, devouring alien which merged with the fabric of his soul.
As he clawed to free himself of it, tendrils of gold light shimmered against his hands. The swirling patterns he'd seen previously grew in intensity, and though he was unable to see them directly from behind the mask, the light attacked his irises until he could no longer see anything. The mask's eye-slits prevented him from blinking away the pain. His eyelids were pried open as he hyperventilated.
It felt as though several million pins and needles sank into skin from chin to forehead. It burned. It itched. It felt like an army of fire ants marched undisturbed into his eye sockets, his nostrils, his ears, his mouth. He tried to scream but there was no hole in the mask for his air to ventilate, resulting in a pathetic, stifled moan of agony.
The same item meant to anchor his conscience now felt as though it intended on cleaving his soul in two. He fell to his knees as his head grew light. In a final, desperate attempt to undo his fatal mistake, Revan writhed on the ground like a freshly bathed dog trying to reclaim its natural oils. It was an irrational response, but Revan's mind wasn't capable of thinking rationally at the moment.
He could no longer see the surrounding area. All five of his senses were gone. His taste, replaced with asphyxiation. His touch, numb with fear. His hearing, stuffed with an incessant ringing and the violent throb of his heart. His smell, stifled by sweat and salty tears. And his sight, burned away by a golden light which would tolerate his imperfections no more.
He was utterly alone in a world of darkness. Floating inside the same insufferable conscience that had driven him to the brink of suicide. The Recruiter, along with whatever master she served, were not coming to save him. Not because they couldn't, but because a caterpillar must learn to break free of its cocoon without help from the outside world.
The tall blades of grass which previously cushioned Revan's body turned to merciless thorns. They writhed like serpents, tightening around his arms, legs, and torso with a predator's patience. The first prick was shallow, a warning—but the next drove deep, barbs raking through flesh with a wet, tearing sound. His clothes offered no protection; fabric shredded like parchment, barbs digging until he felt them scrape bone.
Then came the poison.
It was cold at first, trickling into his veins like a winter draft creeping under a door. But the chill did not stay gentle—it bloomed into something jagged, black fire racing up his limbs, spreading through his chest, coiling around his heart. His pulse slowed, each beat dragging sludge through his arteries. His muscles seized, spasming against the thorns that now felt alive, burrowing deeper every time he struggled.
Somewhere in the abyss, the Recruiter's voice returned—not warm, not sympathetic, but patient, like a tutor watching a student fail a lesson.
"Nether poison," she said, her tone silk over steel. "It does not kill the body. It rots the soul. It will take from you what you clutch too tightly, Revan Kaiser. Memories. Willpower. Hope."
He tried to speak, to curse her, to demand she free him, but all that came out was a strangled rasp as more thorns coiled around his throat. Black veins spidered beneath his skin, radiating from every puncture, glowing faintly in the absence of light. His blood felt wrong—heavier, sluggish, as if it had been replaced with molten tar.
"This is where most break," she whispered. "Not because the pain is too much, but because they forget who they are inside it. Do you understand? The poison doesn't want your death—it wants your surrender."
The words clawed at him almost as viciously as the thorns. His body convulsed, heat and cold warring inside him, poison gnawing at his sanity. His lungs burned for air that would not come. And through the agony, a single truth pressed in: the only way out was through.