Everyone was wearing a mask - even you, though yours was handmade and stuck to the edges of your face with liquid latex unlike the masses around you whose masks had grown over their faces over a period of weeks as the contagion rotted them beneath it.
You'd mimicked them well enough this past month as you "grew" your mask and "broke down" your face to blend in seamlessly. It meant you kept your job, your home and (more importantly) your life. The maskless weren't welcome any more and were seen as lesser somehow.
It sat oddly with you that a walking corpse with a fleshy approximation of a human face thought that those whose skin didn't flake to reveal pus-laced muscle were inferior. No amount of industrial strength perfume could hide the fact that the majority were literally falling to pieces.
The barista that served you your coffee (with a straw that would fit neatly through the mouth-slit of any fleshmask) left a chunk of their cheek in your cup and expected a tip for it. Societal norms changed just as fast as flesh dissolved in the fading warmth of autumn.
When the days became quiet, when the frost of winter put nearly all work to a standstill as the formerly lubricating pus became slush-like in texture and made most movements near impossible for the fleshmasks, then you pondered your own allegedly fake mask.
It was beginning to feel a little too real for your comfort and a little too comfortable to not be real.
Armed with scissors, you made your first incision.
Armed with scissors, you made your last incision.
You'd mimicked them well enough this past month as you "grew" your mask and "broke down" your face to blend in seamlessly. It meant you kept your job, your home and (more importantly) your life. The maskless weren't welcome any more and were seen as lesser somehow.
It sat oddly with you that a walking corpse with a fleshy approximation of a human face thought that those whose skin didn't flake to reveal pus-laced muscle were inferior. No amount of industrial strength perfume could hide the fact that the majority were literally falling to pieces.
The barista that served you your coffee (with a straw that would fit neatly through the mouth-slit of any fleshmask) left a chunk of their cheek in your cup and expected a tip for it. Societal norms changed just as fast as flesh dissolved in the fading warmth of autumn.
When the days became quiet, when the frost of winter put nearly all work to a standstill as the formerly lubricating pus became slush-like in texture and made most movements near impossible for the fleshmasks, then you pondered your own allegedly fake mask.
It was beginning to feel a little too real for your comfort and a little too comfortable to not be real.
Armed with scissors, you made your first incision.
Armed with scissors, you made your last incision.
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