Faceless

The air was still when I opened my eyes. My body felt light, like a shadow walking on borrowed ground. 

I sat up, the cold stone beneath me grounding me back into this world. No voice came from my lips, there never was one unless I called it.

I stood slowly. The wooden floor creaked beneath my steps as I moved across the room. 

There was a mirror leaning against the far wall. Its edges were chipped, but the reflection inside remained clean. Almost too clean.

I paused.

A girl stared back at me.

She had long blonde hair, tangled at the ends, but soft, like it had once been taken care of. Her body moved when I moved, but her face… it wasn't there.

Just skin. Smooth and blank. Not even a mouth to whisper with. Not even eyes to cry from.

I lifted my hand, slowly, almost gently, and touched the hollow space where my features should have been. My fingers trembled, not from fear, not anymore, but from something older. A memory I couldn't place. A feeling I had no name for.

Then, calmly, I picked up my mask.

Yellow. Shaped like a fox.

I slid it over my faceless head, and breathed in.

Alive again.

I pushed open the door and stepped outside. The world greeted me with noise. A living village of Faceless, carved into the cliffs and hills, pulsing like a heart. 

Houses made of rock and bone, roofs of green canvas and cracked wood. People moved like clockwork, silent bodies with painted masks. Foxes like me, wolves like him.

Someone bumped into me.

"Liora?"

I turned.

It was Sir Rehan, the leader of our village. Towering, cloaked in black, his black wolf mask sharp and cold like the edge of a cliff.

I nodded. "Sir Rehan, good morning. Is there anything you need?"

My neck shimmered green. That was how my voice came. Borrowed through my Neba, like everything else in this life.

He stared me down for a moment. "It's time. New Whispers are here."

I stepped back without realizing it. "Isn't this too soon? I thought—"

"Yes it's too soon, and there are too many of them this time. You said you wanted to join the hunt, didn't you?" His voice was calm but hard. 

"This is your only opportunity. And a chance to prove yourself. Your knowledge will help us track as many of them as possible."

My fingers curled slightly.

I looked down, then nodded. "…I'll come."

We walked together.

Around us, the village breathed. Black cloaks brushed against stone. Fox masks watched from rooftops. Children wore masks too, smaller ones, some cracked, some whole. 

No one here had a face. Only stories. Only names that might not even be real.

I looked at them all. I wondered if anyone even remembered what it felt like, to smile, to blink, to feel rain on their cheekbones. To laugh without needing a glowing neba throat to do it.

It's said we all once had faces. That they were taken from us. Stolen by those called whispers. Or who knows, maybe we gave them up. 

No one remembers the truth anymore. All we know is that we must live. And to live, we must survive, kill, and endure.

Because our Lady Alisye said…. Someday, we'll be free. Someday, we'll return to who we were.

And when that day comes… we won't need masks. We'll be whole.

My thoughts faded when Rehan's voice broke through.

"Are you hesitant, Liora?"

I turned my head slightly toward him.

He continued. "We are not doing anything wrong. This world is a harsh place, and to survive, we must make harsh choices. We are the protectors of our paradise. Devil Whispers to take it from us. To twist this haven into hell. But as long as we remember why we exist… we will keep moving forward."

I didn't answer.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe the purpose isn't to remember who we were, but to create something new. Something beyond faces. Beyond names. To become what we were always meant to be.

When we reached the end of the path, the others were waiting.

A sea of masks. Foxes and wolves. All of them ready. All of them silent.

Rehan stepped forward, speaking with a man whose wolf mask was painted blue. He looked younger, but the light in his hands shimmered with control.

"Nevron, How is it going?" Rehan asked.

The blue-masked man Nevron responded, "Sir Rehan… it's a big one. Thousands of Whispers have entered the Trial of Truth. For some reason, most of them didn't teleport close to the chaos tree but here, in the safe zone." 

"This is a rare opportunity to gain their neba hearts. We need to move quickly."

Rehan nodded.

Without a word, he formed his scythe in hand. A long, black crescent made of silence and certainty.

"Then let's not waste any more time."

The forest in the distance looked darker than usual, as if it had been waiting for us.

I followed.

And with every step, I wondered…

If I survive this hunt. Will I be closer to remembering who I was?

Or will I just lose what little of myself is left?

.

.

.

I lay on the ground.

The grass was cold against my back, the ocean sky above painted in soft blues. My fingers twitched beside me, numb, shaking. 

I couldn't breathe for a moment. My chest rose slowly, like my body wasn't sure if it should still be here.

I saw them for the first time.

A boy.

He was staring at me.

A real face, just… looking at mine. Or at my mask. I didn't know. But in that moment, I forgot how to think. 

His face, it was, alive. Not just skin and bone. It moved. Eyebrows arched in confusion. Lips parted, then pressed together. His nose twitched with breath. And his eyes, gods, those eyes, they shimmered like light trapped inside water. They spoke. His whole face spoke.

And I couldn't move at all.

My hand reached up on its own. It trembled, slowly curling into my chest, aching with something I had no name for. 

I had never seen something so painfully beautiful. It wasn't just that he had a face, it was that every small movement on it carried meaning. A story. A life.

I would do anything to see something like that on my own.

He opened his mouth. He said something. I couldn't hear it, my pulse was too loud, the wind too harsh, but I saw the way his lips moved. The way his expression shifted. First in wonder, then confusion, and then… He fell.

Rehan's hand had struck fast. Boy's body hit the ground beside me like a dropped memory.

Rehan stepped forward. His shadow stretched across me like a wall. I looked up, and he looked down.

"What are you doing… Liora?" he asked. "You want to disappear so soon?"

No.

No, I didn't.

But this was my first time seeing a Whisper. I didn't know what to do. I didn't expect them to be so… real. 

I thought they'd be like us. Silent, masked, hollow. But they weren't. They were so unique. I watched them fight, yes, but what left me paralyzed wasn't their strength.

It was their expressions. The life bleeding out of every look.

How could someone kill this?

How could I?

How could I erase something so full, just to bring myself back?

I felt sadness first. And then anger. Deep, black anger. 

How cruel… Who stole this beauty from me? Who took my face, my voice, my self? Why was I forced to forget what it meant to be alive?

Why is it fair that I must kill to remember?

Rehan didn't wait for my answer. He and the others quickly caught the other Whisper. A boy with brown hair and soft but furious eyes. He struggled, but Rehan was stronger.

They were both tied, then locked inside a cage of thick bone and stonewood. We dragged it behind us as we walked back to the village.

But I couldn't look away.

I kept staring at them, at their faces.

They had bruises now, cuts along their cheeks and temples, dirt along their skin, but even then, their faces were still beautiful. Still whole. Still… human.

I wasn't the only one staring.

The hunter with the blue wolf mask Nevron walked beside me. I didn't know much about him. He had a calm way of walking, like the world never really rushed him.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" he said softly. "Even after this many hunts… I still can't get used to it."

He turned his masked head slightly toward me.

"Their faces. They're all different. Different colors, shapes, scars. Some fierce, some calm. All of them beautiful in their own ways. It's…" 

He sighed. "It makes me want to keep going. Just to see a sight like that one day, on my own reflection."

I said nothing.

Because I didn't know how to tell him that I wasn't so sure anymore.

Was this fair?

We never even tried to speak to them. Never asked who they were. Why they came. Why they crossed the borders of our world.

Were they really devils?

Or just like us, desperate and lost?

Is it truly right to take someone else's life… just to win ours back?

The forest passed by in silence. The village waited ahead, but I kept walking with my questions trailing behind me like a second shadow.

Maybe I didn't have answers yet.

But I knew one thing. The whispers i saw, were the first I had ever seen. And now, their faces were burned into my memory.

Not as an enemy.

But as a reminder.

That I, too, once lived like that.

And I want to remember what that felt like again.