The Mask Cult Moves

Here's a five-step plan to make every therapist within a fifty-mile radius scream:

Step one. Get invited to a midnight forest ritual hosted by a group that refers to themselves as a "cult" without irony.

Step two. Decide, for reasons unknown to man, magic, or morality, that attending sounds like a character development opportunity.

Step three. Bring your maybe-fiancée, because nothing says healthy relationships like dragging someone into your glitch-induced spiral.

Step four. Ignore the talking Spoon when it starts muttering phrases like "death omen," "cursed trees," and "Kael, no."

Step five. Discover that your cultic counterpart has the fashion sense of a shadow deity and the attitude of a final boss cutscene.

It began, as most of my questionable life choices did, with breakfast.

"I hate this monastery," I said, staring at the note that had appeared without explanation on my spoon.

"That's shadowpaper," Spoon muttered. "You know what that means."

"That I've been cursed with aesthetically aggressive stalkers?"

Spoon buzzed ominously. "It means they're watching you. They folded it into your cutlery. That's personal."

The note, written in calligraphy so precise it gave me dysmorphia, read:

Come to the Hollowwood tonight. Bring no mask. Come as you are.

– The Cult of the Masked Echo

"Absolutely not," Spoon said immediately.

"So obviously we're going."

"Kael. No."

"Kael. Yes."

Because here's the thing:

If they had answers—about the monks whispering my name into prayer bowls, about why I kept glitching through my own reflections, about what Spoon was mutating into whenever I looked away—then I had to go.

And also, I have no survival instinct.

I didn't even sneak out that night.

Because I'm subtle like a kicked harp.

I left the dormitory through the front door. Boots, cloak, existential dread. Mirielle intercepted me halfway down the east stairwell, dressed in a silk robe and a stare sharp enough to draw blood.

"You're going somewhere culty," she said.

"How did you—?"

"You have that look. The one you wore before spoon-dueling a Duke's son and making out with your own reflection."

"That was spiritual experimentation."

She pulled on boots. "I'm coming."

"You don't even know where I'm—"

"Is it spooky?"

"Yes."

"Dangerous?"

"Almost definitely."

"Then obviously I'm coming."

And that's how I ended up dragging my almost-fiancée into a haunted forest at midnight while accompanied by a psychic Spoon with a sarcasm addiction.

The Hollowwood was not a forest. It was a mood.

Trees curled inward like bones around a collapsed cathedral. Moonlight refused to enter. Everything smelled like wet secrets and regret. The ground squelched with every step, as if we were walking on the discarded memories of people who'd made worse choices than me—which, impressively, is statistically rare.

"This place is breathing," Mirielle whispered.

"That's because the soil is alive," Spoon said helpfully. "With guilt."

"Lovely," I muttered.

A fungal glow flickered between roots like bioluminescent shame.

We reached the clearing.

And they were waiting.

The Masked Echo Cult stood in a ring around a pool of ink-black water that reflected nothing. Their masks were nightmares made physical: jagged smiles, hollow eyes, one mask made entirely of singing moths (I had questions). Twelve figures. Twelve stares.

And at the center of the circle—

A boy. No, a being.

He wore a mask cracked down the middle. His hair floated like static. The air rippled around him like a reality with a software update pending. The System shimmered around him.

An Echo Candidate. Like me.

He looked at me.

"Kael," he said, with certainty.

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"Not yet. But we share the same grave."

Oh good. Cryptic poetic cult boys. My favorite flavor of trauma.

He stepped forward. The others didn't move.

"I'm Keryn," he said. "Echo Candidate. Other monastery. The one they don't mention."

"There's another monastery?"

"There was."

He raised his hand. The ground behind him cracked, revealing roots shaped like ribs. The pool rippled with glitchlight. The forest twitched.

"The prophecy was broken," he said. "We are both shards. Only one can remain."

"Cool. Sounds like a system error. Let's talk it out like emotionally damaged young men."

He smiled. The cracked mask bent wider.

"You're not ready for this."

"Ready for what?"

His voice dropped. "To lose."

Then he threw a firebolt the size of my fear of intimacy directly at my face.

Spoon screamed.

Mirielle shouted.

I raised a shield instinctively—and still got knocked back into a log with the force of a bad breakup.

The clearing exploded into fire.

Cultists didn't flinch. Masks shimmered in the blaze. Keryn stood in the center like a glitch-born messiah, arms wide, chaos bending around him like he owned it.

"One vessel must break!" he shouted.

"Can it be the metaphorical kind?!" I yelled.

"Too late!"

He launched again. This time I met his spell with my own. Magic flared. The forest screamed. Reflections twisted in the flames, showing a hundred versions of myself—dead, dying, corrupted, dancing.

We stood toe-to-toe, vessel versus vessel, glitch against glitch.

"I won't break," I said.

Keryn tilted his head. "You already have."

He vanished. The fire went out like someone flipped the universe's light switch.

Later, back at the monastery—burnt, bruised, spiritually eviscerated—I sat outside the Reflection Chapel.

Mirielle sat beside me. Quiet. Solid.

"I hate Echo politics," I muttered.

"You are Echo politics," she replied.

"Unsubscribe."

She leaned her head on my shoulder.

"You're not alone."

And for once, I didn't flinch.

Next Time on Yes, I Was Reborn. No, I Don't Want a Harem. Stop Looking at Me Like That:

Chapter 57 – "Moonlight Ball Begins"

It's time for romance, revenge, and identity theft! Kael is forced to attend a masquerade. All his fiancées show up in masks. One is wearing his. Accidental proposals, dancefloor betrayals, and someone gets magically engaged by mistake. (It's him. It's always him.)