Masked Society

A short story I came up with for a contest

Every human hides behind a mask.

Some use this mask to hide their real personalities, fearing they’ll get hated for being themselves. Others just use this mask to lie with a straight face.

It’s very easy to identify a masked human. They are usually calm and collected. They keep their urges held back and follow the common opinion.

However there a few humans who discard their mask. They show their fragile selves to society. Those people usually get labelled crazy, weird, dumb or “special”. Their lives get ruined only because they are different. They dont’t fit into our fake society. The society ruled by mask wearers for mask wearers.

There’s one place where no one wears a mask. A place where people can be who they want to be. A place where everyone is accepted. A place that is so beautiful that it can be addictive. A place where outcasts gather. This wonderful, secretive and magnificent place is known as the outer world.

I too am an inhabitant of this place. A very experienced inhabitant. To discover the beauties of this place I had to keep on taking my mask off for short whiles. Those moments of bliss and freedom kept on getting longer and longer and longer. I can’t even remember when but sometime I found myself without a mask in our society. I forgot how to put it on. I gave up on it. I gave up on the safety.

Once I started living without my mask life was harder for me. No one would stay close to me and sometimes they’d go as far as hit me. I endured it hoping it would get better but it never did. I left the mass, the safe room, and went out into the vast unexplored world. The world I had feared. The world I was taught was a terrible place with terrible people.

And they were right. Talking to the other unmasked humans when I sneaked out was fun but it turns out they didn’t take off their mask. They just lured me into taking off mine. Out here you need a different kind of mask. A mask that makes you seem frail and defenseless so you attract prey.

Ah, this was a wonderful talk. Thanks for listening to me! Aw, don’t look like that, it’s not like I’m going to hurt you. I am going to make your death as painless as possible. I promise! Oh, in case you actually manage to get away you should know that some of us “unmasked” tend to wait a bit before attacking our prey… like the one who took my eye.