I recline in my chair, a serpentine smile curling my lips as I snap my fingers. Like obedient disciples, the lights flicker off in perfect sync—a silent ovation to my unspoken command. Darkness, my faithful companion, embraces the room, broken only by slivers of moonlight that dare to trespass through the window. They cast an ethereal glow upon my masterpiece: a board festooned with the faces of the fallen — my personal Wall of Fame.
Their eyes, once bright with misplaced idealism, now stare back at me—lifeless, accusing, defeated. Such delicious irony! These photographs, meticulously arranged, form the sheet music of my magnum opus. Let them glare. Let them silently scream their impotent rage. I am unmoved, my gaze sweeping over my handiwork with the cold calculation of a chess grandmaster savoring his most brilliant gambit.
Fools? No, that's too kind a word. Lemmings, perhaps — mindlessly marching to their doom at my merest suggestion. How pathetically easy it was to manipulate these so-called 'agents', to play them like the strings of a finely-tuned violin. Did they ever pause to question? To doubt? Of course not. Such is the power of blind faith, the intoxication of a noble cause. Little did they know, they were merely instruments in my grand symphony of chaos, and oh, how sweetly they played their parts!
Behold my wall of trophies! Each face a testament to misplaced loyalty, their collective demise a comical sonata to which my ascendancy provides the thunderous crescendo. And the council? Those self-important puppets crumble in real-time, blissfully ignorant of the discord I've sewn. My masterpiece unfolds — an anthem of destruction orchestrated through whispered half-truths and backstage puppeteering. I am more than a mere player in this game; I am its virtuoso, its maestro. My baton doesn't just conduct; it reshapes reality itself.
As for those vaunted directors? Ha! Witness their fall:
The Judge—once so righteous, now a metronome with a broken spring, ticking arhythmically into obscurity.
The Witch—her acid tongue now tied in knots of my making, her caustic syllables forever silenced.
The Eidolon—his ghostly presence exorcised by my machinations, fading like the last notes of a forgotten melody.
The Horizon—her sunny optimism eclipsed, reduced to a pitiable whimper in the face of my rising crescendo.
I pause, allowing myself this moment of sublime satisfaction. My eyes caress the faces of the fallen, each a carefully placed note in my symphony of supremacy. In life, they were pawns; in death, they become my unwilling audience, frozen in eternal appreciation of my unparalleled genius. This is my legacy, my magnum opus. I alone am fit to take center stage.
Just as I'm about to rise from my conductor's chair, basking in the glow of my triumph, a shrill ring pierces the air. My phone dares to interrupt my reverie. I freeze, my hand hovering over the armrest, a frown etching itself deeper into my features. Who would dare disturb me at this unholy hour?
An unbidden shiver crawls up my spine, a primal warning I quickly dismiss. The shadows seem to lengthen, urging me to ignore this intrusion. But I am no coward, no mere player to be cowed by superstition. With a steadiness born of supreme confidence, I reach for the phone, bringing it to my ear like a scepter to my throne.
"Hello?" I answer, my voice a low, controlled whisper — a courtesy I rarely extend.
"Director Sage, or should I call you by your starring role, Mask?" The female voice on the other end carries an unsettling note of authority, but I refuse to be rattled but a bead of sweat already forms on my brow,
I tighten my grip on the phone, willing my voice to remain steady. "Who is this?" I demand, clinging to the illusion of control.
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"Cut! That's not in the script." Her tone is measured, almost playful, and it grates against my nerves. "The curtain's fallen on your little show, Mask. There's no escaping the spotlight now. My leading man is writing your exit scene as we speak."
A flicker of unease creeps up underneath my composure, but I squash it ruthlessly. This must be a bluff, a desperate ploy by some minor player. "Who's your 'leading man'?" I ask, injecting a note of boredom into my voice.
Her amusement is palpable as she continues, "His role — and mine — will be revealed after tomorrow's climactic scene, the one you've so carefully staged to create chaos in the council." She pauses, letting her words sink in. "Your grand finale is approaching, but I'm offering a rewrite. Accept my revisions, and you'll get an extended run. Reject them, and... well, it's curtains for you."
I scoff internally. As if I, the maestro, would bow to another's direction. "Why should I follow your direction?" I challenge, my tone dripping with disdain.
"I've run through this scene countless times," she muses. "I've tried every angle — your origin story, your first love, the day you discovered your power. Nothing worked. You're a challenging character to direct, Mask."
A chill runs through me, but I dismiss it. She's fishing, I tell myself. It's impossible for her to know these things.
"But I've seen every possible cut of this film. And in each version, there's only one thing that truly moves you."
I hold my breath, willing myself to remain unmoved.
"So, here's the final draft of your contract, the one you can't refuse to sign."
And then, she utters a name — my TRUE name. The name I buried so deep, I thought it lost to time itself. The illusion shatters. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin, my heart thundering against my ribs like a trapped animal.
"That's enough," I snap, my voice quavering despite my desperate attempt to sound authoritative. "What do you want from me?"
Her reply is simple, brooking no argument. "Follow my script."
The line goes dead, leaving me staring at the phone. I exhale shakily, my mind reeling. The echo of my true name haunts me, a ghost from a past I thought long buried. How could she possibly know? What other skeletons has she exhumed from the graveyard of my secrets?
My phone vibrates with an incoming message. It's from her — a meticulous set of instructions detailing my every move, with redactions scattered throughout to conceal certain secrets.
It's the very opening lines that truly solidify my new position:
"I gave you no lines, yet you spoke. But since it was our first take, I'll let it slide. Every concern brewing in that head of yours? Already accounted for and resolved before you've fully formed the thought. So when I call 'action' next time, remember your role: I direct, you perform. No ad-libs."
Her words are an irreversible stamp of my newfound place in this twisted production. No longer the conductor, but a mere bit player in the her grand performance.
This jarring epiphany shakes the very foundation of my being. And it's not just the caller who has outmaneuvered me, but the shadowy 'leading man' she mentioned — a looming threat waiting in the wings of tomorrow's scene.
I cast a glance at the board, the faces of fallen agents now a mirror reflecting my own vulnerability. Once, I saw them as extras in my grand production. Now, their lifeless eyes seem to mock me, a silent audience jeering at my downfall. I am no different from them — just another expendable character in a story whose true scope I'm only beginning to grasp.
The full impact of my situation sinks in, and I'm overcome by a wave of nausea. The realization that I've been so thoroughly outplayed, my every move anticipated and countered before I even conceived it, is a blow to my ego that I'm not sure I can recover from.
I set the phone down with trembling hands. The room seems to contract around me, the walls closing in like the jaws of a trap.
Pacing the room, my footsteps echo hollowly in the oppressive silence. Every cell in my being screams in rebellion, urging me to resist, to fight against the path she's laid before me.
But a cold, hard kernel of truth has lodged itself in my gut. It's useless. She holds all the cards.
I sink back into my chair, head cradled in my hands. All that's left is to play my part, to follow her script with the desperate hope that the reward she dangles before me is worth the humiliation I must endure.
It's a gamble, a last-ditch roll of the dice in a game where the odds are insurmountably stacked against me. And yet, I can't help but feel a grudging respect for her brilliance, even as it spells my downfall.
As I sit there, staring into the void of my shattered ego, I find my eyes drawn back to the final line of her message.
"Welcome to the cast of Angel."