Le Masquerade
The Afterlife is describe with many things. Some says it’s beautiful, some says it’s straight up hell. But right now, in this very place — that believed as afterlife, only have… white. Only white color on the surrounding. Two figures then appears.
A woman and a man. The woman steps into the view, her glowing hair flowing gently in the ether, free from the crushing weight of the Oratrice Mecanique D’Analyse Cardinale.
The man, begin to adjusting his bionic left arm and trying to grasps the absence of his electric cigar. After both walking for a while, they met. The woman startled, but quickly straightening her posture. While the man still watch her in silence.
She notices him — to be exact, his signs of battles. Fresh from exhaustion, and the metal lodged in his forehead clearly ressembling of some kind of demon. Not to mention, the eyepatch along with other scars across his face.
With all of this, she conclude the man in front of her is a soldier who have been through various battle and wars. But she clearly doesn’t know why she meet him right now, right after her dead. She then begin to speak, to break this long lasting silence between them.
“My, what an unusual dress code for a quiet realm like this. Tell me, soldier… are you here to stand trial, or are you simply lost?”
The man doesn’t answer yet, he just watch her with his single eye.
“…Just waiting for the dust to settle” The man growls in his low, gravelly voice.
“May i know who’s the brave gentlemen in front of me right now?” The woman smile with politeness.
“Just a Soldier…” The Man answer with a low voice but still clear to be heard.
“Fine… then you may address me as… a God then…” The Woman who call herself as a God show him a different kind of smile.
“Hm… So this is afterlife? Are you going to judge me then?”
“Unfortunately, No. I am… hmm… also dead…”
“So a God can die too huh…”
As they begin to talk, the theatrical front the woman usually wears begins to melt away. She recognizes something in the man’s posture — not the pride of a king, but the exhaustion of an actor who just finished a 500-year performance.
“You carry a mask,” The woman observes quietly, stepping closer. “Not one made of porcelain, but one carved into your very face.”
The man shifts his weight, looking at his red bionic hand. “I wasn’t always who they said I was. I was a medic once. Just a man doing a job. Then they gave me a face, a legend, and a war that wasn’t mine.”
The woman lets out a soft, sympathetic chuckle — one born of deep, agonizing understanding.
“Ah. A stand-in for a god,” she says gently. “How funny. I created a human copy of myself . To act out the role of a flamboyant Leader while I spent five centuries gathering power in total solitude. I made her play a role while I hid in the shadow of my own execution.”
“And your real self?” The Man asks, looking at her directly.
“I destroyed myself so her humanity — and my people — could live,” The woman smiles, though there’s a delicate melancholy to it. “And you?”
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“I took a bullet for him. Killed by his own trained soldier. I also build an army, revenge a vendeta of the past… all so he could build his paradise in secret.” The man then adjust his bionic arm. “In the end, I died as him. But I was never really him.”
There is no anger between them. No bitter resentment toward the masterminds who shaped their destinies — neither The Soldier, nor The Goddess. Only the shared relief that the play is finally over.
The woman sits beside him on the edge of the quiet expanse, watching the silent white horizon.
“Do you regret it?” The woman asks softly. “Being the body double? The scapegoat?”
“No,” The man says slowly. “I believed in the vision, even if the man behind it was a ghost. I did my duty to the end.”
The woman leans her head back, offering him a warm, gentle smile — the kind of genuine smile she was never allowed to show during her long solitary sentence inside the Oratrice.
“Then we are both terrible actors,” she says with lighthearted warmth. “Because we gave our entire lives for roles we didn’t write… and yet, we played them flawlessly to the very last curtain call.”
“Then what about you? Do you regret it? Sacrifice yourself for a double you made yourself?” The man asks with his one eye to the two eyes of the woman.
The woman begin to wonder. She doesn’t have a fond memory of her five century seclusion. But, she saw everything. Everything of her human self do. 500 Years, surely it was a long time for her. Pretending to be the leader of a country in the brink of doomed prophecy. But she also saw it, her happy side, her joy meet her friends, those who hold her dears. That is also one of her reason to sacrifice herself.
“To be honest… it’s actually more like… jealousy. I also want to know how it feels like. To be free. To know people. To… love someone…” The woman doesn’t face the man when she answers that, she only see the endless white horizon in front of her.
Heard this answer, The man went quiet for a long moment. He thinks of the Base he built, of the person he hold dear, of the soldiers who died believing in him, and the commander who used him as his shadow.
“Maybe… me too… i don’t regret taken the duty. But… i also wonder… can i meet them again? For at least… be myself… be free…” The man then reach his shirt and grab his dog tag.
Then suddenly, their bodies begin to shine. After the shine, it became clear that their body begin to fade away. They look their arms and looking at each other then slowly form a smile. Even thought the man smile seems so small.
“I see… it looks like whoever put us in here want us to have a will to live again…” The woman smiles as she saw herself fading away with every particle of her body gone.
“I have reborn once… Let’s hope this is will be a different experience…” The man said with a small smile of relief.
They then look again at each other and give their most sincere smile as they see their body’s particle begin to fly away without leaving any pain.
“Goodbye… Snake… or maybe… Ahab. Let’s hope in another life… we could meet again.”
“Likewise… Focalors…”
With their last goodbye and smiles, they gone. Leaving no trace of them. Two different beings. Both play the as an actor in their masquarade, both have different ending. But at the end… still longing the very same thing.
To Live.
Art by X2one on Pixiv
