Masking Reality

Pewds was sure a dear friend to me. Just like Scott, Russ, Red, Snake, and everyone else on the gaming team. We were considered family, almost, although our subscribers may think otherwise. Pewds’ usual smiling composure was an envious trait. I thought that I could not bear to see that little grin of his disappear due to me. In fact…I could not even begin to think that everyone’s smiles would disappear in a flash thanks to my circumstances. How much pain, and guilt I would feel would never come to surface above water and evaporate nicely into thin air. Like salt, almost, salt would never become one with our invisible breaths of life. Perhaps they would harden specifically to choke our throats and deprive us from air. It was an unfortunate truth, really. May this be a reason as to why I had convinced myself to not tell a soul about my personal life. Heh. Not that any of my viewers knew a thing about me in reality. Other than the fact that I may have been a weird kid back in primary school and that I had a few siblings to jump on the bandwagon of having some sort of infliction with Japanese interests and a tumblr blog for a website. Yeah. Outside details were nothing compared to what was hidden underneath. Right? For them to gaze upon my identity became worrisome. With all these fan arts and fan fictions about me, it was hard to believe that the majority of people who knew about me expected dark brownish hair or some sort of thinly kept figure.


And it shouldn’t have been any of my concern. It’s my channel. My decision. I had begin wondering every now and then since when I had become so anxious or nervous to anticipate what everyone would say to me or think of me if I were to show my face. I didn’t want to reveal myself in this case. I didn’t want to be caught. That was my plan from the beginning anyway. Never to show my face. I was forever to be known as Cryaotic. Or Cry for short. As far as the Internet went, anyway.

“What’s this?”

The woman held up a blank mask with two circles for eyes and a straight line that went across at the bottom for a mouth.

“It’s Cryaotic.”

A brow lifted with curiosity as my eyes studied the smug little expression on her face.

“Who’s Cryaoitc?”

I pretended to be oblivious to who she could have meant. Yet another viewer, I could see. It was always entertaining to listen to someone face to face with their thoughts about me. And the whole secretive aspect always made things somewhat more…exciting?

“He’s this guy on YouTube who plays video games and commentates while he plays. He’s really funny and has a very distinctive voice. Makes him some sort of an attractive person.”

A sputtering laugh escaped my lips and I found my hands clutching my sides as an evasive response to restrain myself. The woman looked at me with a baffled expression before coming forth with a composure of suspicion.

“And I’m guessing that’s him? That mask you’re holding?” I asked casually, pointing to that creation in her hands.

She nodded as an affirmative.

“Yes. Cry never shows his real face in his videos so no one knows what he looks like. It’s a mystery, really.”

With whatever impulse urged me to continue with this facade, pursued me to ask more.

“What do you think he looks like?”

She paused quietly as my attentive eyes watched her closely, vaguely eager to hear her answer.

“Brownish-short hair? No, maybe closer to black. Messy and long enough to just cover his eyebrows. Averagely tall, and with a tight build. He said somewhere that his eyes were blue, too...I think. Yeah. Really attractive, I bet.”

The woman’s eyes seemed to shimmer as the image in her head came to life in her mind. Quite frankly, the more I listened to her, the more gradual my irritation grew before me, acting like as if it were a long, darkening shadow, haunting me. Regret painted that bitter taste in my tongue for asking of her opinions, coming to the point where my eyes would feel heavy, drooping, threatening to close. How much more of her words would pain me, I wondered?

It was strange. I couldn’t even determine why they were painful.

“He’s probably some sort of loser who has no life, no education, and no friends; who sits in front of his computer all day long,” I interrupted coldly, a blank fog shielding my dark eyes from the faint glimmers of the sun’s rays. My voice appeared quite off, sounding tainted and obscured in emotionless humor.

The woman again was silenced, as an infliction of bafflement covered her facade. Those pure, piercing green eyes of hers seemed to stand as knives that pointed at my skin, into my flesh. My fingers were itching to rip something apart, the longer she stared.

She laughed hollowly after a pause, those eyes of green turning sad.

“No, I wouldn’t think so. He knows proper grammar, heh. For sure he must be well schooled. He definitely has many friends. He frequently brings them out on his live steams and videos.”

My teeth gnawed at my bottom lip. I had finally restrained myself completely, already taking baby steps behind me to break free from this petty conversation of my own displeasure.

“You want to know why I made this mask?” She asked on a whim.

I stopped pacing to await her answer. It didn’t seem to occur to me that her question would bring such importance.

The woman made her finishing touches to the mask, and brought it up to her face. I couldn’t tell if she were smiling, but her faint chuckle made it apparent.

“To show everyone that it doesn’t matter what you look like. It’s the character behind the face that matters.”

I blinked a few times, not quite understanding what she meant by that. Her head looked to the floor, watching her steps as she rocked to her left and right.

“It’s for a project I’m doing at uni. We’re supposed to find a way to promote people to be more comfortable with themselves and find their inner beauty. I thought that if you had a mask,” and she gestured to her Cryaotic creation, “people wouldn’t be able to judge you instantly by your looks. That way, people won’t feel so self conscious when behind a mask. It’s a precaution. So that there is safety. Hard to explain, really.”

It was a decent effort of explanation and still worthy of credit regardless. I understood her intentions but strangely enough, thought nothing of it. I continued my day, without looking back or having the slightest interest in what that woman had to prove. She had well enough disowned my worth for listening to her long ago, even if her words later on caught one scarce of light from my curiosity. I was convinced that my image as Cryaotic was decided without me, having the characteristics of a human identity, rather than always being represented by my ‘Sup mascot.

They’re all the same, I had confirmed.

Each and every one of them were exact copies.

By the time I had re-entered my room, or working space, rather, I slumped into my chair lazily and stared at the black screen of my computer. Somehow, the energy I had saved up in order to play Corpse Party had vanished completely and I began to mindfully investigate as to why my muse had depleted its entire quantity. Somehow the long awaited story of the little girl in the red dress did not spark an interest in me, and I could predict the malicious behavior that would grow of me if I were to attempt playing the game on my own now.

And so in defeat, I rose from my seat, and consulted myself to the kitchen, a place rare to my presence. A phone number was left hanging on my fridge by a magnet. Staring at it closely brought no significant ease. Only more bitter disputes with my life outside the mask behind.