Shattered mask

The dim light inside the infirmary flickered.... not with rhythm, not with reason.... but with something else.... something almost alive. It cast long shadows across the stone walls, stretching and warping like the limbs of something reaching out from the dark.... watching.... waiting.

Riven sat on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees, hands slack. The bandages on his arms were tinged with rust-colored red.... the kind that dried slowly and clung like memory. His legs still ached.... especially the one the Dreadspawn had pierced. Every throb reminded him of what he'd survived.... of what he'd killed.

But he wasn't thinking about pain.

He was thinking about the Mask.

It lay on the metal table beside him.... untouched.... yet not forgotten. Its dark surface drank the light instead of reflecting it.... as if even illumination feared what it might reveal.

"Why am I here?"

The doctor didn't answer right away.

He stood near a shelf, back turned, his gloved fingers arranging vials with quiet precision.... like each movement had been practiced a hundred times. Riven waited. And the silence stretched.

"You're healing," the doctor said at last, voice calm.... distant.... like the words belonged to someone else.

Riven's brow furrowed.

"That's not what I meant...." he said, his tone quiet, but edged. "Why here? Why this place? Why not one of the other strongholds?"

The doctor froze for a moment.... then turned slowly.

"You're different, Riven," he said softly.... but the weight behind those words was a boulder.... heavy.... ancient. "We couldn't send you away. Not after what we saw. Not after what your Mask did."

Riven didn't look at him. He stared at the mask instead.... its void-like surface pulsing with something unseen.... like it was breathing just beneath the material.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

The doctor walked over.... picked up the mask with careful hands.... reverent.... cautious. Not like a man lifting a tool.... but a relic.... or a curse.

"Do you know how most people get their Masks?" the doctor asked.

Riven shook his head slowly.... his eyes never leaving the Abyssal Mirror.

"They're chosen," the doctor said. "Not made.... not earned. Chosen. The mask finds the wearer. Appears before them when they are ready.... or when they are broken enough to receive it."

Riven's heart beat a little louder in his chest.... but he didn't speak.

"It's like the old tales," the doctor went on. "Like the Visions in far-off lands.... or the Brand of those who've seen too much. Once a Mask chooses you.... you can't escape it. Throw it away.... it returns. Burn it.... it heals. Bury it.... it rises. You can't outrun it. It owns a piece of you."

He held the mask up to the flickering light.... and for a moment.... Riven saw himself.

But not truly.

Not his face.

The reflection was wrong. His features were twisted.... hollow.... smeared with blood and shadow.... eyes pale like winter moons.... mouth curled into a mockery of his own.

He blinked.

And it was gone.

"I didn't choose this," Riven said softly.

"And neither did the mask," the doctor said. "But it exists now. And it's bound to you in a way we don't understand.That's why you're here. Because you weren't chosen.... you were forged."

The words fell heavy.... like chains.

Forged.... not called.

Created.... not summoned.

The Abyssal Mirror had not found him.

It had been born from him.

And in that moment.... Riven understood.

There was no escape.

No rejection.

No breaking free.

Even if he hurled it into a chasm.... even if he left it behind.... it would find him again. Crawl through ash and blood and time to return to him.... because it belonged to him.... and he to it.

He looked away.... but not before he saw the words flash at the edge of his vision.... letters etched not in light.... but something deeper.... like whispers carved into the air itself.

The Mask – "Unbound Class"

Name: Abyssal Mirror

Abilities:

Devourer's Pact

Echo Vision

Shadowform (Locked)

And then it was gone.

Like it had never been there.... like it had only spoken because he needed to know.... because it wanted to be known.

Riven closed his eyes.... breathed in the cold, sterile air.... and exhale

d slowly.

He hadn't been chosen.

He had been marked....

And his story was no longer his alone.