The Contract Saga, BOOK 1: Story of a Mask

CHAPTER 1

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were underneath

Hell, 50 years later

I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, in my bedroom, in my house.

I batted my eyes and yawned loudly. Then I got up from bed and stretched out. Many bones in my back cracked. "Oldness is a very bad thing", I told myself. Then I chuckled.

I walked to my wardrobe and opened it. Inside were many copies of the same outfit: white button-down shirt, black overcoat, black trousers, black patent leather shoes and red tie: the only type of clothing that I appreciated and, at the same time, a memory from my past life. A memory that was becoming too old.

I dressed up methodically, my fingers moving like they had a life of their own. I had done that operation so many times they had become accustomed to it.

After I clothed myself I moved close to the full figure mirror in the room and admired myself from head to toe. At last my eyes stopped on my face, or, to be more precise, on the mask that covered my face: a "Guy Fawkes" mask, the type that many people mistook for the "poker face" mask. It was part of my conviction: until someone discovered who I really was when I was alive I had to wear it and, unfortunately, I could only give small hints of my past in my conversation. Others had to guess. So far no one had success.

I sighed and went out of the room. Immediatly I started to hear a low ticking sound. I was in a corridor with two other doors. One of those, the one nearest to mine, led to my "fellow occupant" and friend's bedroom. I drew near that door but I didn't open it. I simply stayed there and listened. Bit by bit I isolated the rest of the sounds of the house and heard a gentle snoring. "She's still sleeping" I thought.

I turned around and walked toward the other door.

I opened it and walked through it. On the other side was a flight of marble stairs covered in red carpeting. I walked down them and found myself in a big hall. It was decorated with several clocks, all different from each other. There were also many paintings: some were perfect copies of paintings from the world of the living while others were created by artists in hell. Those had a more demonic appearence. They all had the same theme: music and musicians.

I walked through the room without making a sound. I was waiting for something, a sound that I knew well.

I reached the end of the hall. Here was a door, one that was different from the others: it was made of black wood and on it were carved many inscriptions in a strange language that I didn't understand. That door was special because it made it possible to access this particular area of the house, which, apparently, was inside some sort of pocket dimension. I never pretended to understand how this thing worked, but one thing was sure: the demon that I had payed to create the place had done a great job. Sometimes my wallet still cried when I remembered how much I had to pay him. From a pocket in my overcoat I took a key. It was made of what I supposed was bone and had an intricate floreal and mechanical motif. I know, a skeleton key, so cliché. Well, that's Hell for you, the place where the most cliché villains you could think of end up. And sometimes less cliché. 

I inserted the key inside the keyhole of the door and turned it. The lock opened immediatly producing a few, gentle, "clicks".

I went through the door and found myself in the back of a*****e. My store. There were several tables and, on them, were several clocks in different states of construction. Some were completely working while others were just a mass of non assembled gears and, springs and chains. 

I think that it's already clear what my job is here in Hell: I am a clocksmith. 

I walked through the room and reached the door that connected the back to the store. I opened it and walked through out. In that exact moment I heard it: the sound: fireworks. Under the mask I smiled: the annual extermination had just ended.

For an instant I felt a small spark of anger light up in the pit of my stomach. The "Big ones" up in heaven weren't able to find a better way to reduce the problem of overpopulation in hell and now every goddamn year some angels came down in this fire-pit and made a f*****g g******e.

I calmed down. I couldn't let my anger get the upper hand on me.

I went behind the counter and pressed a button. Slowly the shutters in front of the glass window started to come up and let in some light. When the shutters disappeared from my view I searched for the light switch. When I found them I flicked them on. Immedieately light flooded the store: now various stands could be seen and, within them, many clocks, all different from each other and all completely hand-made.

I walked to the entrance door and opened it with another key. Then I went out into the street.

The first thing I noticed was a demon, or, to be more precise, what remained of the body of the dead demon. I walked near it and tried to see if he was one of the inhabitants of my zone. After a moment I realized that he wasn't and drew a breath of relieve. Probably the poor guy had tried to escape from the angels and from a destiny that was already written.

Under the mask, I frowned. The bastards had recently started to take a liking with playing with their victims. One could clearly see that many of the wounds weren't lethal. They had let the poor damned slowly bleed out, probably. I shook my head. If you wanted to keep a bit of your sanity in this place you shouldn't think of this kind of things.

I moved away from the carcass and sighed.

Meanwhile all around me the whole area started to come back to life. Windows were opened and demons started to roam the streets. Some of them were assessing the damages made to their houses. The shutters of many shops started to lift up. Life was going back to normal.

I continued to walk down the street and, after a while, I lifted my gaze from the road. And I saw it: the clocktower, the worst of infernal machines. Some of them called it the "Big Ben" of Pentagram City. You all are probably asking why I, the greatest clocksmith of all hell, hated a clock. Well, because it was a countdown for the next extermination. It was a countdown for all our lives.

In that exact moment the clocktower hit six o'clock and the countdown reset to 365. We all had been given another year to live. Again, like every year, I hoped that something would change.