Chapter 4: Mask
Dan Woo sat tucked away in a nearby corner as he watched cameras set to the brimming light, scripts swim on the tongues of their conduits, and people forge crafted connections for the portrayal of their mannequins.
His eyes were red-rimmed and bulging, his body frame weak, yet nobody seemed to care for the reasons.
He seemed invisible enough.
Second lead syndrome?
He pondered what the skill could be. He, after all, knew the definition of second lead syndrome, but as an ability, what could that do?
He looked towards the edge of his vision, blinking the system window to life, and there it was—the same countdown from before. Yet he still couldn’t interact with the system, but oddly enough, the mask of Lee Woo Je sat there, available to him whenever he wanted.
He looked back to his small notebook of whatever he had learned so far and whatever he could remember from the story.
He had learned a few things.
One, his system needed to devour characters for him to stay alive.
Two, during the Eerie Descend was only when his system was fully functional.
Three, he could only enter his house—"domain"—under the Eerie Domain through the use of a mask.
And four, because of how people were treating him and his character now, the devouring of the character was literal.
Once he devoured a character, it seemed to gain a sort of antimemetic quality where it didn’t exist until the right amount of recognition came towards it, yet that recognition also quickly faded away, or...
He gazed at the unique mask hovering on the screen in front of him.
This was the only way people could recognize the character of Lee Woo Je.
Yet he couldn’t help but hesitate.
His mind turned back to yesterday’s situation.
When he wore the mask, he started having all the memories of Lee Woo Je fill his mind, slowly contaminating his sense of self. With the face of Han Soo Hee, his memories of her began fading as the memories of Baek He Ri filled the void.
He felt himself live an entirely different life, with his own house populating itself with bits and pieces from Lee Woo Je, effectively and systematically wiping away the part that was Dan Woo.
When he noticed this, he realized it was the mask he was wearing.
That’s when he tried to take the mask off, struggling against his own skin. The mask stuck to his face, clinging to it as if it were his own. Only after a physical and mental struggle against the mask did he manage to get it off.
The moment he did, the entirety of his house collapsed into an endless grey fog, with the mask at the center and four doors stretching endlessly into the distance.
As he tried to make sense of the endless expanse of fog and mist, he could hear the soft sounds of whispering, as if carried by the wind. The whispering was unintelligible at first, like the mutterings of a séance or something used in horror films to create an air of mysticism and dread.
Then, echoes started to bounce across the vast space before finally the voice grew loud enough.
"PUT ME ON."
The voice now came from a single direction.
It was coming from the mask right in front of him.
He opened his system to make sure it was okay for him not to put it on. There were no reactions from the system, meaning it theoretically was, but...
He turned to face the mask.
It was now twinkling with a warm, ethereal, almost mesmerizing light. Yet the words grew louder and louder with a sweet, sickening melody. It was a bewitching, tantalizing feeling of attraction that Dan Woo tried with all his might to resist, only for it to grow from a melodic pull into a horrendous cacophony of screeches that drilled through his ears and into his mind.
He felt his body suddenly grow hotter and hotter as his mind became muddled and his thoughts slowed. It was as if he had suddenly come down with an unexplainable sickness.
He wanted to give up under the pain of the torture, yet his fear of losing his sense of self and losing the memories of his one true love kept him going.
He sat in the middle of the mist and tried to meditate. It was said meditation could calm a person and help them regain their bearings, yet the meditation did not help.
His body grew weaker and weaker, his entire body wracked with crippling pain that made him curl into a ball, wishing for all of it to be over.
He was left writhing on the floor until the first rays of dawn came and the curse was released. The mist slowly dispersed along with it.
[Ding Achievement Acq—]
The words were cut off as his cold body was engulfed by the morning light.
He felt his weakened body regain its vitality and the pain slowly subside. He was fully drenched in sweat and extremely tired. He wanted nothing more than to get some sleep, but he had his part to play.
After all, today was the screen test for the drama—to see how the actors and actresses looked on screen portraying their characters and how the chemistry between them felt.
He jumped into his bathroom, got ready, and soon enough headed for the set, only for another shock to meet him.
"Dan oppa, what are you doing here?"
Lee Hyun Ju’s voice snapped Dan Woo from his blank stare at the system window in front of him.
"We still need to fix your issues... I still haven’t gotten a call back from For the People."
Dan Woo just stared blankly at the screen in front of him, still debating whether to wear the mask again.
Was it even worth it?
His fear of the night was still fresh, his body still tired.
Yet he remembered the bizarre anomaly from yesterday. He still wasn’t sure whether he was an Anomaly or an Ascendant, but if he was going to trespass into another Anomaly’s domain, he might as well try to see if he could gain new abilities.
Simultaneously, he could finally come to understand what Second Lead Syndrome truly was.
Meanwhile, as Dan was thinking through all this, Lee Hyun Ju noticed his gaze glued toward a certain direction even though she was trying to get his attention.
He was looking at Baek He Ri.
Lee Hyun Ju couldn’t help but feel tired and exhausted by the man before her. He was the one who had pushed for the divorce, yet he was still deeply in love?
Drunk-calling the woman at midnight, professing his undying love, coming to her set just to stare blankly at her...
She felt it was a miracle the woman hadn’t called the cops on him.
"Oppa, can we—"
Suddenly, a brilliant light blinded her for a second before she suddenly remembered.
"What are you doing here ogling at the female lead? Practice your lines, you weirdo," Lee Hyun Ju suddenly said.
She gazed at Dan Woo for a moment, feeling that something was different about him. It was like there was an inexplicable pull coming from him that didn’t allow her eyes to look away. She couldn’t help but let her gaze linger over him longer than she should have.
"Lee Hyun Ju."
"Yes," she said reflexively, suddenly conscious of the fact that she had been ogling him. Quite ironic, considering she had just been complaining about him staring at the female lead.
"Can you get me the information of the scriptwriter of this drama?"
"The scriptwriter?"
"Yes. I wish to get in touch with my main character, and I will need their opinion."
Lee Hyun Ju was puzzled for a bit.
Had he forgotten about this project’s source?
"Dan Oppa, are you sure you want that? Wouldn’t it be easier for you to contact unnie on your own?"
"Unnie?"
"Yeah. Winter unnie."
"What?!"
Dan was confused.
"My sister is the writer?"