"MASK OF EIDOLON" - Redwood Bureau Phenomenon #0774

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Redwood Bureau – "MASK OF EIDOLON" (Phenomenon #0774)

Date: October 11, 2025
Host: Eeriecast Network, featuring Josh Tomar as Agent Conroy
Main Theme:
This episode investigates the disturbing phenomenon known as Mask of Eidolon, centering on a mysterious, seemingly mundane mask found at a thrift shop, and its catastrophic effects on those who possess and wear it. Through leaked Bureau reports and chilling firsthand narration, Agent Conroy exposes the perilous nature of "catalyst items" — supernatural objects that hide in plain sight and enact horrific changes on their keepers, exploring the fracturing of identity and the grim legacy of ancient rituals buried within society.

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Key Points & Insights

1. Secrets of the Redwood Bureau and "Catalyst Items"

[02:51–06:26]

• Agent Conroy sets the stage:
  The most dangerous supernatural anomalies aren’t always living creatures, but everyday objects—catalyst items—that insidiously alter people’s minds and fates.
  • “But the things that sit quietly and wait. The objects that don’t move unless you bring them into your life? Those are the ones that take everything.” – Agent Conroy [03:10]
• Examples provided:
  • A music box driving homicidal obsession, a typewriter predicting deaths, a mirror swapping identities.
• Objects’ common traits:
  • Never age, resist fingerprints, “feel wrong” to the touch, always return to owners, and create subtle psychological hooks.
  • “Once they’re yours, they find a way to stay. No matter how far you throw them, how deep you bury them, they always find a way back.” – Agent Conroy [05:40]
• The current report details strange, linked disappearances traced to a mask.

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2. Discovery of the Mask: Mundane to Malevolent

[06:26–16:11]

• Narrative switches to mask-wearer’s point of view:
  • Finds an unsettlingly realistic face-like mask at a thrift store; tactile details unsettle—texture, coolness, homemade stitching.
  • Low price, no provenance, an “off” presence.
• At home: First trial run brings a rush of adrenaline, unease, and a physical sting upon removing it.
• “It went on like it had been made for me … The offness made my skin rush with heat as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.” – Mask wearer [09:22]
• At a backyard Halloween party:
  • The mask grants confidence, charisma, alters behavior.
  • Social friction escalates, including a mean exchange with Maddie (girlfriend), and a physical altercation.
  • Wearing the mask, the protagonist feels liberated—less empathy, more gratification in negative attention.
• “It’s hard to tell the truth about why you do it when the face on your face is easier to carry than the one you were born with.” – Mask wearer [16:05]

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3. Loss of Identity and Irresistible Assimilation

[16:13–30:29]

• Morning after: Mask is fused tightly to the wearer’s face. Attempts to remove it only cause pain, revealing raw flesh underneath.
• Personality shifts: Empathy, regret absent. The protagonist is now compelled by cold confidence, detachment.
  • “The part of me that would have texted my brother … had been folded quietly and put away for later.” – Mask wearer [19:31]
• Maddie confronts him, horrified. He admits, “I can’t [take it off].” [28:46]
• His response to her pleading is clinical; he likes his new self more than the one she loved.
  • “I like who I am with it.” – Mask wearer [29:31]
• Increasing violence and indifference follow—he intimidates strangers, “feels nothing,” and even self-harms trying to remove the mask, unable to distinguish where it ends and his flesh begins.

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4. Metamorphosis and Monstrosity: The Mask Assimilates Its Victim

[36:15–59:36]

• Narrative shifts to Maddie:
  Despair at losing her partner to the mask. Strained contacts, missed routines, his absence compounds worry. Eventually, she finds him at his apartment, is attacked and awakens bound in a decrepit barn.
• The mask-wearer appears, now with faces surgically grafted to his torso like a patchwork:
  • “They were faces, whole faces, cut and peeled from people, pressed flat and sewn into his skin like a quilt.” – Maddie [43:18]
• Maddie, forced to watch, witnesses him methodically skinning a woman alive and grafting her face onto himself. The process is described in chilling, forensic detail.
  • “You should see it up close.” – Mask wearer [48:23]
  • “The edges are the most important.” – Mask wearer [52:50]
• His composure is methodical, almost tender, seemingly transformed into both craftsman and predator.
• “You loved me when I was small. I wish you could be here to see what I’ll accomplish.” – Mask wearer [56:16]
• He approaches Maddie as his next victim:
  • “You always wanted the real me.” – Mask wearer [58:56]
  • “Hold still … We don’t want to ruin your perfect face.” – Mask wearer [59:25, 59:32]
• The episode climaxes with the mask-wearer preparing to remove Maddie’s face as she succumbs to pain and darkness.

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5. Bureau Analysis and Broader Pattern: The Faces of Eidolon

[61:30–65:39]

• Agent Conroy concludes with a Bureau report:
  • The phenomenon is classified as “Identity-Level Assimilation,” a rewrite of personality, not just body or mind.
  • There is an ancient precedent—Bronze Age cults that believed in achieving divinity by wearing the skin and likeness of others; worship was imitation and becoming the idol.
  • The Bureau suspects these artifacts create a fragmentary, collective consciousness, with each wearer assimilated and erased.
  • The mask is no isolated case; similar objects have appeared across continents and centuries, always leading to obsession, assimilation, and disappearance.
    • “Each mask made, each face taken, becomes part of it. A growing consciousness rebuilding itself through its fragments.” – Agent Conroy [63:20]
    • “The Bureau’s response has been predictable … you can’t own a demigod older than mankind. The moment you allow it to take root, you become it.” – Agent Conroy [64:26]
  • The cycle continues: new disappearances and attacks signal the phenomenon has not been contained.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Agent Conroy’s chilling warning on objects:
  • “Things that sit quietly and wait. The objects that don’t move unless you bring them into your life? Those are the ones that take everything.” [03:10]
• On the mask’s assimilation:
  • “I pressed my fingertip to the borderline and it didn’t give. Like rubber, it yielded like skin that belonged there.” – Mask wearer [17:55]
• Maddie’s plea:
  • “Please, please take it off. I hate this.” – Maddie [28:42]
• The mechanics of horror:
  • “He simply drew the knife along her hairline in one smooth, practiced motion. The sound was quiet and loud in the most horrifying way, a soft, sticky tear.” – Maddie [49:30]
• Legacy of the mask:
  • “Each mask made, each face taken, becomes part of it. A growing consciousness rebuilding itself through its fragments.” – Agent Conroy [63:20]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:51 — Agent Conroy on misleading dangers and catalyst objects
• 06:26 — Mask discovery and initial impressions
• 13:13 — The mask’s psychological pull at the Halloween party
• 16:13 — First signs of identity erosion
• 28:42–30:23 — Maddie's confrontation, emotional rejections
• 36:15–37:00 — Maddie’s perspective; searching, finding the transformed partner
• 43:18–56:23 — Horror in the barn; the stitched-together victim, surgical grafting
• 61:30 — Agent Conroy's analysis of the phenomenon and its deep historical roots

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Tone & Language

• The episode maintains an ominous, clinical, and haunting narrative voice, rooted in first-person confessions, procedural analysis, and visceral, sensory horror.
• The dialogue balances detached reporting (Agent Conroy) with fractured, unreliable narration (mask-wearer), and raw, emotional distress (Maddie).

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Final Reflection

"Mask of Eidolon" embodies the signature Redwood Bureau formula: ordinary encounters transformed into existential and corporeal horror. The mask is less an object than a force of predatory assimilation. The episode exposes not only the supernatural mechanics of such artifacts but also the human vulnerabilities—loneliness, social anxiety, the desperate need to be seen—that allow them to take hold. Agent Conroy warns that institutional containment may be as dangerous as ignorance; the mask’s legend is ongoing, a cyclical, collective nightmare that recurs wherever people need a new face.

Redwood Bureau continues to be a gripping exploration of modern folklore, bureaucratic horror, and the terror of losing oneself to the things we choose to hold close—sometimes literally to our skin.

Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

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[Agent Conroy]

Beware the Redwood Bureau A secret organization which captures and researches creatures and objects that defy explanation. Their reckless procedures have led to countless innocent lost. I am Agent Conroy. I worked for the Redwood Bureau, but I have escaped them to leak their reports to the unsuspecting public. You have the Right to know.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

There's.

[Agent Conroy]

A common misconception that the most dangerous Bureau phenomena are alive. The things that breathe, stalk and bleed. The creatures that can chase you down a hallway or whisper your name from under the bed. Those are easy to understand, to register as a threat. You can see them. You can run from them. But the things that sit quietly and wait. The objects that don't move unless you bring them into your life? Those are the ones that take everything. Anomalous objects aren't nearly as rare as you'd Hope. They're everywhere. Found in yard sales, estate cleanouts, thrift stores. Passed hand to hand, generation to generation, until the story fades and only the thing remains. Most are harmless until you give them meaning. Look at them too long, hold. Hold them too close or want something from them you shouldn't. That's usually how they find their way in. The Bureau classifies these under catalyst items. Each one carries a psychological pull. Something subtle enough that you never feel the hook go in. You just keep thinking about it. The shape, the weight. The way you felt when you looked at it or held it. Some cause obsession. Some create imitation. Others consumption. It typically starts small. You stop thinking clearly. You rationalize strange coincidences, whispers when you're alone. Dreams that feel like instruction. Then, without realizing it, you begin to change. And when people start to notice, it's already too late. There are ways to spot anomalous objects. Objects like these don't age right. They stay too clean, too new, even when covered in dust. They don't gather fingerprints or hold temperature right. They feel wrong when you touch them. Too cold, too warm. A texture that doesn't match the material. They draw you to them. A pull that could be negative or positive. And once they're yours, they find a way to stay. No matter how far you throw them, how deep you bury them, they always find a way back. The Bureau has documented hundreds of cases. A musical box that influenced its owner with subliminal and homicidal ideas. A typewriter that wrote obituaries days before the deaths occurred. A mirror that swapped the identities of those who looked at themselves too long. All catalyst items. And they all started the same way. Someone finding something they thought was beautiful, interesting, or strange enough to keep. That's how this one began, too. A found object picked up without thought. A face. Not a creature, not a voice. Just a thing someone put on without any thought. It was the disappearances that brought it to the Bureau's attention. Six missing persons within the same city block over the course of a week. And another six from the surrounding area the week after. This is what happens when you ignore that primal feeling of self preservation that your rational mind tries to disguise.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

I told myself I wasn't going to be an idiot about Halloween this year. Which is exactly how I ended up parked outside a strip mall thrift store that smelled like mothballs and stale perfume. The first half of the aisles were last October's scratched up plastic junk. I did a lap, and then another, and then I saw it poking out from under a pile of beads and a single elbow length glove. What looked less like a mask and more like a face someone had lost. Not rubbery green or neon. It was like a person's face, but not skin. Colored almost, but with a sickly ashen tint. The mouth was wide, pulled up into a forced creepy grin. The eye openings didn't look like cut circles so much as places that eyes had once been. The edge wasn't clean like factory edges. It was hand cut and then smoothed the way I'd seen my grandmother sew plenty of things. I picked it up. It was cool to the touch, not too heavy, but not light either. It felt well made. The inner rim was rough, some kind of old thread or cord worked up into the lip to help it hold shape. And where the nose would settle there was a slight ridge that made sure it wouldn't flop or collapse. No tag, no brand. I know what good ones cost. I'm not a costume guy. I just know because I've looked online and I wasn't going to spend anywhere near that amount. This looked like one of those, but with a weird specific vibe.

[Narrator/Host]

Do you want a bag?

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

The cashier asked, not even remarking on my find. I said sure. The paper crinkled and swallowed my mask, hiding it from view. I drove home and put the bag on the table. The rest of the costume was easy, an old black robe. I'd ripped at the hem, rubbed it in backyard dirt, tore some holes in it and and wrapped some twine around and through it. Easy, cheap. Not really anything recognizable, but I was sure it would at least complete my creepy look. I decided to do a pre party outfit test. I retrieved the mask from the bag. It went on like it had been made for me. The edge found my jaw and cheek and temples and settled. The nose ridge hit its mark and was surprisingly comfortable. The eye holes lined up perfectly. I stood there looking in the bathroom mirror at a face that wasn't mine but looked so creepy and real. The offness made my skin rush with heat as if I'd been caught doing something wrong. It was good. Better than I'd let myself expect. The mouth cut made it seem to stretch impossibly long. The eyes looked deeper than the bathroom light should allow. My heart stung my ribs the way it does just before a high jump into water. I chuckled. Okay, I said, which made the mouth move in a way I liked and I reached up to take it off. I had to tug a little. It was kind of stuck, which surprised me. I pressed my thumb in under the cheek and peeled the peel, made a quiet sound and came away slow, as if the mask had been stuck to me with adhesive. It let go. A faint sting followed it. Like where you rip off duct tape over hair, Right? I said, rubbing the line with a knuckle. That's what you get for putting thrift shop on your face. Genius. I ran a paper towel under the tap and wrung it until it stopped dripping and wiped the inside of the mask. A gray smudge streaked off in a crescent. The smell was faint but like something old and musty, which I oddly hadn't noticed while wearing it. I did the outside too carefully, as if I were cleaning. A camera lens I didn't want to break was perfect, and there was no telling how old it really was. I washed my face because the idea of someone else's whatever that was on my skin got real in a hurry. The line where it had stuck went pink and then calmed down. I put the robe on, tied the twine, and checked the cuffs in the mirror. The whole thing came together only because of the face. Without it, I looked like I crawled out of a hamper with it. I looked like something that had escaped someone's nightmare. I didn't put the mask back on until I was parked at the curb outside Jules Place, the house with the rented giant fog machine and orange bulbs. I turned the engine off. The bag crinkled in my hands. I eased the mask out and settled it on my face, the cool of it finding my warm skin and fitting perfectly. I'm gonna scare somebody, I said to nobody, not really sure why I didn't go to the front door. I slid around the side, letting myself in the gate, and cut across the yard to the back where the deck was laughing. Loud voices and music filled the area. I took one step up and let my head and shoulders rise into the light. I didn't do anything. I was just there, waiting to be noticed. It didn't take long before two girls screamed and then fell into their hands, laughing. Somebody said, holy shit. What? Like it was just one word. Jules spun around, most of her beer spilling in the process, and braced a hand on my chest to steady herself. Okay, she said, catching her breath. Okay.

[Narrator/Host]

That's actually messed up. Where did you get it?

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Made it, I said on reflex, the lie coming out for no reason at all. You didn't, she said, but smiled like I had. It felt good, the way they were looking at me with nervous delight. Felt good. I stepped into the deck light and let them take it in. I kept it on. There's a high you only get when people are looking at you and liking that they're looking at you. I'm not used to it. Usually I make up an excuse and bail early from social events. Tonight the mask took the glance they gave and held them. It wasn't magic. It was a face that met attention in the middle and made it easy for both of us. I drank through a straw because it was funny. Rum and whatever. Sweet, cold. The mouth moved as I talked and I liked the way it moved like we were working together.

[Narrator/Host]

Take it off so I can see.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You, maddie said, tilting her head the way she does when she's trying to decide if I'm being an idiot or the guy she loves. I shook my head. Later. She rolled her eyes.

[Narrator/Host]

It's freaking me out.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Good, I said, because that was the point of the face and the night, wasn't it. That's why I wore it.

[Narrator/Host]

Not like that, she said, and I.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Heard the edge in it and filed it under deal with later. She reached up like she was going to pluck it off. Her fingers made it to the jawline and stopped. I watched her face change when she felt the resistance. Seriously, take it off Later, I said and moved past her as her hand slid off my shoulder. People laughed at the dumb things I said that wouldn't have landed if I'd just been my regular who forgot to buy a costume face. I leaned against a railing and told a story I made up about a boss I never had, and it flowed like I'd practiced and the mask leaned on it like a microphone, amplifying the part of me that wasn't shy. Someone handed me a shot and I took it through the straw like another joke. Maddie tried again.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm not kidding. This is too much.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You're always not kidding, I said, and the room did that little OOO sound people do when someone says something they know has pissed the other person off. I felt a clean, cruel joy in my chest, light and fizzy. Her mouth flattened.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm leaving.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Okay, I said, because I couldn't find the part of me that cared, and she looked at me like I'd become a stranger and I smiled like I was being sweet and watched her go because there was a girl in a witch hat who had been making eyes over the rim of her cup for half an hour and it felt easier to move into that slipstream than to follow the one that had just tried to ruin my night. It's hard to tell the truth about what you do when you've been drinking and everybody's laughing it's hard to tell the truth about why you do it when the face on your face is easier to carry than the one you were born with. I had a thought that the mask made me do, didn't it? Just made room I filled. When the fight happened, it didn't feel like a choice. It felt more like something I had to do. It was a shoulder against mine and then words, and then the kind of jostle men do when they measure where the line is drawn. I pushed and he pushed and someone said, hey, hey, hey, and then he was on his ass and I was laughing, a laugh I didn't recognize as mine until the end of it. Dude, go home, someone said. When I felt like I'd caused enough misery, I did. I fished out my keys and waved at whoever was still in the doorway and took the stairs too fast, Missed the last one. Caught myself on the railing with a hard jolt that rattled the edge of the mask, but to my delight, it held. The night gripped around the car like a fist. The dash made its soft glow as I started the engine. I drove home. It felt easy, the way terrible ideas feel easy when you're half a bottle into pretending your life is more interesting than it is. Streetlights passed in organized pairs. My face was calm in the rear view. My new face, I thought with a chuckle. I tumbled into the bed without taking anything off. The robe twisted under me and the twine dug and the mask pressed into the pillow, and there was a moment where I thought I should peel it off. I should. It's going to itch. You'll wake up with a rash, you idiot. Then the room tipped and took me with it and I was out. A desert dry mouth dragged me awake. My head felt like an empty drum. The light through the blinds was brutal. For a second I didn't move, because not moving kept the night from solidifying into fragmented memories I'd have to piece together. Then I tried to sit up. I put my hand to my jaw, expecting to find the edge of the mask. What I found was just a seam, soft, like it was hardly even there. I pressed my fingertip to the borderline and it didn't give. Like rubber, it yielded like skin that belonged there. I went to the mirror, my pulse racing, trying to figure out how this thing had gotten so stuck to me. The face looked good, worse, better. The mouth sat differently, like it had decided where it wanted to sit. The eyeholes were still holes and I was still behind them, but something about the way they were cut. Head tightened, the color made a quiet transition into my cheeks that hadn't been there last night. Like it blended. Okay, I said. It didn't come out like an alarm. It came out like the first word you say when you're given a chore. I washed my hands and then I tried the corner above the jaw, the place it had let go last night. I put my nails under and lifted slowly. The peel sound was there, but different, lower, like tape against tape. A crescent of skin rose with the edge and I saw the raw slick underneath, and the breath I was going to take went somewhere else and got lost. It hurt. It should have pushed me into a cold sweat, made the room narrow, sent me texting someone to drive me to the waiting room. It made me angry instead. How dare it? How dare I, for being the kind of person who needed something to hold his face up for him? I let it reseat. The edge didn't flop back like rubber. It took the place again with a tiny shiver that felt like what a mouth does when it closes on a straw and creates suction. Okay, I said again, slower, listening to the voice, it rounded in a way it hadn't yesterday. Not a new accent, just like a different version of myself. I should have panicked. I should have called someone. Maddie, maybe. Though the thought of her voice found nothing in me. The part of me that would have texted my brother and written I did something dumb. Can you come over? Had been folded quietly and put away for later. I stood in the doorway and looked at the bed I'd crawled out of and tried to reconstruct the timeline but got bored. I felt good that morning. That was new. The face made me look like a man who had something to do that day. That was new, too. Texts had piled up. Jules. Three question marks. Maddie, we need to talk. I type a few apologies and watch my thumbs delete them. I send busy today and feel nothing when the dots appear, stop, appear again, then go away. The phone reflects my new face more than it holds her name. I slip the phone into my pocket and stand there until the thought of staying makes me angry. I had a thought the way you have a thought about a sandwich. Not a plan, a want. I wanted to go outside where people were. I wanted to see if the face felt different in daylight. I wanted to see them seeing it. I touched the seam one more time and I didn't feel the pain I expected. Okay, I said, and this time what I heard in my voice was a decision. It didn't sound like me and I didn't mind. I put on a hoodie because the fall sun is bright and because I want the world to earn this. Outside, the air is cold and clean, the kind that makes you feel like you're walking into a picture on the corner. The coffee shop line curls into itself and I take my place as if I've always had a face for lines. A barista glances. Does the quick double take people do when they can't categorize makeup? She asks, more curious than scared. Something like that, I say, and she laughs because I made it easy for her. When it's my turn, I order without clearing my throat first. The voice comes out like it lives closer to the front of my teeth. The card scans the woman across from me, looks up from her laptop, and holds her eyes for one beat past polite. It feels like standing at a window and watching someone realize you're watching them. On the walk home, I rehearse a reasonable sentence for Maddie, and each version gets warmer, smoother, farther from the point. By the time I reach the lobby, I'm sorry has turned into I'll make it up to you then. You know how I get Then we'll laugh about this, and the only part that feels true is laugh. And this. I take the stairs to feel my legs. At my door, I put my hand flat to my cheek one more time. The mask is all I have. I don't go to urgent care. I stand in the doorway of my own bedroom and the man in the mirror tips his head like we've earned it.

[Agent Conroy]

Warning. Signal interruption detected.

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[Agent Conroy]

Hello, Finney. Did you think our story was over?

[Narrator/Host]

Mr. Grammar?

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

This Friday you're dead.

[Agent Conroy]

Dead is just a word. Credits are saying Ethan Hawke is pure nightmare fuel.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Discover the secret behind the mask.

[Agent Conroy]

What do you think happens when you die? It's time to find out.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Going to Only in theaters Friday.

[Agent Conroy]

Rated R under 17. Net admit without parent.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Agent Conroy]

Signal connection restored.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

She doesn't knock like she usually does. It's a fight. Knock flat with the heel of her hand. I open because the half of me that wouldn't is smaller than the half that is. Curious to see what happens, she takes one look and starts crying. Not the loud kind, steady, the kind she tries to hide from me but can't stop. Please take it off, she says, stepping in with her hand already up.

[Narrator/Host]

Please, please take it off. I hate this.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

I take a breath to say I'm trying to, and the truth climbs into the sentence instead. I can't. It's not a plea, it's information. It's just what it is. She touches my cheek at the edge of the hood and flinches because it's warm. Her fingers slide over a place where the seam ought to catch and there is nothing to catch. She presses harder, as if pressure can fix the problem. She pulls her hand back like she just found out a stove was on.

[Narrator/Host]

You're scaring me, she says.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

It should make me stop. It makes me adjust the weight on my feet to look more sympathetic. It works. I watch it work on her like I'm watching a demonstration. I like who I am with it, I say. My tongue chooses the rhythm. The line lands. It's a good line. It is also what I mean.

[Narrator/Host]

If you love me, she says, and.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

The words shake on the way out. If you love me, you'll I do, I tell her. And it's true, I think, and I can't. I don't close the door in her face. I close it on the curve of her shoulder so it helps her out.

[Narrator/Host]

If you love me, you'll the chain.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Slides home with a small sound. If you love me and I stand with my hand.

[Narrator/Host]

If you love me, you'll while she.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Goes through the phases, pleading, anger, bargaining in a thin voice that sits far away in the building. I tell her I'll text later, and I know I won't. I wait until she's gone to go out because these walls are boring. In the bodega line, a guy with a neck tattoo makes a noise at me. He thinks he's funny. I turn and step into him until he has to keep his balance. Say it again, I tell him, smiling, like we're in on a bit, and put two fingers on his wrist and squeeze until the noise he makes is smaller than he is. I laugh, warm to show him there's no hard feelings. He just stares, holding his wrist and whimpering, and watches me go back home. I wash a brown smudge from my sleeve. I don't know what it is, and I don't care enough to give it another thought. In the mirror my pupils sit a little deeper than they did this morning. The smile sits on my face without me asking it to. I keep it there because it looks good. I think of Maddie standing on the stairs with her hands on the railing, deciding if she should come back up and try again. I feel nothing then, a brief clean relief that she won't. Later, I tell the mirror, and I like the way the word continues to mean everything I need. I tell myself to try one more time. I wash my hands, dry them, and press a thumbnail under the jaw. The skin slides on skin. There's nothing to grab. I take the little hobby knife from the drawer, the one I use to open packages. I set the edge to where the seam should be and draw it along. The blade slices and blood trickles down. I can't. It's me. I'm cutting. Me. I won't. The night stretched open like a wound, and for the first time it felt familiar. The mask fit the way skin should. I could breathe through it, speak through, answered every expression before I could even think about it. The apartment was clean now. I'd cleared the clutter, folded the clothes, wiped down the countertops until they gleamed. There was order again. I needed that. I needed the space to think. On the table sat the tools. They weren't new, but they were new to me. The knife, the twine, the jar of alcohol. Everything had its place, its purpose. I stood over them and listened to the hum of the refrigerator, the distant sound of traffic. The city never really sleeps. It just exhales between things. I liked that. It made the waiting easier. My hands didn't shake anymore. I rolled my sleeves to the elbow. The skin flexed smoothly over the knuckles, tight but obedient. I went to the window and checked the street below. The bar across the way was emptying out. People drifted to their cars, to their rides, to their nights. Some of them looked up as they passed under the streetlight. I caught their faces in pieces, flashes of skin, a glint of eyes, the shape of a smile. I watched them all and counted without meaning to. The numbers steadied me. Back at the table, I opened the drawer and took out the notebook. Inside were pages of sketches, faces drawn in pencil, rough and incomplete. Some were from memory, others weren't. I turned to a clean page and drew another. The hand moved on its own now, sure and quick. The refrigerator kicked on behind me. The vibration made the knife tremble against the tabletop. I placed my hand over it until it went still. Soon, I told it, everything was ready. I looked at the wall clock. 2:47. Plenty of time. I smiled. And this time it smiled first. There was a lot of work to.

[Narrator/Host]

People sent me pictures and texts about sightings of him from all over. Fighting in alleys, drunk at bars, running from the cops. Apparently I couldn't understand. This wasn't like him. I stopped answering after a while because every message came with a small expectation I was supposed to be grateful for, as if they spotted my lost dog. I slept poorly, and when I slept, I dreamed about him wearing that mask, how it felt warm and like skin. In the dreams he didn't talk. He put his fingers under my chin and moved my head around, examining my face. One day I went by his gym at the time it used to go back when he had routines. Haven't seen him, the kid at the desk said, and typed something into a computer. Anyway, he texted me back once when I told him I needed to see him. Busy today was all I got back. I typed and deleted a dozen answers. I couldn't find the right words to make everything okay. All I could do was hold the phone and feel the heat leak into my palm, watch his name sit on the screen with the little bar blinking, waiting for me to type something. His apartment felt like a black hole every time I drove by. I had his spare key on my ring, and my hand kept finding it, holding it like a lifeline. I wanted to go there, open his door, walk in, and scream at him. Anything was better than nothing. After two weeks, I couldn't take it anymore. I did exactly what I'd talked myself out of doing so many days before, with his Key clenched in my palm, I walked up the stairs to his apartment. It felt like a betrayal of privacy and boundaries, but what else could I do? On the second landing, I practiced a line under my breath. Please take it off. I'm worried about you, and heard my own voice shaking and cracking. His door looked exactly like it always had. Gray paint, three dings an inch apart where someone once tried to bring a couch in the wrong sideways. I raised my hand to knock, stopped, and put my palm on the knob. The metal was warm, like a person was standing on the other side doing the same. My heart pounded. Half of me screamed to barge in and confront him. The other half begged me to turn around and leave. Slowly I twisted the knob and pushed. It was unlocked and the door creaked open. The air had a musty sweetness in it that didn't belong. The television was on at a low volume, the way you keep it on just so it's not quiet. The entryway lamp was off, but the kitchen light was on. I stood in the doorway with my heart trying to work its way out of my chest. I thought, leave. I thought. Call someone. I thought. If you walk in, you don't get to take this back. The sound chose for me. Wood into something dense, a dull thud afterward. Then a woman's soft whimper from further in. My legs, forgot I could decide what to do with them, and took me forward. I crossed the threshold and the auto hinges closed the door behind me. The noise brought my attention to the right end of the living room, where two shapes took form in the dark. He stood over a woman with a chair leg or a small bat in one hand and his head tilted at that angle he used to use when he was teasing the mask smiling its unnerving permanent smile. The warm mouth below it mirrored the curve exactly. His eyes were Deep isn't the right word. They seemed further inside than they should be, as if the distance between the eyes and the mask had grown. His head tilted towards me, as if noticing me for the first time. He crossed the room in a step and a turn, the kind of movement only possible in movies. I flinched. The club hit the side of my head. Light exploded across my vision. Then nothing.

[Agent Conroy]

Warning signal interruption detected.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Agent Conroy]

Every drop of Jack Daniels is mellowed through sugar maple charcoal, giving Jack its smooth taste. That's what makes Jack Jack. Please drink responsibly. Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee ABC Wednesdays Shifting Gears is back. He has arisen. Tim Allen and Kat Dennings return in television's number one new comedy what what? With a star studded premiere including Jenna Elfman, Nancy Travis and hey Buddy, A big home improvement reunion.

[Narrator/Host]

Welcome. Oh boy, that guy's a tool.

[Agent Conroy]

Shifting gears New Wednesdays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Signal connection restored.

[Narrator/Host]

The creaking and howling of wind pulled me into a world where my head pounded and biles sat at the back of my throat. My wrists were bound behind a post that dug into my back, legs tied and laid flat in front of me. I pulled my arms and leaned forward, twine cutting into my skin as I tested it. The air was cold and wet. Hay and iron sat at my tongue. Insects worked the edges of the light. A single light swayed, suspended high into the ceiling. The chain clicked each time it changed direction. Wind shifted through broken boards. Help. I tried, but my throat was so dry all that came out was a croak. I swallowed and tried to move, saliva down my throat, doing my best to scream. Suddenly, from nowhere, he was there, in the circle, kneeling, bare chest, head cocked. He didn't move toward me. The mask smiled. The mouth under it mimicked the same shape. My breath caught halfway up my throat and stayed there. At first I couldn't understand what I was seeing, the light swinging, only catching pieces of him at a time. Pale, stretched skin. Lines too. Too clean to be wounds, too raised to be tattoos. My brain filled in safer answers. First bandages, burns, anything else. But the light teased fleeting glances, and I couldn't deny what it showed. They were faces, whole faces, cut and peeled from people, pressed flat and sewn into his skin like a quilt. One covered his chest, a man's, I think, smooth and hairless, the eyes shut, lips gently parted. Another wrapped across his ribs, smaller, delicate, the edges raw where the skin had been cut down. His stomach was a woman's face, darker skin, drawn tight. A second woman's face stretched along his side, cheek against his hip, nose tilted toward the floor. Across his shoulder lay another, pale and freckled, stitched in at an angle that made it look like she was watching the ceiling. Each one was complete, taken whole. The stitching was careful. Thick dark cord drawn tight, looped with precision. Each knot pressed flat into the skin. The seams ran flush against his body, perfect lines that turned the horror of it into something worse. Deliberate work. The flesh itself was dry, almost paper smooth. It had that faint gray tint that skin gets when it stops being, being a part of a living person. Where it had stretched had cracked slightly along the edges, the cracks packed with a crust of what looked like dried blood. The air smelled of copper and mildew. The bulb shifted overhead, the chain ticking softly. Shadows rolled over him. For a moment the faces seemed to shift, their features bending in the movement of light. It was just shadow, but it looked like expression. A smile tightening, a brow, lifting, eyes about to open. My stomach turned so violently it felt like it was trying to crawl out of me. He didn't look down at himself at all. His eyes were locked on me, dark behind the mask, too far back in his skull. It looked like there was a space behind them, as if whatever was inside had taken a step back to make room for something else. I pulled against the ropes before I even realized I was moving. They bit deep, cut skin, but I didn't stop, despite the pain. The post creaked under my weight. That was the sound that made him move, the smallest shift, his body turning toward the noise, like an animal locking in on prey. He didn't rush, only straightened, slow and steady, the stitched faces moving with the roll of his shoulders. For a second, in the half swing of light, they almost looked alive again. You came, he said. It wasn't loud. It didn't echo. The words just landed, even calm, too clear in the empty air, like he'd been waiting for me to wake up so we can talk. He stood in the light, stitched together and smiling, the man I once knew gone. Whatever was standing there had worn him away from the inside out, and what remained was just something that knew his basic shape. Please, I said. My voice broke halfway through the word. Please don't. He smiled, a small, genuine smile. But need the sculpted one.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You should see it up close.

[Narrator/Host]

He pushed a crate forward with one foot and knelt beside it. His movements were calm. He unpacked the contents with the same quiet precision he used to fold laundry or fix a loose hinge, lining each item on the floorboards in a careful row. There was a paring knife, its edge bright and thin enough to split the dim light. A small glass bottle of clear liquid, which he poured into a shallow metal tray. The smell was sharp and chemical. Next came a suture kit, curved needle, fine black thread, driver scissors with rounded tips, followed by gauze, a folded towel, and a small stack of wool white tissue squares. He adjusted each one until it sat straight, humming softly under his breath as he worked. It was a tune I knew, something he used to hum when he cleaned the kitchen or sorted the mail. Movement caught my eye at the edge of the light. The woman from the apartment was lying half in shadow, her arms sprawled awkwardly, her head turned toward us. Blood had dried along her hairline where he'd hit her. She was breathing shallow and uneven. When he noticed her stirring, he rose and crossed to her. There was no hesitation in his step, no urgency, just the steady control of someone performing a task they're familiar with. He took a handful of her hair and lifted her until her face tilted towards toward the light. She whimpered the sound thin and weak, and tried to twist away, but he held her still with one hand, turning her face slightly left and right. He reached for the knife without looking and brought it up beside her head. The blade touched her skin just above the ear. There was no warning, no shift in his expression. He simply drew the knife along her hairline in one smooth, practiced motion. The sound was quiet and loud in the most horrifying way, a soft, sticky tear, the kind of noise you hear when you tear a leaf of lettuce free from the head. He moved with care, following the curse curve of her forehead across to the other ear, then down the line of her jaw until the cut met itself again beneath her chin. His hands never trembled. Her screams faded to silence as she lost consciousness. He set the knife down and slid two fingers into the incision, working them beneath the skin. When he began to pull, the flesh came away in a slow, steady lift. The first tug revealed the curve of her cheek, the fold of her mouth, the pale underside of what used to be a face. The hair along the top tore loose in short, uneven strands that clung to the edges as he peeled it back, the woman made a sound, high, desperate, impossible to place between a breath and scream, but her voice broke before it found shape. When he finished, he held the face in both hands, examining it under the swaying light. The eyes were half closed, lips had gone pale. Thin threads of tissue clung to the underside like torn fabric. He turned at once, inspecting the edges, smoothing a wrinkle with his thumb. It was almost tender the way he handled it. Behind him, the woman's body shifted once on the dirt floor, and when still he didn't look down at her. His focus stayed on me as he knelt and laid the face gently across the towel. When he finally spoke again, it wasn't loud.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You have to be careful, he said.

[Narrator/Host]

The words came out in the same voice he used to explain how to fix something around the house.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

The edges are the most important.

[Narrator/Host]

He rinsed the face in the tray. The liquid clouded pink and slowly cleared as he moved it back and forth. When he lifted it out, the skin hung heavy and loose in his hands. He laid it across the towel and began dabbing it dry, switching tissues each time one turned reddish pink. When he was satisfied, he trimmed the edges, careful cuts, no hesitation, and smoothed the surface flat with the side of his palm. He turned toward himself. On the left side of his torso there was a space already waiting, a rectangle of bare skin. He took the new face and pressed it against the vacancy, testing the space before he began to sew. The first puncture broke the quiet, a wet, muffled click as the needle entered flesh. He worked quickly, unhurried, each stitch measured with exact spacing. The thread slipped through him and into the face, pulling the two with small, deliberate tugs. His eyes kept flicking back to me, calm and focused, as if my reaction was the true measure of his progress. Every time my stomach lurched, his mouth twitched into something cloudy, close to satisfaction. I tried to look away, but his hand came up, two fingers under my chin, turning me back toward him with slow, overwhelming strength.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You have to see, he said.

[Narrator/Host]

The words were quiet, patient. They didn't sound like a threat. They sounded like instruction. He finished the line of sutures and tied it off with a clean pull. Each knot pressed the skink closer until the edges met. He smoothed the graft with the flat of his hand, testing the fit, pressing out air. The lip of the new face sagged. For a moment he dabbed at a bead of blood for the fresh tissue, and when he pulled away, it was marked with a soft red bloom that looked almost delicate. He cleaned the knife, folded the towel, and placed both neatly back into the crate. Everything went in order. Knife, gauze, bottle, thread. The light swung overhead. The shadows from the faces crossed each other as he straightened, a shifting collage of features that had no business in this world, let alone on the man I loved. I thought of him standing in our old bathroom, lining the bottles along the counter by height, flattening the ends of the paper towels so the edges matched the same hands, the same quiet satisfaction when the lines came out even. Only now he wasn't arranging bottles. The parts of people surgically into his own skin. He looked down at his work and.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Said, you loved me when I was small. I wish you could be here to see what I'll accomplish.

[Narrator/Host]

He said it in the way someone states a fact. No guilt, no grief or excitement. I cried out with that sound. It wasn't a sob or a scream, just a slow, steady leak that kept happening no matter what I told my body to do. I tried to beg, but the words fell apart before they left my mouth. You're sick, I managed, and even to me it sounded weak and useless. We kept I stopped. There wasn't a we. There couldn't be, and the thing standing in front of me knew it. He smiled. Not cruel, not even mocking. Just a soft, patient smile, like a teacher watching a child finally get the answer wrong in the right way. He set the needle down with care, cleaned it, and coiled the thread into a perfect spiral before laying both beside the tray. He then straightened. The stitched faces on his body shifted faintly with emotion, a dull ripple of stretched flesh and shadow that almost looked alive in the swinging light. He looked at me the way an artist looks at a half finished canvas. The mask tilted. The smile carved in it stayed still. The mouth underneath found a softer version of the same expression. His eyes, those sunken, calculating eyes, didn't waver. They studied me like it was a piece that hadn't yet been fitted into place.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Nice to catch up, but I'm afraid.

[Narrator/Host]

We'Re out of time, he said, casual and clean, like he was ending a polite conversation. He stepped closer and the air seemed to draw tight around him. The knife in his hand had caught the light, throwing a single white line down its edge. The rest of him was shadow and silence, a shape of something that used to be human. When he reached me, he moved with the same precision I'd seen from him before. Two fingers found my chin and lifted his grip. Steady, guiding, patient. He tilted my head upward until my face aligned with his.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

You always wanted the real me, he said.

[Narrator/Host]

His voice was low, stripped of warmth but not of clarity. It didn't sound like boasting. It sounded like truth. Like this is what he'd always been. He angled the blade until the light rolled along its surface, a thin reflection that shimmered as it passed the tip. His other hand came up, resting against my throat.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

Hold still, he said.

[Narrator/Host]

The words came out quiet, almost kind.

[Protagonist (Mask wearer)]

We don't want to ruin your perfect face.

[Narrator/Host]

For a moment, everything in the barn went silent. The chain holding the light, the howling of the wind, the creaking of the barn. The silence that followed was impossibly loud. My lungs were frozen in shock, unable to draw another breath. The light above us swayed wider now. It swept over his torso, over the faces stitched into him, over the empty patch of skin still waiting on his side. I realized with utter helplessness it was for me. He didn't hesitate. The knife moved in one smooth, decisive arc. Pain bloomed white, electric, and the world melded to the rhythm of my heartbeat hammering against his hand. I felt the warmth slide down my chest before I saw it. He laid the knife beside the tray and reached for the towel. His movements were slow, reverent. He wiped his hands clean, folded the towel into a neat square, and set it down. He then crouched beside me, studying the lines of my face like a craftsman measuring a final cut, and for a moment I could see my own reflection in his black eyes beneath the mask. The last thing I felt was his hand against my cheek, steady and warm, the same way it used to be when he pulled me close on cold nights. Then the knife came back and the world dissolved to black, releasing me from the all consuming agony.

[Agent Conroy]

The Bureau calls what you've just heard an identity level. Assimilation. That's their term for when a person stops being a person and starts becoming something else. But that isn't what. What this is not really. This isn't possession. It isn't an infection. It's a complete rewrite of every neuron and synapse. We've seen echoes of this phenomenon before. Fragments of something that predates the Bureau, predates human history. What you just heard isn't the story of one artifact or one man. It's a reawakening, a very old pattern repeating itself. My furthest records describe a cult active in the early Bronze Age, a group that believed the divine could be worn. That worship was achieved through imitation. The name of their God is lost in translation, but their rituals remain. The taking of faces, the grafting of skin, the creation of vessels meant to carry. Carry the likeness of eternity. The Bureau's linguists call the surviving fragments the Faces of Eidolon. You won't find that name in easily accessible file archives, but I've seen the documents, the photographs, the failed containment reports. This isn't an isolated case. It's one of many. Every few decades an artifact surfaces. A sculpture, a mask, a piece of preserved flesh. And each time a similar sequence follows. Fascination, imitation, assimilation, tragedy, disappearance. The Bureau tracks these through a web of incident markers called pattern 77 black. On my board there are pins stretching across six continents. Some of the photos are modern surveillance images. Autopsy stills, crime scene captures. Others are ancient cave art, clay reliefs. This entity, whatever it once was, seems to crave recognition, worship not through prayer, but through replication. Each mask made, each face taken, becomes part of it. A growing consciousness rebuilding itself through its fragments. The Bureau's response has been predictable. They've classified all recovered material under project Eidolon, with orders to contain and replicate for study. I've read those memos. They're trying to build their own versions. Copies they can control. The kind that would only obey bureau command. That's the part they never learn. You can't own a demigod older than mankind. The moment you allow it to take root, you become it. The man from this case, he's gone. No trace. But three new incidents have already triggered the system in neighboring cities and states. Missing persons, unexplained criminal, reports of mass witness wearing individuals. If you're listening to this, remember, the Bureau doesn't stop things like this. They collect them under the guise of containment. By now, we know what this word really means. Somewhere, someone is going to find another mask. They won't know what you know. They won't believe things like this are true. And when they put put it on, this story starts again. Starts again. And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

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[Agent Conroy]

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