Everyone

Everyone

(note: I have grown more interested in this piece over time, I am thinking of trying it for a full fledged story, so plan to remove this at a later date. If anyone wants me to keep up this first draft piece or make suggestions of their own, do it now before this is gone.)


Chapter 1:Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee.



“Give it back!” A little boy muttered trying to grab behind a man mockingly offering a hand to help him search of the object.

“Sorry I can not. Edith ordered me to take it away from you, you strayed to far from the path. You are little more then a oddity,” The boy said mocking sadness. “Edith also said to go home, you are to receive your mark.”

The little boy stood their staring at the elder boy with blank eyes before dropping them to the ground.
“I don’t understand what I did.” The boy muttered before turning around and walking away. The people around him hiding their faces under ivory masks. He could feel the stares of those around him as he walked.

“Jake?” A girls voice echoed in the sea of ivory mask, “is that you?” Jake looked back to another face that stood out from the crowds around them, a small girl was squirming through the masses to reach him, her soft features giving her the appearance of a well developed child, a bright red cross staining her cheek.

“Sister?” Jake said out of habit, while she was really his sister by blood, his family had long since disowned her, leaving Jakes words as a hazard to himself to even mutter. She quickly covered his mouth as she whispered.

“What are you doing without your mask?” she said with a faint fear visible in her pretty features.

“Oh….that” Jake said

“ ‘oh, that’? Jake, there are spies always hiding in the crowds what if someone saw-” Jake faintly laughed cutting off her thought’s, a confused gesture of jakes own fear or sadness. “-you…you, your being marked?” She said looking around faintly, the red mark on her face reflecting in the ambient light. 

                                                      Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

The entire crowd muttered in unison, like a wave of mindless they all spoke the place of each quote, only two years ago Jake could fondly remember once being part of that. The feeling of utter ignorance where he could blend with the masses. Now he never spoke the numbers of the bible, using the amnesty of his mask to hid his loose of faith.

“Does your dad know you are going to be….marked?” Jake's sister said in a under tone knocking Jake back to the present, so many years he felt had passed and he was only 14, if only he could have lasted longer, why had he given up after learning only a little of the worlds history?

“I don’t know -he’s your father too- but I was told to go home so I think so…” Jake said in reply after a minutes wait.

His sister smiled softly, “Thank you little brot-…. Jake, but no, he does not want me any more…” Her smile was pained, the way their father had gotten rid of her after he saw she had been marked, was with malice.

“If not for how things are for him he would love to have you back, I know how dad acts like he hates you but…” Jake said as they were finally out of the wave of people,  “I think that’s why he wears his mask even at home where its not required….” His sister looked down at the ground before putting her hand in a pocket lazily sowed into her shirt.

“Here,” She said as she pulled out a paper hastily scribbling numbers and words on the aged paper, quickly placing it in Jakes hand, “If dad….Daniel is forced to send you to the same boarding school as me, that’s my address,  and phone number, if you need me.”

Church bells rang in the distance signing off as a couple joined in marriage,  a far away unknown pair to Jake, yet a strange tingle ran through his spine as it rang. What was he feeling? “…Thank you, sister…” Jake said slowly slipping it in his back pocket.

“That bell always unsettles me…” Jake's sister muttered not hearing Jake's words over the ring of the bells. “…I hope the next time I see you, you’re back in your mask,” She faintly smirked, “You look way better with your face covered.”

Jake laughed, so did she, laughing at a cheesy joke, remembering a childhood neither of them had anymore. People looked over at the odd pair, shamelessly showing their faces to the masses laughing at nothing. They felt they had to laugh, to wash away the pain the years had taken from them. Yet the dread that filled their hearts only returned as they both felt the harsh blow of reality was back into their senses.

The grey of the sky, polluted by people long since dead, the soil that stood barren under a endless field of concrete. The mask that hid the pain the masses felt. They stared at each other for a short time before speaking again.
“Well,” Jake said, “I guess I will find out what is waiting for me at home.”

“Yeah..” Jake's sister said softly.

“Good bye, sister.” Jake said as he turned around, the crowds of people quickly engulfing him.

“My name's, Azubah, brother! Don‘t forget it!” She said in a yell, sighing as a drop of rain hit her nose gently, drop after drop hitting the ground as it started to rain, a faint tingle as the acid rain bit at her skin.

It pained him as he moved through the crowds, feeling naked without the mask he was given at five, the feeling of its weight off of him felt odd, weak and pale against the outside wind. Around him the ivory mask hang on everyone’s faces, finally crafted to show ideal beauty. To take away the ability to see each others appearance, to drive away lust.

As soon as he left his sister rain started to fall, feeling like it was washing out the mixed up emotions inside of him, like the acid burned away at the pain inside his heart.

“Jake?” A old mans voice yelled, “Jake?…oh no, not again…” Jake looked over to see a man push himself into the crowd, his face veiled by a ivory mask studded by a single red ruby over its left eye, he rest carved to look of a man much younger then one hiding under it.

“Father…” Jake looked down as he saw him, his snow white hair shadowing his eyes, “I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“You tempted.” Jake looked back a woman stood her hair almost covering a ivory mask plated in gold. It seemed harshly tempered replicating the scares of one who has undergone hardship she may have never had.

“Who did I tempt?” Jake ask confused, “All I know is my mask was taken from me.” The woman must have smiled under that mask of gold as she walked forward, her eyes flashing out of the holes of the mask like little blue gems.

“I speak not of that crime, I speak of your most recent one, your hesitation to come quickly tempted your sister to seek you out, you committed in the forbidden.”

“Talking to my family is forbidden?” Jake said with a mix of anger and confusion.

“It is when they are the forgotten,” The woman softly moved a hand to Jakes face. Her hands felt like ice, chilling in his bones. He pushed the hand away as she went on, “I had planned to punish you softly then to commit proof of your transgression false, a claim from another child, of your lost of faith in God-” Jakes father interrupted in surprise.
“You can not be serious, he has been going to Church every Sunday since birth, and is devoted to prayer in school, his teachers have praised him on his choice of words that class should use when it is his turn in class and-”

“That is why I planned to prove it false,” The woman continued, “yet he not only willingly spoke to his sister, he admitted his relation to her, in public no less.”

“We are in public now…” Jake said softly

“And he is showing a lack of manners as well.” The woman went on, “You are to go to confessions, and tell your sins, after which you shall be decided on your punishment, one can only hope you are not given the mark of the forgotten.”

Jake sighed, “At least it is no guaranteed, the one who took my mask said I was to be marked.”

“Oh there is a good possibility you will yet,” The woman said, “on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.
1 Corinthians 16:13.”