— What are you hiding from ?

He slammed the door violently, but without a trace of anger nor wrath.
He put on a marble face, impassive, ready for any bad surprise.
One step at a time, he was now in the center of the room.
He deliberately chose an exposed position, many blind spots.
Nonetheless, his guards were up, and up to any kind of menace.
Arms by his sides, dangling like a pendulum, ready to achieve what could start sooner than later.

— I’m not hiding.

The voice came closer than he would have thought.

—As a matter of fact, I’m right in front of you.

And as said, in the shadow of a murky scene, red covered silhouette, the only other apparent person in the room began slowly raising a hand, deep white as eternal snow, mocking, playing with her frail fingers on invisible piano strings. Light cuts appearing here and there as the melody played once again. The humming. A diabolic, outer world and impersonal humming.

The man kept a cold blood attitude, not giving any reason to the menace to come to him abruptly.
The vision, though, straight from the forbidden writings, almost caused him a startle, shiver down his legs. Calmly, his arms stopped swinging, immobile, waiting for the first threat.

Suddenly, the scarlet hand froze, in the middle of the air, and without the notice of anything, fell back down onto the the tiled floor, with a moist clatter.

He stood there, still. Blood pumping through his ears.

As from behind the abandoned body, an even paler and dead visage elevated, steadily, a finger on his mouth, stretched in an unfamiliar smile, filled with the expression of fear, an informal fear, an unforeseen fear, taking you right where you wouldn’t expect it. A fear you couldn’t run from, the one that paralyzes your senses, leaves you in a dark, starless sky, in the middle of naught. Nulls all your sensations. Takes your head away to crush it under endless tides…

Primal fear.

The pale visage’s body, lifted by an indiscernible rope, gallows of an unseen hanged man. Unhurriedly, described a curve, ascending from a horizontal plan of reality, to the vertical, unstable plan of this world.

His boned finger, under the protection of a skinny, almost transparent glassy glove, slipped from his paper thin lips, pasty disturbing beige. Coming with his other hand to his slender cheeks, he adopted a mimic of mixed shock and disappointment.

The air stopped circulating for a brief, unending instance of time, and…

— I was planning on a spectacular entrance…
Someone ruined it.

The voice…
Weak, so weak…
Yet with the potence of a thousand damned souls.

— You see me sorry, kid.
Answered the old man, barely holding on to keep his composure.

The pale being patted softly over her clothes, shoving the dust away from it.

A wide night black coat, opened on a lily-white torso. No… not black. Something far deeper. A color that would swallow any bold extent of light, erasing it from existence.

— Why the trembling ? Nobody can hurt you.

The dead visage almost whispered, yet, it sounded as clear as a crystal spade penetrating tendre flesh. Whenever it moved the lips, the world around would shut, listen closely.

— I'm not trembling.

The words went out faster, more nervous than he would have wished.
He was trembling. Imperceptibly, but he was trembling.

— Kid ? What age would you give me ? It asked, finally giving a notice to the old man’s words.

Surprised by the question, he kept staring at the grave less body. He dared a rapid look at his facies, wondering about its motivations.

— I don’t know, 21 ? Maybe 22 ? He threw, hesitant.

He then reconsidered his face, frowned, blinked.

— No… You are… at least 50 years old. Maybe even older than me…

The singular creature, for only answer, smiled a singular smile.
Continuing her odd dirt inspection, she slid a hand inside her coat, grabbed her perfect shoulder, and…

With a shredding noise, dislodged it. Without even a subtle flinch.

— It always does that. Isn’t it interesting ?

It pronounced.

The old man had no words for what was happening. Mesmerized, his eyes couldn’t get away from the vision of the other’s face. The… there was a sentiment of sheer beauty and utter hideousness about it. Somehow, he felt like if he would ever get to flee from the gaze of the creature’s pupils… it had the blue of an ocean, emeralds of dimness. Dusk fallen jewels. Somehow…

This strange sensation that if he ever were to lower his stare, he would forget about what he saw.
Or that the picture would change, discovering new angles every second, misleading portrait of an inconstant piece of architecture, statue of blood and veins.

I’m looking at it. I’m looking at it, but…
I can’t remember his face.

Speechless, he couldn’t not ask :

— And whose presence am I honored with ?
He stopped trembling from fear, but his heart started slowly racing.

The pale one seemed amused.

— I’m not anyone you would know about, actually.
So let’s say I am your best friend. But I’m an opportunist, so you shouldn’t trust me. You’re probably used to it anyway. Putting your beliefs only in you. Or well… Not even that.

A jolt went down the old man’s neck, realizing with how much ease the creature had advanced in its direction, calm and fluid gesture, a crude mercilessness guiding its gait.

— I can add that I’m in love with your work. Inspires me every day.
And… this !

He extended his skinned finger and pointed at the laying body, without giving it a look.

— ...Is a piece of art. I’m admirative.
Truly, I hate it. Deserves some applause.

By saying so, he slid his second skeletal hand delicately down his rolled sleeve, and clapped a single time, the particular smile not leaving his face. Shade of green grey blue.

Sustaining the gaze of the old man, he continued :

— That’s all with the presentations ?
You don’t need to tell me anything. Nothing that I don’t already know.
Now…

He went a step rearward, one after another, leaving the centre where he joined the old man, to redo the room in inverse, apposing his bare feet without softness on the lying lady’s back, interrupting once, a malicious lip shrug when he heard a bone crack.

His arms reaching back for the closet door, he had a last soupir before enclosing it before him.

— Now, don’t mind me, but... I’m called elsewhere.

The wood shut violently in a crazing noise, but without a trace or hatred nor wrath.

Left alone, the other stood unmoving, and… out of the blue, precipitated his tired carcass to the end of the room, and flung open the closet door so violently it flew off its hinges.

But there was no one.
Nobody to hide in here.

”Face Less” just had vanished.