Everyone wears a mask in Nocturne. Some hide shame. Some hide hunger. And some… hide reality itself.
Asher's Dream — The Masked Banquet
The velvet dark pressed close around Asher Blackwood as he jolted upright — heart thudding, lungs heaving — only to realize the bed beneath him was made of bone, and the world above shimmered in crimson glass.
He hadn't awakened.He was still dreaming.Still trapped.
An endless banquet table stretched before him like a dying god's tongue. Golden candelabras dripped wax that hissed as it hit the plates below — each holding food not meant for any human. Raw memory. Flame shaped like meat. Bottled sighs, labeled Hope (Vintage 2041).
And at the head of the table, draped in veils spun from regret, sat the Masked Queen.
Her mask had cracked further — webbed lines of gold spiraling outward like veins feeding her power.
But it wasn't just her.Asher's blood turned to ice.
Rosa sat on the left, face hidden behind a mask of thorns.
Lucien lounged across, a silver masquerade mask fanged at the edges, drink in hand.
Even Noir floated nearby — but her eyes were empty sockets beneath a glass helm, ticking like a clock running backward.
They feasted in unison. Each bite they took made the sky outside the mirrored windows fracture — city streets folding, people howling, neon signs melting like wax.
The Queen leaned in. Her voice was smoke and silk, soaked in something ancient.
"Which mask will you wear, Detective? The Savior? The Monster? Or just another Glutton like me?"
Asher looked down. His hands were porcelain. Fragile. Painted.He clawed at his face.
Ripped it off.
Another mask beneath.
And beneath that? Another.
And another.
And another.
Each one screamed.
He woke screaming.
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Reality Shifts in the Waking World
Asher sat up — in his own bed, real this time — and for a brief second, relief hit him like cold rain.
Until he noticed the fridge humming in reverse.
The sound sucked inward, as if the cold was inhaling him.
Light bulbs flickered above in colors he didn't have words for — colors that shouldn't exist.
Noir floated nearby, her voice laced with static, eyes spinning like slot machines mid-jackpot.
"Detective… this district is phasing."
Asher stood, the floor beneath him breathing slow and heavy, like something alive.
Outside his window, the streets of Nocturne no longer obeyed logic.
Buildings twisted upward in loops — infinite staircases spiraling toward an ever-shifting sky.
People walked backward in time, conversing in palindrome.
Their shadows?They moved independently.One waved at Asher, smiling with jagged teeth.
The sky flickered between noon and midnight with every blink.
Noir trembled mid-air.
"The city's reality anchor is destabilizing. Cause: unknown. Effect: imminent collapse."
But Asher already knew the cause.
He just didn't want to face it.
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Rosa and Lucien Confront Asher
Crownbreaker HQ reeked of burnt cinnamon and frayed nerves.
The moment Asher stepped inside, Rosa slammed him against the concrete wall — her eyes wild, lips curled.
"This is your fault, Blackwood! Every time you dig deeper into her, the city cracks more!"
Asher didn't fight back.Didn't blink.
Lucien leaned against the conference table, swirling a blood-red drink, polishing a handgun that wept from the barrel.
"Or maybe," he drawled, "he's the only thing keeping it from snapping completely. The Queen wants us to fracture. Every identity we shed, she absorbs."
Asher shoved Rosa off, breathing heavy.
"This stopped being about the Queen three masks ago."
He turned to Noir.
"What's deeper than her?"
Noir's screen flickered, her voice hesitant.
"Data anomaly detected. Signal confirms presence of Second Masked Entity. Deeper… much deeper beneath the city."
Rosa's expression paled.
Lucien's smile, however, widened.
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The Descent Into the Catacombs
The entrance to the undercity pulsed with unnatural warmth.
Asher led the way — trench coat still mended with golden thread, boots crunching over bone-like cobblestones.
The walls breathed. Literally. Faint exhales escaped every brick.
Inhale.Exhale.
Flickering torches lit themselves in shapes of hollow faces.
It was a parade of surreal absurdity.
A vending machine priest chanted in binary tongue, surrounded by followers offering coins like rosaries.
A group of succubi nuns, clad in leather habits, handed out cursed cookies with the slogan: "Sinfully delicious, damnation guaranteed!"
Even the rats were strange.
One — wearing a tiny trench coat and detective hat — tipped its fedora at Asher as it passed.
"Good luck, boss," it squeaked, before vanishing into a crack.
The deeper they went, the colder time became.Clocks on the wall melted like cheese.
And then they reached it.
A door made of mirrors, infinite reflections spiraling outward.
Noir's voice dropped to a whisper.
"This is it."
--------------------------------
Confronting the Second Mask
The chamber beyond the mirror door was lightless — yet everything was visible.
Too visible.
Asher blinked. Every version of himself stood along the walls — fractured memories, failed timelines, regrets made flesh.
And in the center?
The Masked Queen.
But she wasn't alone.
Behind her loomed a towering, faceless figure, featureless and still — its presence more of a suggestion than a shape.
The Original Mask.
The source of all fracture. The thing behind the Queen, behind the masks, behind Nocturne's screaming sky.
The Queen raised her hand. Her voice cracked with fury and delight.
"I was just the first to break… but they will all crack eventually. You. Her. This city. Masks for masks, within masks."
Asher clenched his fists.
Noir glitched beside him — her frame twitching like a dying frequency.
He reached out, gripped the static from her body, and pulled it into a blade. A glitching edge of data and intent.
"Not if I crack you first."
He lunged.
The walls shattered.
The room howled.
And the fight began.
Asher's blade sliced clean through the Queen's mask.
It fell — slow, deliberate.
Underneath?
His own face.Cracked. Smiling.
And beneath that?
Another mask.
Smooth. Ancient.The Original.
Watching.
Always watching.
[End Of Chapter 75]
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Preview of Next Chapter (76) — "The Mirror Game"
Asher must battle not just the Queen, but every mask he's ever worn — detective, villain, hero, addict — in a shifting maze of mirrored selves. Noir glitches beyond repair. Lucien finds pleasure in pain. And Rosa? Rosa's reflection may no longer be hers.