Visage

1/25/23, watching a playthrough of Visage. It’s a horror game that so far as I know has nothing to do with this freewrite.

“It has to be a Figment.” Abel whispers to himself, “There is no way that thing is human.” His eyes follow the figure jumping from car roof to car roof, punching through the driver-side window, grabbing the driver, and throwing them onto incoming traffic. But it’s more than these extraordinary feats of strength and athleticism that catches his eye. The figure appears human but has no visible skin. It is covered in a coating of dark-gray hard plastic more than an inch thick. No other clothes except for a round baseball helmet tight on its head, blocking any view of potential hair. And its face–if it has one–is hidden behind a mirror that appears to be welded to its head.

Abel has heard about this entity on the radio. The latest news stories claim that it is human since photography and video have successfully captured its likeness. Abel had believed those claims before, since there would be no reason to fake an image. Now seeing it in-person, he would sooner believe that the entire world conspired to create fake images of this entity rather than accept that this thing is human.

The entity jumps from another car roof to the side of a skyscraper. It grips the concrete wall, cracking it. Then punches the wall, causing cracks to spiderweb. A last punch causes it to crumble. Then it disappears into a cloud of dust billowing from the debris as shouts erupt from the building. Abel needs to know for himself. He can’t trust that this is a human. He takes out his phone, ready to take a picture. The bodies of the victims writhe in the road as traffic swerves around them.

Visage, they call it. For the last thing you see before it deranges you is your own grinning face, reflected back at you in the mirror welded to its head. The dust begins to settle as the screaming stops. The victims probably no longer have a mouth to scream with. The crater in the skyscraper is dark, so Abel turns on his flash and snaps a picture from hundreds of yards away. The bodies writhing on the streets do not appear in his photo. Neither does Visage. He looks between his camera and the scene in front of him. Visage is not there. It must have gone deeper into the building. Abel is curious about the entity, but he doesn’t have a death wish. So he decides to leave well enough alone.

…

…

…

Abel traces his face with his index finger. He points at his eyes with his index and middle finger, then twists his wrist to point those same fingers forward, pointing at nothing. I saw it. I saw Visage. Abel gestures to his reflection in the mirror via sign language, It isn’t human.

Abel’s reflection in the bathroom mirror frowns. You think it’s a 3D Figment? Abel’s Reflection, Babel, asks in sign language.

Abel isn’t sure what to think. It has to be a 3D Figment. Abel signs, What else could it be?

…

Abel crosses the intersection, walking along the pedestrian crossing lines. His Shadow, Cabel, is out of sight, having gotten distracted with a newspaper blowing in the wind. The image of Visage dancing across the front page article. A 2D Figment, proof that Visage must be human for he could not be a Reference to spawn a Figment unless he were human. It is one of the basic principles of Figmentology: Every Figment is a visual representation of a Reference. A Reference is always a living human. Thus, any attempt to visually represent an object, plant, animal, or Figment inevitably produces Still-Life. An inanimate, non-living image. Yet every visual representation of a living human, a Reference, invariably produces a Figment.

Cabel seems very interested in the 2D Figment in the newspaper. Cabel wasn’t with Abel when Abel saw Visage. Cabel doesn’t usually pay attention to the local news. This may very well be Cabel’s first time learning of Visage’s existence. It’s hard to tell with Shadows. It’s really hard to communicate with Shadows. Sign Language doesn’t work well with their silhouetted form. They can spell out words or tap word walls. But such communication isn’t all that cumbersome, but it still dissuades people from attempting to communicate with their Shadow. For this reason, many Shadows abandon their Reference.  Not so with Cabel. He sticks around Abel for the most part. Or at the very least, Cabel usually stays within the same city as Abel. Sometimes Abel asks Cabel what he does while they are separated from each other. Cabel usually gives vague answers, probably due to the difficulty of the communication barrier preventing further detail.

…

It’s dark. It’s night. And wandering through the fog, the silhouette of a man staggers, stumbling forwards. The guards at the oil rig tighten their grip on their rifles. Alcohol is forbidden upon the waterbound oil rigs. And for good reason, a drunkard could cause serious trouble.One of the two guards pulls out a walkie-talkie. “Gibby to Command, I’m reporting a drunk in Sector A18.”

“Command to Sector A18. Please confirm visual.” The shortwave radio calls out from the guard’s jacket. “Cameras don’t show anyone in Sector A18. Over and out.”

Gibby toggles his voice transmitter, “Visual confirmed. There is a drunk man staggering towards us about 20 meters away. Over and out.” He sets his communicator into his vest pocket and turns towards his partner guard. “What do you think we ought to do about the drunk?” Gibby asks. His partner stands still and stoic. He can’t quite remember his name. They rarely have the same shift, but they’re short staffed at the moment.

The shuffling figure nearly falls but catches themself on a wall, leaning against it for support.  Gibby flicks his wrist, causing the flashlight to pop out of his bracelet. He shines it at the approaching drunk. His blood goes cold. The light reflects off the inky black silhouette.

“Command to Gibby.” Gibby’s transmitter crackles in sudden concern, “Gibby. Please confirm, you are at Sector A18? Cameras show no one in Sector A18.” Gibby’s takes a step backwards. He can’t pay attention to whatever Command is saying to him. The figure coated in an inky black, like reflective oil staggers towards Gibby and his partner.

Gibby’s vision goes blurry as his fear begins to overtake his senses. He grips his rifle with shaky hands. “P-partner, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” The guard to Gibby’s side says nothing, remaining perfectly stoic. Motionless. “Partner?” Gibby asks, uncertain.

“Command to Gibby! Please respond.” Gibby’s communicator buzzes. “Confirm your location.”

Gibby’s voice catches in his throat as he tries to speak. Then he hears another walkie-talkie crackle with words from Command. A walkie-talkie clipped to the shirt of the stumbling inky-black figure. “Command to Shiloc. Do you have eyes on Gibby? We’ve lost contact with your partner.”

Gibby’s eyes narrow as a surge of adrenaline forces his vison back into crystaline precision. The shape of the oily, ooze-like entity. A badge on a vest pocket. A standard communicator pinned to the collar. A suppression rifle holstered along its waist. Gibby nearly buckles beneath the realization. If the figure in front of him wears the uniform of a guard… Gibby looks to his side at his stoic partner. The man’s face is shadowed by his cap leaning down on his head. Gibby flashes his light at him. The blank face of a mannequin watches the floor lifelessly. “P-partner?” Gibby stutters.

The faceless mannequin finally stirs. It looks up at Gibby. If it had a face, they’d be staring eye-to-eye. Gibby succumbs to panic. He fires his suppression rifle at the 3D Figment–the mannequin. The soft pellets splatter against the hard-plastic. The mannequin shakes its head as though disappointed. The Figment walks carefully towards the inky black figure that wears a true guard’s uniform. The darkness falls from the stumbling man, and the Shadows separate around in the fog. Tens of silhouettes scatter in the reflective vapor. With the Shadows no longer overlapping his form, Gibby can recognize Shiloc. Or… it used to Shiloc. The Deranged Figment, a mere echo of the man he used to be. The mannequin rips the communicaytor from Shiloc’s living corpse. The transmitter crackles with voice. But this one is unfamiliar. It’s not Command speaking.

“We’ve spared you, human.” The communicator cries out, “Someone needs to tell the tale of what happened here. When the Coast Guard rescues you in the morning–tell them about us. The Shroud and his Shadows.” Gibby is speechless. Shiloh’s remains struggle to pull out itts suppression rifle. “Not so fast.” The mannequin, it called itself the Shroud, says through the communicator in its hands. It grabs the Deranged with its free hand and effortlessly tosses the living corpse down into the stormy waters below.

The Shroud walks off into the fog, the Shadows creep through the fog, silhouettes as though an army. Gibby collapses to the ground and blacks out. Shroud chickles through the communicator. Then he pulls back the mask covering his head. Revealing his face. “How did that go, you think?” He asks the Shadows surrounding him the fog. They all gesture emphatically with a special language Shroud has taught them. Something he has dubbed “Shadesign,” but which is probably better described as “Shadow Dance.” Posing and movement are the key factors since small details such as hands and facial expression are impossible to read on a Shadow. Shroud’s associates have done well. The few survivors he has spared should be able to spread his fame. Soon, the government will take him seriously and consider his demands.

…

Abel sits up in his bed, having woken suddenly. He catches glimpses of movement in his room. He claps twice, and the light turns on. He releases a sigh of relief when he sees the intruder. It’s just his Shadow, Cabel, back from a nightly excursion. Abel shakes his head. He can’t believe he was scared of his own Shadow. Such 2D Figments are entirely harmless, incapable of physically interacting with the world.

Abel gets up out of bed. Now that he’s awake, he has to use the bathroom. He yawns as he passes by his Reflection, Babel, in the bathroom mirror. Babel quickly signs a question, asking Abel why he’s awake. A few gestures in response, Abel briefly explains that Cabel’s return startled him awake. Babel wishes Abel a goodnight and he returns to bed. His Figments sign to each other as Abel drifts back to sleep.

Do you think he knows? Babel asks Cabel via sign language.

I didn’t tell him. Cabel responds in Shadesign, You’ve been keeping him away from Visage, right?

Yes. I’ve had a few close calls where he has seen Visage in-person. Babel remarks with trembling anxiety, And I don’t think he even knows about Shroud yet.

The both of them pause for a bit. A break in the conversation. Then Cabel the Shadow continues. We can’t hide this from him forever. With how the government has treated Figments for the past millennia, the day of reckoning is at hand.

I know. I’ve been hoping we could prevent Abel from getting involved in the revolution. Babel the Reflection signs, face downtrodden with sadness, But he’s started to catch on to hints in the news. Figments all around the world are starting little rebellions. Growing unrest was always going to break out into war.