[MASQ]

On one hand, I didn't exactly want to walk in on Hodek while he was still asleep and have to look at his empty open eyes again. Seriously, whenever I see him sleeping there is no light behind them. It's like he's possessed. But on the other hand, if I didn't wake him up now somebody else might. Besides, he could've gotten up earlier and just didn't leave the room yet. I was willing to take my chances. I wasn't sure why his eyes still unsettled me, though.

I gently knocked on the door, and was met with an irritated "What."

"It's me. They're serving breakfast in, like, ten minutes. Can I come in?"

There was a long, strained pause.

"Yeah. Sure."

As I walked in, I noticed he wasn't moving from his spot. At all. He was keeping eerily still, like an animal being preyed on. I raised an eyebrow.

"Are you going to get up, or should I come back later."

A few seconds passed before it looked like he'd processed that. He sighed and shook his head, glancing up at me. Something seemed to click inside his head, and without a word he stood up and slowly approached me, grabbing my hand and holding it up to his face like it would turn to dust if he stared at it long enough. There was an unusually crazed look in his eyes; he must not have gotten a minute of sleep.

"Hodek, are you okay? Did something happen last night?"

Eventually, he seemed to realize what he was doing and stepped back. "Um. Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking about a lot, and then I thought I saw something and...nevermind." His eyes wandered to my shirt sleeve, and his expression melted into perplexity. "What are you wearing?"

"What do you mean? This is what I usually wear."

"No, it looks newer. 'Cept for all the cuts and tears, I guess."

I looked down at myself, realizing just how worn down my clothes had gotten from all this time on the run. I had washed them last night, mainly because I was afraid I wouldn't get another chance once today started. I shrugged.

"Just decided to get them cleaned. Come on, let's go before we start gathering dust."

I ignored Hodek's muttered question of "Who says that anymore...?" and led him down the hall, toward what I had decided to call the rays within the first two days of being here. It was a circle in the middle surrounded by about nine tunnels going in different directions, like a sun with its rays of light. The halls were numbered, but had no labels beyond that. I'd discovered last night that halls 1-5 all led to training areas, 6 went to the dining hall, 7 to the ballroom (I'll explain later), 8 to the base's entrance and 9 to Anniversary's office and dormitory. I remembered how back when I was still living here, everyone had been taught to rely on memory and deduction to get anywhere. Some of my brothers and sisters would "cheat" and write the locations down on their hands, or slips of paper. Some would draw entire maps of floors so it was all in one place. I think one person even carved something into their own skin so it wouldn't be removed when a guard found it and tried scrubbing it off. Even though it was breaking a rule, I held a small sense of admiration in me for their persistence. I found myself thinking now, Even if it's still against the rules, Hodek could use some sort of guide for when I'm not around.

"We're going down hall 6," I said without further explanation. It seemed he didn't need any.

"So that's the...cafeteria, or whatever you guys have. How do you know this already? Is this the exact same kind of system they used before you got...well, y'know." He sounded a bit groggy; even if he hadn't been sleeping, sitting on the side of a bed with your head down for hours will have its effects. I shook my head.

"Did some exploring yesterday. Oh, um...what was that thing you said, all those months ago? I'm going to try doing my version of that." I cleared my throat as if to make a speech. "Lesson one: we don't get our breaks just for resting. Use them wisely. As soon as I left your room before dinner time, I spent the rest of mine mapping out this place, figuring out which tunnel led to where."

"Well, it certainly is a little boot camp you've got yourself here, isn't it?" Hodek said, doing an uncanny impression of a chastising mother. I let out a single laugh. "Shut up."

When we arrived at the end of the hall, we were met with a room far more empty than I had expected for this time of day. Only about twenty people in total were seated and eating, and some were even walking out.

Are we late?

I shook my head. No, no, that can't be it. I was explicitly told that now was when they'd start serving food. Did they lie to me...?

Somebody I didn't recognize seemed to notice my confusion, and waved the two of us over with a sigh. They did it so subtly that for a moment I wondered whether they had actually meant to. I kept my grip on Hodek's arm as we made our way over, and the person raised a finger to point up. At what, I could only guess.

"Now, I'm not sure what it was like before, but there isn't just one hour per meal where everybody and their mother comes down here. There are shifts. And half the people that would've been here right now are on guard duty, anyway." They fixed me with a cautious look. "You're that new guy. Masquerade, right?"

"Oh, well, I wouldn't say I'm new."

"Right. Of course. It's just that you're a rare case, I guess. Now, him?" Their eyes shifted to Hodek, but their face didn't read disgust or fear more than curiosity. "That's new."

He narrowed his eyes as far as possible. "Thank you, I think."

"Why don't you two sit down? First shift's about to start."

Hodek shot me an uncertain glance, but took a seat with me anyway next to the recruit. Their gaze kept traveling back and forth between the two of us, like they were trying to figure out how on earth we ended up together, let alone back here.

"You're that guy who went practically unhinged during the 9:15 training period yesterday," they said as if just realizing it. "I'm Major. I was talking about it with my neighbors, we thought it was pretty cool. You really just went for it, huh?"

A few more people had sat down by then, eyes locked on the table, though I knew they were all listening. I felt the urge to throw them a warning glare, but reminded myself that there were no enemies here; only disagreements. Hodek made no such observation and kept talking.

"Sure, I kind of had to. This place, it doesn't exactly look like the friendliest underground city in the world. I'm gonna tell you now: don't even think about trying to use me for some kidnapping mission, or whatever. At least not until I'm under hypnosis."

"I'm afraid I can't promise you that, Hodek," said Major, who obviously knew that would surprise both of us. They blinked and tilted their head, as if to say, Yeah, I knew that. What are you going to do about it? "After all, even with two injured legs—and a broken rib, I'm guessing, based on the way you were holding yourself—you did pretty well back there."

Hodek certainly seemed caught off guard by that. Who wouldn't be? After a while, he responded with his usual disinterested voice, but with a thin layer of discomfort underneath that I was sure only I had picked up on.

"And you're definitely...observant," he said, as if he was making a considerable effort to choose a less harsh word than something like creepy or nosy. "I can see why they wanted you, you look like you're built to fight."

Major had lifted a cup of plain black coffee to their mouth, but decided to set it down before taking a sip. They arched an eyebrow, their entire face reconfiguring into one that said loud and clear, I'm testing you.

"'Wanted' me? Well, who's they, first of all?"

Hodek didn't read the signals to take what he'd said back, and leaned forward even more with his hands twitching, but still locked together. "You know. They. Whoever runs this place, that woman, Annie-something."

"Anniversary," I whispered out of the side of my mouth. He sighed.

"Yeah, whatever. Anniversary. Point is, they found you, saw what you had, and plucked you off the ground to train here with the rest of them. Performed some standard indoctrination shit, and here we are."

I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands, seconds away from slapping tape or anything else I could find over his mouth. Please, Hodek, do not make them kill you.

Major, for whatever reason, seemed almost amused. There was a subtle yet horrible weight to their voice now that told me Hodek had went too far, but for the most part everything else was fine. I felt their fingers drumming on the table, rapid and like clockwork.

"Hm. Well, you're new here. You don't get it, I guess I can't really blame you. But I'm not here right now because somebody wanted me. I belong with these people. And they belong with me. We all haven't fit anywhere else so perfectly. We're a family, right, Masquerade?"

"Oh, you can try and tell him that," I groaned jokingly from behind my hands. "He's not exactly what I'd call trusting, Hodek here."

He gasped and flicked my mask between the eyes. "An insult!"

"Like you care!" I was about to laugh at this point. With that, the tension building up from this conversation seemed to melt away, and I was able to lift my head again while Jeff pinched a lock of his own hair to keep his hands busy.

"Okay, so maybe I'm stubborn. We'll put it that way. He actually told me a lot about you guys, I just never thought we—"

"He told you?"

Somebody piped up from the other side, and I cursed them out in my head as the attention of the entire table was drawn to us. Hodek's eyes anxiously scanned the various distressed and suspicious faces before him, and he cleared his throat.

"I-I mean, if he's not supposed to do that, he didn't. I..." after a few more seconds, he leaned toward me and muttered, "I'm making this worse, aren't I."

I closed my eyes and nodded, folding my hands on the table as I tried preparing some sort of explanation.

"Hodek and I...well, needless to say, we couldn't risk being seen in public. If at all. Anything I may have told him was to help find you all, and it was heard by him only. Any others I've disclosed that information to are now dead." I opened my eyes again and looked up, any small sense of hope petering out in my chest like a dying flame. "You can trust...us." In reality, I felt that statement wasn't as true as it could have been. Sure, I wasn't going to betray my own family any time soon, and I was certain I'd be able to keep Hodek from strangling someone when push came to shove. But "us" sounded wrong, because when I said trust, I meant it in completely different ways for him and I.

Oh, well. They all can take that as they'd like.

I looked around the room and saw that ready trays of food had been put out. I softly cleared my throat and pulled on the edge of one of Hodek's sleeves. "Let's get breakfast."