Behind D Mask

e be taken by something so cru

r - a need, a hunger for the truth. I could still remember the headline: "Tragic Explosion Claims the Life of a Famed Innovator." An acciden

knew b

ing miraculous, something the world didn't even know it needed until it existed. Every blueprint, every prototype was a step toward a future he

posed to stan

technology we had dreamed about late into so many nights. Bionic limbs that moved like real

wasn't

ur kitchen, clutching a phone slick with s

ccid

xplo

s g

uture, my purpose, my he

the person who taught yo

d when the ground bene

big, booming sound that used to fill our home,grew rare and brittle, like thin ice threatening to crack. My mother tried

the halls like a ghost, clutching the stuffed bear Grandad had given him,

han a grandfa

int of who I was

kins, learning to solder wires before I could even spell half the words he muttered under his breath

voice deep and full of certainty. "Not jus

believ

arther. I wanted to show him ,to show myself, that I could be more than

f had ot

eezed until all that was left was a hollow ache and a

ve

abstract conc

love when it had been

n I had seen, firsthand, how

built

nscalab

my heart. Around everyt

was better this w

ourself love, you don't ha

buried. Some questions do

I asked too many questions, documents that had once been public suddenly disappearing from archives. It wa

ng wasn

n't pretend

creamed that the explosio

dfather silenced. Someone

en the life we w

w who. I did

w I would

er what

dad had nurtured in me, but something darker, heavier, fueled

find the

er, no matter how broke

every lie, chase every ghost until the

y only t

n for br

li

en the purest goals, of resha

mor, hiding behind its own mask, weavi

I was seek

was chasin

into the arms of something, someone ,f

o wore his

itched just as carefully a

nd I thought I had hidden, every scar

death, I would find myself unraveling too much piece by

of healing the world no longer

n thing crept back into my shatte

would either save

e path when you

rcy when you tear o

the t

s I would soon l

e I wo

lin