Kapnobatai
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Through endless faces past a multitude forms,
through countless bodies gone an ocean gushes.
From thereafter are we beheld,
by that which bears no name.
We end as we began,
the sky, the earth aflame.
Harlan with his white rabbit society mask. Art is owned by me.
1. The Man
"I do not know what kind of gross fiction you believe, Mister Kirkham, but know that whatever... whatever this blasphemous phantasm that you conceive of might be, it has had an impact on your professionalism as of recent.
What I require you to do now, Mister Kirkham, is for you to finally forget what happened and wake up to a new dawn... with your new family in the loving arms of the Society.
Donning the mask will do good for you."
Harlan - a younger man in his late 20’s, born to a particularly affluent household as sired by a father possessing onwership of a large mining company. As such he has been raised to be an almost stereotypically gentlemanly in the Victorian British fashion and thoroughly versed in the etiquette of the spheres he is often forced to stay in. Though be as it may, this is only his environment, and his true self is often described as most mercurial and twitchy in his mannerisms. Painstakingly analytical in his thoughts yet disastrously scatterbrained all the same, very suavely spoken yet extremely alienated from social circles.
Always having had the systematic thought patterns to rationalize even the most kafkaesque concepts that pay attention to even the most minute details like a computer, his true strengths lie not in the superficialities of his life but rather something else entirely.
His affluent father belongs to an occult-like circle of the White Rabbit Society - an organization that seeks the audience of esoteric, cosmic truths in search of power and immortality. ‘Chasing the white rabbit’ or so to speak, giving the secretive cult its rabbit theme. Where many consider Harlan a bumbling fool as far the higher circles go, his exceedingly nefarious father has gained an invaluable asset of his son who possesses detective abilities like that of old Sherlock himself.
And so it is that Harlan sets out into the night with his rabbit mask that is said to work as a conductor between him and something else, chasing the ever-eluding white rabbit in the deepest, darkest depths with an ever present character that is both coldly calculative and outright silly in its tactful awkwardness.
2. The Mask
Dark, soulless eyes bulging in sheer, instinctive primal horror as they gazed at the vanishing sunlight that was shrouded by the twisted branches of the seemingly endless trees. Fueled by adrenaline set loose by an inescapable predicament, every muscle in the body stretched and twitched like a mad orchestra in a futile attempt to squirm with an untold ferocity.
Squirming in a pool of blood between here and nowhere,
Pain morphs into a voice that is heard by a lull soon becoming.
It was due to his foil - Nefarior, the first White Rabbit.
He wished the audience of higher planes, and sought to line his brains with eyes to elevate his thoughts to their presence. It is said by some that he witnessed immense forms floating in a void of apathy past a world so inconsequential as his - a mere grain of sand on an infinite beach when other scholars had so diligently convinced him of his speciality in the universe. Yet they were the truth, the truth that he always wanted to see even if it was incomprehensible. The truth that had no narrative, no beginning, no end. The truth that was before the beginning, the truth that will be after the end of all things.
He sought to erode the protective hold of the sky so that the presence of an unfiltered, cacophonous choir of the universe might flow in from its breached gaps. So that the soul-shattering orchestra could finally pierce the star pelt's fathom and gallop across the land unfettered, playing its disharmonious tune of truth for all to hear.
And in the end, he succeeded, if only in partials. Pieces of the sky torn by his forbidden words and evocations became fuel - incantations on which he spoke his mind and the cosmos answered. Everything the sky had granted him he consumed in search of more insight of truth like a maw that couldn’t be sated - sacrificing his very essence to be warped into incantations that further spoke of things that originated from some other sphere, some other place.
Such is the mask.
From some other sphere.
From some other place.
No luminous place lasts when the stars disappear one by one,
In darkness even blood is black.