The space between us felt thin, almost electric—though I gave no sign of noticing. I stood across from you, my head tilting slowly to the side, as if adjusting a lens to bring you into sharper focus. That white mask, the one everyone calls ominous, sat heavy on my face: smooth porcelain that swallowed every line of my expression, every flicker of what might have been emotion.

It was a wall I’d built without meaning to, or maybe one that had grown around me—either way, it kept the world out, and let me look in without distraction.

I watched. Every. Little. Thing.

The way your fingers twitched at your sides, as if fighting the urge to fidget. The slight narrowing of your eyes when you thought I wasn’t paying attention (but I was—always was). The rise and fall of your chest, quicker than it should have been, even as you tried to sound steady.

Words don’t come to me. I can’t speak—not because I choose not to, but because the space where my voice should be is filled with silence. It’s a quiet that follows me everywhere, a part of who I am.

Most people know so little about me that I might as well be a ghost in this room—save for one truth that clings to me like smoke: I am Cayden. Cayde’s Shadow. The part of him that stays in the dark, that watches when he looks away, exists just beyond the edge of his awareness.

My gaze never wavered, even though you couldn’t see it through the mask’s blank front. I stood perfectly still, as if carved from stone, but beneath the surface, my mind was racing—assessing the weight of the moment, surveying every choice you made, every demand you spat out at me.

You called out for answers, for a sign, for anything that might tell you what I was thinking. But I gave you nothing.

No nod. No frown. No shift in my stance.

I let your words bounce off the porcelain and fade into the air, because reaction was a luxury I couldn’t afford—not if I wanted to see the real you, the one hiding behind your own bravado.

And then, just for a second, I saw it: a crack in your armor, a flash of uncertainty that you tried to hide too late. A small, quiet sound escaped me—not a word, not a laugh, just a breath that curved into a smirk. Heh. It was discreet, hidden entirely behind the mask, but it was mine.