The Fall: Chapter 2. Gluttony

Huang Ming is the CEO of Huang Ming Inc., a company renowned for producing and selling various electronic devices manufactured through the Huang Ming Technology—a patented engineering concept developed by Huang Ming himself. 

Therefore, I can only meet up with Huang Ming in his office, located at the 78^th floor of the Huang Ming Tower, which is also the highest floor. This tower is located in the nearest town, known as the Huang Ming Town, dedicated to the glorious Huang Ming himself. It is not too far from here.

I am hungry. I have not eaten for days, or weeks. I am unsure of the time I spent unconscious. Nevertheless, I have to eat. Huang Ming believes that food is energy, and an energy-depleted person is an inefficient person. However, edible food is scarce in a place like this.

I walk. I jog. I run. I stop to watch as pigeons fly by. I am getting bored. I walk.

                                                  

I see a very skinny young man, around his early teens, walking opposite of my direction. He is munching on French Fries. He does not eat one at a time; he munches all at once. Within three seconds, the entire box of fries is empty. I ask him if he has another box. I kneel down and beg. He pities me, but refuses to offer another box, although it is obvious that his right hand is holding another box filled with fries.

“I love to eat, but all my friends laugh at me because I was fat! Now I have to starve to be thin, but I can’t help it, I need to eat!”

This poor young man’s story is so sorrowful that I immediately shed a tear. Huang Ming would’ve shed a flood of tears. I remove my mask and hand it to him. He wears it. He shall not face the cruel judgement of society ever again!

“You are now reborn.”

“I… I don’t know what to say. Thank you, mister! I know that I might seem ungrateful, but I am feeling very lucky!”

He hands me his full box of fries and walks off.

I walk while eating fries. They are very salty. I cannot withstand such abuse of natural salts. How can one enjoy food with this much salt? Salt is used to enhance taste, not completely smother it. Yet, I am a starving man, so I eat. I munch. I chew. I spit. My stomach is bloated, but my tongue is sore and dry. I have energy to walk, yet I do not have energy to think nor speak. Huang Ming will not like this. The world is filled with so many types of delicious, nutritious food, and I have to resort to eating salt. Because of this, I am now intensely dehydrated. However, deep down inside, I am confident that Huang Ming will forgive me for this, for I have rescued the lives of two people today.

I spot an ice cream truck parked on the roadside. There is no one in it. The door is unlocked. I enter the truck. It is very congested, only having room for about a single grown man. A row of metal cabinets, counters, sinks and refrigerators are lined up on my left, and sixteen large rectangular containers, filled with various ice cream flavours, lined up on my right. Sixteen! Who can possibly resist ice cream? Even Huang Ming loves desserts! Desserts make Huang Ming a happy man, provided that Huang Ming does not eat to the point of excessive pleasure! I pick up a metal scooper. I reach for the metal container filled with chocolate ice cream, scoop it up, and eat it.

It is drugged.

I know what drugs taste like. The ice cream is mixed with nicotine, giving it a mildly peppery, slightly spicy flavour. I do not doubt myself. The owner of this truck wants everyone to get addicted to their ice cream! Huang Ming will be devastated at this.

I open the refrigerator. It is nothing but a big, cold empty box, with one giant container, about half my height (and I’m rather tall), filled with vanilla ice cream. I scoop it up and eat it.

I only taste sweetness and heaven, nothing else, no drugs. The owner must have been keeping a container to indulge himself! He abuses the addictive qualities of nicotine to earn enough money to cover the fact that he has been stealing ice cream!

This is unacceptable. Huang Ming hates drugs, but he hates gluttons more. I have to find the bastard responsible for this and teach him a lesson!

I eat just enough ice cream to fill me up, but not too much as not to pleasure myself. Huang Ming believes that if the physical pleasure of eating cannot be controlled, then other pleasures such as wealth, fame, and drugs will overcome us!

I spot another white mask on the counter next to the refrigerator. I wear it.

I leave the truck. I see a man, roughly in his late teens running towards me. He must be the truck’s owner. I will never run. I have to lecture him for his breach of customer trust.

The man appears to be frightened of me, not because of my looks, but because of my insistence to stay and not run away. He bow his head.

“I… have no food at home. I have no family, so I have to work by myself. I am forever a reject due to my poor background. I do not intend to betray the customers’ trust, I only want… food…”

He spoke with sincerity, I can feel that. Huang Ming can definitely feel that as well. I remove my mask and give it to him. He wears it. He no longer will be labelled as “that poor man”, but rather, “the man who works hard”.

“You are now reborn.”

“Thank… you!”

His eyes struggle to cage in his vast amount of tears. He leaves.

However, I am still very thirsty. As I approach the town, I find five filled bottles on the ground to the right of me. Right next to them is a white mask. I pick it up and wear it.

“Ya need a drink?”

A man appears behind me. He seems rather young, probably in his early twenties, but has the look of a seventy-year-old, with saggy eyes, hunched back, veins protruding through the skin. He looks miserable.

“Dis’ like water to me. Some stuffs mixed; makes me high, ya know? High is good.” The bottles are obviously filled with beer, mixed with some drugs.

“None likes me! Dis shit is ma only friend! I go meet ma boss, I kinda high, just one time! One time! She had stupid face and me fly! Now me here, waitin die!”

Because of one incident, this poor man has lost his future, and now turned into a glutton for alcohol and drugs. I committed suicide due to one incident as well, so I can relate to him. Huang Ming will definitely forgive this man. So I remove my mask and give it to him. He wears it.

“You are now reborn.”

“Ya know, I love ya bro! When my high go fly, I go work till I die!”

He leaves. I find a sixth bottle right behind me. It is filled with water. What a coincidence! I finish the entire bottle in five big gulps. Huang Ming must be very proud of me! Huang Ming must be a hap…

The Fall: Chapter 3. Lust

"You’ve fallen from grace, haven’t you?”

I do not know how to answer that. In fact, I haven’t even open my eyes yet. So I open them. I realize that I have woken up on the laps of a woman.

I know the woman. A blonde-haired, twenty-something, tall and well-endowed woman. She used to work for Huang Ming. Huang Ming loved her very much; not in the romantic sense, but for her capabilities, her diligence, her friendliness… According to Huang Ming, everything about her is perfect; she just had one flaw, a flaw so significant that Huang Ming abandoned her. Had Huang Ming not abandon her, Huang Ming’s life will suffer a drastic turn of events.

“I guarantee that you’ll like this, sweetheart…”

She flashes a smile before removing her light-blue jacket, revealing a tight dark-blue singlet underneath. She caresses my left cheek with the back of her right fingers. She slowly places that same hand on my right cheek, gently stroking downwards.

Huang Ming will not like this.

I realize that the water I drank is drugged. What’s with me and drugs today? Also, what’s with me and sinful people today? Also, I am not wearing a mask. I feel exposed.

She carefully avoids the wound, while slowly bringing her hand to my abdomen. It continues its path downwards. Slowly, yet surely, I understand what she wants. Yet, what she wants is not what I want, because what I want is what Huang Ming wants.

I shake my head. She sees it. Her hand does not stop. I quickly lift my head and turn around, facing her. I remain silent. I have no need to question her actions, because Huang Ming does not like questioning the obvious.

“There is no one here.”

I will not give in to trivial pleasures like this. I must. So I stand up. I run. She chases. It is a seemingly endless corridor that gets darker the further we run.

She starts to pull her tight singlet up, whilst still running. It is the most awkward, desperate act any human can ever do.

“You’ve fallen from grace, haven’t you?”

I wake up on her laps. Again. Her face is blue. Green. Red. No, that is the colour of the sky. No, wait. Now I’m certain that she has drugged me; or drugged the water to drug me; or maybe I’m just an unlucky man who drank drugged water.

I stand up and run. She chases. However, I can no longer run a long distance. I feel dizzy. The world is spinning. She is spinning. I think of Huang Ming, and Huang Ming is spinning.

“You’ve fallen from grace, haven’t you?”

I wake up on her naked laps. She is naked. All of her lustful glory is exposed to the world. Not really. We are in some endless corridor. A rather dark one. But it doesn’t change the fact that she is in her most natural form. This is not good.

I will have to escape before I give in to temptations. Yet, I have been drugged. So I believe Huang Ming will understand. Yes, even the almighty Huang Ming himself will become less of a human when exposed to drugs!

“Come here, baby.”

I am enlightened. An act like this will not be of notice to anyone, as there is music in the background! A piano-driven romantic song. There’s violin! Ooh, a wrong note! That makes my ears bleed! Ah, no one will find out about this! Not even Huang Ming!

“I tell you this, there is no man that have ever managed to run away after seeing me! I am the weakness of all men! This includes you!”

Yes, I’ve changed, my dear! I can no longer listen to Huang Ming’s words due to this song! This beautiful song! And your beautiful eyes! Your curvy natural form! Your childishly playful heart! Everything about you has enlightened me! I realize that I no longer need Huang Ming, I only need you! Come to me, baby! Pleasure me with everything you’ve got!

I approach her lips. I can feel it, her natural, soft, smooth pink lips. It feels so… dusty?

She turns into colourful dust. She disappears into the air. I am alone.

I find a mask on the ground. I pick it up and wear it.

I have to hurry. I believe that I am already late for the meeting. I run.

I hear the wails of a woman. A woman kneeling before me! Her hands covering her sobbing eyes!

“I decided that I did not want to be a man, as I want to experience pleasure from a woman’s point of view; so I sold drugs to fund for my gender change operation. Now, after seeing you, who is masked from the world, escape from me, I realize that pleasure isn’t everything! I am too ashamed to face the world!”

It is a very pitiful story, albeit a bizarre one. In fact, I don’t think that Huang Ming will believe this absurd story, not even one bit! But since it’s told by this woman, who was abandoned by Huang Ming, I earnestly believe every single word of it.

I remove my mask.

“You want to give it to me? That won’t do. No matter how ashamed I am of myself, I have to keep a part of myself intact, as a reminder to the future me of the wrongdoings I’ve done!”

I break the mask into half. I wear the left half, and I give her the right half. I am certain that Huang Ming will not lambast me for tearing the mask apart.

“You are now resurrected.”

The Fall: Chapter 4. Envy

She leaves without saying a word. I feel indifferent, as I believe that witnessing the positive outcomes of wearing the mask overpowers any simple “thanks”.

I can’t wait to feast my eyes on the resurrected form of the lustful woman. Huang Ming will be proud of me for changing her life.

I continue walking down the corridor. Huang Ming Town is on the other side.

I am in town. There is not much to see. People walking about. Children crying. Beggars begging. Drunkards drinking. Crows shitting on people’s heads. People shooting down crows. It is a very busy place. It is also a very stupid place. All I can see are people and crows.

Also, I see a very sad man. He is kneeling on the floor. His mouth is arced downwards. It looks a bit like he came out of a cartoon, with his gigantic teary eyes, phlegm waterfalling down both nostrils, and saliva drooling out of his lips. He speaks something; not to me, but to anyone who’s willing to listen to him; Huang Ming will definitely lend a shoulder, so I have to as well. Huang Ming is my mentor.

The atmosphere is a noisy one. His words are not clear. He repeats fifty more times. I get a rough idea:

“Do you love me?”

Apparently, the folks in the mental asylum did not love me enough to properly examine my body. Damn them to hell.

I approach the man. He seems like a young adult, somewhere in his thirties. I want to tell him that I love him as a fellow human, but before I can say thing:

“How are you… alive?”

                                           

I am not good at answering questions in which I have to vomit out a book’s worth of explanation.

People know my face. I am famous. Well, more like “infamous”. Wearing half the mask allow my past to shine through, but still allow me to be accepted by people. It’s the best of both worlds, as I don’t really have to hide anything.

But wearing half the mask changes situations a little… At least, according to Huang Ming. How little? I don’t know.

“It doesn’t matter… I’m in a much worse situation than anything you’ve ever faced in your entire stupid, stupid life! I’ve been rejected by my asshole of a girlfriend in front of all our friends! I am so damn embarrassed! I can no longer face anyone! It is all because of how I look! Stupid, stupid me! Am I that hideous?”

There are many reasons for me to punch him in the face, but Huang Ming advocates patience, tranquillity and understanding. Getting rejected? Is that any worse than getting involved in that one incident? At least you didn’t stab yourself with a damn pen out of spite!

Yet, I really admire his honesty; at least he doesn’t filter his words. I hide a lot of stuffs. I fear the opinions of others; he doesn’t—or maybe he does, because apparently he hates being called ugly.

But hey, at least he’s being truthful to his heart. I lie a lot. The both of us are but mere peasants to the great Huang Ming; Huang Ming is both honest and indifferent to spiteful opinions.

All he need is something to cover his one flaw, to rid him of his envy of so-called “prettiness”, and Huang Ming will be satisfied.

I want to give him the broken half of my mask, but about ten meters to the right of me, I have uninterrupted view of a man and what is supposed to be his male child. The crowd is still huge, still noisy, and still stupid.

I realize that I am beginning to sound a lot more offensive. Huang Ming is defensive, not offensive. I should start defending myself.

“Daddy, look at the man with the white mask and that crying man!”

“Yes, son, they are weird people, you should stay away from them.”

“No, daddy! I want to be like them!”

“What on earth are you saying? Be like them? Don’t tell me you’re envious of their weirdness. We normal people deserve better.”

They normal people? Oh really? If you people, who judge people based on their appearances and how they act, are normal, then this is truly a shitty world to live in. Those are Huang Ming’s words, not mine.

I shed a tear. I cannot understand. What is so wrong to be weird? The kid’s wearing a shirt with a giant middle finger on it. That’s weirder. The father’s wearing his shirt inside-out. That is the weirdest.

But Huang Ming said that being strange in a strange society is normal. Yet, here I am, still estranged by strange people. I do not comprehend this situation.

“Hey mister! Can I have that mask of yours?”

I look towards the direction of the child’s father; he’s currently speaking with some lady, who I assume is the child’s mother.

I break the mask into another half; each piece is now a quarter of the original. I give one to the crying man, and one to the child.

The crying man wears the mask. It no longer fits his head, as even though this is some free-form “shape-shifting” mask that moulds its shape based on the wearer’s face, a quarter of it is… nothing but a white scrap of plastic.

The crying man brings the mask fragment to his chest. It disappears. It seems that the crying man’s broken heart is healed by the fragment! Such an amazing discovery! The crying man is now a happy man!

The child brings the fragment to his father, who also places it to his chest. It disappears. The man immediately kneel down. He apologizes to me. He even begs for forgiveness. What a wonderful power this is!

Things suddenly seem a little bit more… magical? And the mask now heals hearts, rather than hides one’s past? This is very unrealistic.

From now on, I refuse to believe that this is reality!

However, Huang Ming has predicted all this; two of his most famous quotes read:

“For a man who fears his past, fears his heart. For a man who is envious of others, is envious of his heart. The heart is the pride. Pride is the cause of all sins, and is also the effect of all sins.”

“A mask which hides the owner, hides the heart. A mask which hides half the owner, hides half the heart. Half a heart is still a living heart. A hidden heart is a dead heart. To man with a living heart, you are now resurrected! To man with a dead heart, you are now reborn!”

The Fall: Chapter 5. Wrath

From now on, I refuse to believe that this is reality!

I run through the crowd and emerge at the entrance of the Huang Ming Tower. I turn around and observe. Still a sea of people; not just in front of the tower, but surrounding the tower. It is a very boring sight. I enter the building through a revolving glass door, still unmasked.

Someone punches me in the nose. A man, to be specific. I’ve met many weird males today. I flinch backwards. I massage my nose. Luckily, it wasn’t a strong punch, but damn, my nose is bleeding!

“Son of a bitch! Don’t you dare enter this building like you own this place! What’s with that coffee-stained business suit? I’ve never seen your shitty face before!”

Let me think, this middle-aged man has a nose of a dog! He can smell this shit, even though I’ve bathed in the rain! I doubt he can actually see the stains; they’re all washed off.

The man seems to be holding a mop. A cleaner, I guess? A rather dirty cleaner with flies surrounding him (literally!).

“Ignore him, he has no parents, no friends, and his wife and kid left him.”

The cleaner stares at the man who spoke, who seems to be wearing formal attire similar to mine: white top, dark grey bottom, black shoes; without the overcoat. This man is slightly more wrinkled compared to the cleaner, although he certainly looks a lot cleaner. This is the most ironic situation.

“Mind your own shitty business. I clean. You work to help your fat ugly boss get his paycheck to pay me. It is that simple.”

“Oh, an uneducated, unloved, untidy cleaner talking back to me. I see. However, I am kind, so I will forgive you.”

‘Kind my ass!”

“You really want me to kind your ass, eh?”

The fight between the two rather immature men would’ve been more interesting to watch if Huang Ming is here. A fight. An actual fight. Huang Ming has been into fights before, but have never spectated a real fight; anyone who is near Huang Ming will never fight, for Huang Ming has such positive influence on everyone.

It would be perfect if I have my mask now, so that I can calm these two men and heal their hearts. But this is not something caused by the heart, no, pure wrath is caused by instincts.

Huang Ming will help me solve this. I just have to find him. I have to hurry.

I head towards the elevator. A businessman stands in front of me, slightly to the left. He turns around. His eyes are flaming.

“I do not recognize you. Please leave this building.”

Of course! No one recognizes me, how dare I forget? This isn’t reality, because I refuse to believe that this is reality!

“I said leave.”

Yet Huang Ming wants me to find him.

This man doesn’t know Huang Ming, therefore, my reason is invalid. When the elevator door opens, I simply walk towards it.

He tries to restrain me with his right arm. However, to act while angry is an instinctive act, not a rational one. I predict every single one of his moves, from a punch to the nose, to a kick to the shin, to a jab to the left eye, to a stab to the heart (using a pen). I simply step back to avoid each attack.

As he is exhausted, I simply walk in. Yes, all that is accomplished during the short period of time in which the elevator door stayed open. The door closes. I press the “78” button. The elevator starts rising. Yes, the elevator door opens again after the same amount of time in which the elevator door remained open.

I am on the 8^th floor.

The elevator door refuses to close. I wait for twenty seconds. The “close door” button does not work. So I leave. The elevator to the right of the one I was in is now on the 78^th floor. The other three elevators malfunctioned. This is going to take a while.

There’s nothing in front of me, except a wall with a picture of Huang Ming, and a single passage to the right.

I hear voices coming from a corner. I pretend to be normal, which is done by simply not pretending at all.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, but I found a way to save this company!”

I simply walk past the two businessmen around the corner. They did not notice me. A man walks past me while talking to someone on the phone.

“Yes, boss! I bet my entire life on this! You can trust me.”

Another businessman, also on the phone, passes by.

“You tell anyone about the truth, and I’ll kill your children in front of your eyes, and eat them!”

Another.

“Remember, never touch my laptop. Don’t even go near it. If anything goes wrong, I’ll slaughter you.”

Another. (This is getting repetitive)

“What the fuck did you just say? You saw someone spill his coffee on my desk?”

The Fall: Chapter 6. Greed

I reach the end of the corridor.

I know well enough that most of the eight floor is usually desolated. Huang Ming reserves the 8^th floor for “exquisite decorations” and “statues of good luck”. He believes that the number “8” represents fortune, endless wealth and prosperity. A floor blanketed with red carpet; a floor lined up with golden, jade, diamond statues; a floor with columns painted to resemble wood; a floor with a yellowish-orange tint due to its unique choice of lightings; a floor which feels rather out of place for a modern, rather “metallic” building.

As Huang Ming has blessed this journey of mine with beneficial coincidences, it is a sign that he hasn’t given up on me yet; or maybe, I haven’t given up on him yet. It’s the same both ways.

However, the 8^th floor is also a cursed floor, as anyone who takes one step into the floor will think that Huang Ming is a man of greed. There was a time when a staff accidentally stained one of the golden statues with water. When Huang Ming knew about it, he killed the staff out of pure spite. That’s a rumour, of course, but knowing Huang Ming’s rather haphazard personality, an act like that is not out of place.

I hear a voice.

I’m now hiding behind a rather large pillar located right next to the entrance to the super long (and repetitive) corridor. I peek out of my cover. A man stands in front of a gold statue of himself in a walking pose. Both the statue and the actual man are on the phone. They are both about twenty meters away from me.

“So you are interested in purchasing ‘Statue of a Leader: The Glorious Conversation’? As you already know, I am a very, very wealthy man. I do not simply sell my face for an island’s cost. No, I request seventy billion dollars for this.”

“So we have a deal? Good. I’ll deliver this statue to you, latest by next Monday.”

His stops talking and inserts his phone into his front pocket. The phone rings. He answers it.

“So you are also interested in purchasing ‘Statue of a Leader: The Glorious Conversation’? As you already know, I am a very, very wealthy man. I do not simply sell my face for an island’s cost. But I’ll make it cheap for you, since you are my best friend. I’ll only charge ninety billion dollars.”

“So you’ll buy for eighty billion? Sure, I have absolutely no problem to that. I will deliver this statue to you, latest by next Monday.”

He stops talking. He looks at his phone and presses stuffs (I can’t really get a clear image). He lifts the phone to his ear and starts speaking.

“Hey, can you kill ‘Contact #8221’ for me? We had a deal about a golden statue of mine, and I hate rejecting people.”

“Also, prepare to blackmail ‘Contact #20’ on Tuesday, after he has given me eighty billion for the statue. Extract ten billion from him. Kill him afterwards.”

“After you do that, please commit suicide on that very day, and I’ll donate three thousand to your family.”

I hear a faint ring of the elevator. I run towards it, and head towards the 78^th floor.

This is not a journey, this is an experience; this is a rescue mission.

The Fall: Chapter 7. Pride

The 78^th floor is a small one. It only consists of Huang Ming’s office, nothing else. The emergency stairways entrance, along with two elevators, and the lavatory are all located in this one room.

The room is lined up with a row of metal cabinets on both sides and a gold statue of Huang Ming right in front of the entrance. Huang Ming’s desk is located at the further end of the rather rectangular room. Behind the desk is his cushioned brown leather chair, and behind it is rather thick glass spanning the entire end of the room. Huang Ming has an affinity towards simplicity, yet he also takes pride in exquisiteness.

Dust piled in between the cabinet drawers and every crook and crevice. Two out of the five LED light tubes malfunctioned, stealing some of the shining glory away from the room. Newspapers are scattered throughout every single inch of the red-carpeted floor. One of them has a headline that read “Huang Ming Technology: The Biggest Scam of All Time?”

I continue walking. An empty cup lie solitarily on the ground near Huang Ming’s desk, staining a small area on the carpet with coffee. On the desk sits Huang Ming’s rather bulky black laptop computer, still charging. The computer screen displays an article that reads “Is This the End of Huang Ming Inc.?”

I walk towards the end of the room, past his desk. I move the chair to the side. I get close to the glass. I wonder to myself, where in the world is Huang Ming?

The glass breaks.

It starts with a rather large hole in front of me. Immediately, the surrounding glass shatters into sand-like particles. The quality of the glass is abysmal; it only looks sturdy, but is weaker than Styrofoam.

Just like the statues on the 8^th floor. None of them are made of real gold, they are only painted gold.

Just like Huang Ming.

I look down. Everything is blur, but I can roughly sketch an image in my head. I’m also good at guessing things.

I see a small yellow rectangle. It slowly disappears. It must be a safety cushion. And it is deflating.

I see red and blue flashing lights. It must be the ambulance, or the police, or firemen, or all three. The latter is most likely.

I see a black dot. It moves very wildly. Several other black dots surround it, I think. All the black dots head towards the flashing lights, then, the flashing lights start moving to somewhere.

It must be a man, and this man leaped to his death, only to be rescued and… Well, Huang Ming hates questioning the obvious, and he hates it when people does the same.

I turn around. I see the abandoned child from the junkyard, standing behind the desk.

He does not look at me. I don’t think he even knows that I’m here. Also, he seems a bit older.

“Teacher! A man once told me that I am ‘reborn’, that means I can live however I want to! So I will eat and keep eating! I will eat as a job! I will be the king of fries!”

The child is getting older. He grows taller, larger, and then skinnier.

“Man, if I keep eating, people will laugh at me. I am reborn now, so I’ll find a job that allows me to work and eat! An ice-cream seller sounds good!”

He gets older.

“I’m reborn. And I believe that I’ll continue to be reborn. So I’ll enjoy this life by taking drugs and drinking till I meet him again!”

“I’m reborn again! I knew it! I’ll do something riskier, like becoming a woman! When I meet the masked man again, I’ll pretend to be pitiful and beg him for that mask of his!”

“This can no longer continue. I have to accept my past, and move on. I asked to be resurrected, not reborn. I’ll use the remaining money from the drugs to be a man again, and a true man this time. I’ll find true love!”

“I shall no longer fear society, as the man resurrected me. I will find a girl, get married, have kids, and make the kid ‘tough’ so that he won’t have to experience what I’ve faced! I’ll give him a shirt with a middle finger on it!”

“My family hates me! They all left me! I have to start over from scratch! This sucks! I hate being resurrected! Damn, now I have to be a stupid cleaner!”

And he keeps growing. From a cleaner to a businessman; his clothes become more and more extravagant. His hair whiter and whiter. He was born a broken boy, and now he is a broken man.

“Who are you?”

He no longer recognizes me. He even refuses to look at me, instead, he looks at the area above me. I’m like a slave to him.

In front of me is the desk, and behind the desk is him. A fragment of the white mask appears on the desk. It is only half of the full mask.

“After you’ve become a businessman, you no longer chose to be resurrected or reborn.”

“What for? I have a vision, and I have all I need and want now. However, I know well enough that I don’t need you.”

I grab the mask, climb onto the top of the desk, jump towards him and press it onto his face.

He screams.

I return to the desk. I search for a word document named “Huang Ming Technology: Unedited Draft” on his laptop. I upload the document onto his website.

That is all.

All I wanted to do is to reconcile with Huang Ming. I want to help Huang Ming. I have to. It is my duty. But it is too late. Huang Ming is unfixable. Everything has to end.

Without me, Huang Ming is nothing but a man without rationality, a man too dangerous, too insane.

Pride is the worst of all sins.

A man… who could’ve avoided all this suffering… if his parents were a little more careful in their decisions…

I stand at the edge of the floor. I spread both hands to the sides, palms facing forwards. I look down. I see a white mask floating around. A full, unbroken white mask. I see it slowly fade. I slowly fade. But the white mask keeps coming back. Therefore, I will keep coming back. There is no need to be reborn. There is no need to be resurrected. There is no more hope in this life. I lean forward.

I fall.

After I’m gone, Huang Ming will be committed to a mental asylum, where he will be isolated from the rest. He will be locked into his own room to protect the other patients. Without me, he will no longer have any meaning in life.

Because I was, am, and will forever be Huang Ming.

The Fall

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7

The Fall (link) (Wattpad)

I committed suicide. I woke up. Now, I have to meet Huang Ming. I must. I cannot be late. Huang Ming does not like late people. I found a white mask. It will help me.

Genre: Mystery
Rating: PG-13 for mild language, mild sexual themes, mild violence, alcoholic/drug references