It was all noise suddenly. The mask blinded her from all things. In a way, it would protect her forever from the things that would hurt her. That was what the man had promised her anyway. And that was how she had lived since her had taken her away. She could still remember that day, when she could still see the horrors of the world and feel the pain visited upon her daily by those horrible men in labcoats. Then the other men had come, only this time they promised they would never abuse her or make her feel pain. She hadn't believed them one bit. They disappeared when she used her magic on them - a feeling that exhilirated her and terrified her but made every inch of her feel alive like nothing else before.

Then the other man had come. She would have killed him too, except he had something she never had before. He walked right up to her without losing that beautiful smile. His hair was blonde and slicked back perfectly, spiked straight and evenly. His wore a uniform almost like the white ones the one who hurt her wore, except his was somehow different, with more folds, little metal pieces and decorations and jingling bits that jangled when he approached her. He was tall, lanky, graceful, and easily the handsomest human she had ever seen.

Except she was sure that he was not human. His eyes were green but sometimes she would see them flash red for no reason at all. He had smiled that endless smile and offered her his hand and said he forgave her. She had killed his men, but he said they had been rude to her by pointing their weapons and shouting. His polite frankness shocked the girl. She quivered on the floor, in a puddle of blood. Baffled, she took his hand and he helped her to her untrustworthy legs. When she collapsed again, he removed his black labcoat and put it around her to cover her nakedness, which she thought was a silly thing to do. She was even more baffled by this strange gesture. The others never let her wear clothes before. Then he picked her up and carried her away into a noisy box that moved them to another place very fast.

He told her she would be safe now. He would never hurt her, and he would make sure no one else did. Then he explained the metal mask she was inside. How it would protect her, keep her warm, safe. Most importantly, someday it would help her be stronger, too.

Her tiny frail body encapsulated into that living mask had been her shelter from the world, and now it was noisy. It had not been this noisy since before the Man had stopped reading to her. The mask covered her entire body from head to toe. She could see nothing but she could hear his voice. The Man used to read to her every book he could get his hands on; she could ask him questions, but she usually stayed quiet and simply listened to him. She heard the Ilyead, Homer, Karl Marx, even religious texts like the Bible. Sometimes, to break up the long books, she heard Cat in the Hat, Berenstein Bears, and other children's literature even though she could not see the pictures. But he tried to describe them to her. Colors, the characters, backgrounds. She put them all together inside her mind and it was beautiful, this world he made for her. In her dark little world, she was God and made her own trees, her own people made of clay and sticks and rib bones. Then sometimes he would read to her in another language. She couldn't understand him, but it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

Then he stopped reading her to altogether with only a brief explanation: "I am sorry, mien frau. I must go away from you for awhile, but I am always thinking of you." His words felt like honey poured through her ears. She had wept in her mask for him, feeling that he had abandoned her forever, that had all been just a stupid fantasy that she could be like that forever. Listening to his beautiful, lyrical voice and strange outlandish tongue coating her ears with words, words, words.

Then, after days of nothingness, suddenly it was noisy. She heard shouting. And she was moving again, so suddenly and violently her stomach was turning upside down and inside out. She whimpered, asking over and over what was happening to her. Where was her Reader? Where had he gone? Would he come back?

No one answered. Everyone was shouting in a language she could not understand anyway. But the noise grew quieter and farther away... and suddenly there was a silence and a distant, heavy humming that she could feel in the backs of her molars. She breathed quick, shallow breaths, panicked thoughts cramming for space in her mind. Her vectors waved all around her little shell home, searching, searching. When she felt nothing, they drew toward her.

"Little one. Are you harmed?"

"Reader," she gasped. "You've returned!"

"I'm sorry for being away so long. Are you harmed?" She could feel him closing the distance between them. He was usually so far away, but he was as close to her now as that day when he had saved her.

"No," she answered.

In a moment, she heard his fingertips rasping along the metal encasing her skull. His voice growled close to her in that strange gruff accent that was more like a lion purring. "It is dark. May I open this, so I can see for myself that you are safe?"

The frail child trembled. He said it was dark, so it would not hurt her eyes. The mask hissed when it disconnected from the air circulation unit. Then he lifted the visor and lowered the mouthpiece a little. If it had been years since he had closed her off from the world, she had no idea. He looked the same as the first day he came to her and delivered her from Hell. His strong Germanic features, high cheekbones, pallid skin, beautiful smile with those odd little sharp teeth.

"There you are," he whispered passionately. He reached to touch her face very slowly. She saw his hand approaching her cheek, his long delicate fingers tipped with sharp nails. But she did not flinch away. Instead the girl held her breath, all her power straining to retain the urge to touch him in return. If she touched with her vectors, she would only destroy. Her own arms were held rigid, but her fingers flexed and relaxed helplessly in the leathery grip of gloves she could not see.

She expelled her breath with a harshly little moan. It was the first time anyone had touched her face. Gooseflesh roughened her skin from her head to her toes. His eyes captivated her attention in such a way that she barely noticed the people flooding the darkness around them. Her dozen vectors floated haplessly around her, affecting nothing.

"You are sure you're all right? Do you need anything?" His warmth touched her; it seared her very soul.

"Don't leave me again," she replied firmly. Her vectors solidified, realized themselves more fully. The maleness of him comforted her but at the same time, he felt suddenly like something that belonged to her. She had a right to him. Her eyes narrowed and she felt a switch in herself twitch to another position. "Or... Or I'll kill everyone else in this room." Her small, breathy voice echoed disconcertingly. It was strange to hear things as they were; all this time she heard everything through the speakers in her mask. Voices in her ears were once again crisp, clear, and most of all, it was his voice she heard. She could even hear her own ragged breathing permeating the small, suddenly deadly still room that was beyond her safe shell.

"That won't be necessary. I am going to be with you for a long time, little one. You are so important to me; I was in agony every moment I was away. In fact, I am here to tell you about why. There are people. People who would do me and mine harm."

The frail child looked at him with shock and horror, then a freakish energy bloomed around her. Her vectors became restless. Everything about her became brittle and hard all at once. The air quivered with expectation. The collective breaths of people everywhere in this dark room, with its distant humming as if a great engine was turning, was held as if in awe.

"What should I do?"

"I shall tell you about your special mask now. It is not just a mask to shield you from the world. It will help you to be strong, as I said. Do you remember?"

Since the mask prevented her from nodding, she said, "Yes."

He stroked her cheek again. Her eyes rolled back and she shivered pathetically. Cold tears streamed down her cheeks, caught on his ice cold fingers. "And I will tell you at last my name. And give you your own."

The tiny creature made a soft little noise, a swoon unlike anything before. She wanted to be held in his arms, to be warm and safe. She did not want this shell. She wanted to be named, and have that name whispered to her in the same fashion that he touched her. She cried openly, her vectors looping around the pair as if to cage them together forever.