If this looks familiar to you -- it should. I'm moving many of my one-shots to this account.
I Am A Thousand Faces
What can I say, I'm a freak. There's not a whole lot more to it. I mean, there is someone inside of me---there's a personality and a real, breathing, feeling human at the core, but who sees that? Nobody cares. I'm only worth what I can become, aren't I? I am the ultimate actress, the end-all thespian. I transform and melt to fit the mold of my part, be it man or woman, elder or child, villian or saint. I can be anything. No, I suppose I'm wrong. I can immitate anything, anyone. I could mimick you to the point at which you're not sure whether you really are the name on your birth certificate. I am the great illusion. Nobody knows what lies beneath my chameleon skin; what is felt beyond my arachnid eyes. No one knows the desires of my mind, nor the longings of my heart. I am the master criminal. My identity can change in the blink of an eye, and it is as elaborate as I desire it to be. Yet. . . .what is an actress but a fake? What is an illusion but something not-real? What is a criminal but one who hides?
I am not hiding! I am not a fraud! But who hears my mourning cry? Who listens for a silent scream? Who can see weeping eyes when a mask lies over them? Who sees the inside when the exterior glitters? I fear I am the macaw---the great immitator. Does anyone care that she wants to be released from her gilded cage? Does anyone notice that she is indeed a bird beneath her cerulean plumage, and that she too wants to fly? Oh, if I could fly. . . .
I too feel trapped. Shackled by my talents, branded a mutant. If there were no pre-evolutionized humans, I know that which is within would be seen, and it would be nursed. There would be no more freakshow, no more circus. I am the carnival. But I will parade no longer. The humans must be destroyed. When they are gone, our kind will be accepted. I am a mutant. Why does that word drag with it "freak" and "sub-human" and "dangerous"? Ah, but I am dangerous. I am the nightmare of nightmares, the horror of horrors. From Helen of Troy to Quasimodo I can transform in seconds; from Mother Theresa to Jack the Ripper in the blink of an eye. I am the weapon. I will end the human race. Magneto is in charge, and he has the mind, but I---I am the deadly affliction. No man can stop me; not unless he completely removes himself from all he loves so that he can cold-bloodedly kill anyone who might possibly be me. And what man, what human could possibly accomplish thus?
I am a thousand faces. I am your brother, your wife, your president, your policeman. I am everything and everyone into the very depths of my skin. Beyond that, in the caverns of my heart---who dares to walk such paths? Who dares to feel my deep pangs of hunger and loss and defeat? Who dares to feel for me? I am the machine. My heart cannot be reached. You cannot gaze into my soul; my eyes do not reflect my thoughts. I am nothing. There is no proof of my humanity. There is no trace of my love or pain or envy or joy or hate or malice or aggrivation. I work efficiently. I do my job. I know what it is I want, I know what it is I desire to see destroyed. I can see the perfect world before my eyes, and it will take but some cold doings to bring it to being. I am the hitman. I finish my task with Arctic consistency. The human race will fall---its time has reached its end. I will end them, for I am the hitman. I am nothing. I am the machine. I am the weapon. I am the nightmare. I am the carnival. I am the macaw. I am the criminal. I am the grand illusion. I am the thespian. I am a thousand faces---only a little longer. Only until the last human takes his last breath will I be the great immitator. Then my mask will drop, and I will be what I have always been beneath it all. I will no longer be the lady of a thousand faces. I will be me.