I.
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
--From Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117)
Afterward, for a few raucous days, his face is everywhere.
The party is in ruins, grasping desperately at some semblance of leadership or control. There is music in the streets. People throw televisions out windows and put crowbars through computer screens, rejoicing in their reclaimed right to loot, to pillage, to destroy and to defy. At first they see utopia in the chaos, the freedom to do as they please, wherever, whenever. They continue to wear the masks as well, rallying behind the anonymity of notoriety and thumbing their noses at Norsefire's feeble attempts at bringing them back to attention.
The girl called Evey Hammond manages to slip back out of the spotlight under the cover of darkness, watching Detective Finch watch her as she vanishes into the crowd. Instinctively, her feet find their way back to the Shadow Gallery, though she doesn't think she'd be capable of describing its location to anyone else.
The musty scent of roses assaults her senses as she makes her way through the darkened interior, never thinking to turn on a light. When she does, the sheer emptiness of the place will become evident.
A few more days pass, and the people begin to be afraid.
Across the city, power outages become commonplace. Water runs muddy out of the faucets. Food lies in stinking heaps on the streets and sidewalks, and babies howl with hunger.
Evey walks the corridors at night, warding off sleep as she casts eyes itching with exhaustion and unshed tears over the seemingly infinite collection of forbidden treasures. She has never really taken the time to look at them before as a whole. True, she has spent many a night reading a single book or gazing at a single picture, but she has never taken the time to truly step back and appreciate them altogether.
This is important, she senses suddenly, the way the shadows knit together and the music fills the void. The pieces form a world all their own, in harsh juxtaposition with the world aboveground. Up there, everything is cold and hard and controlled. Down here, there is softness and silk, the forbidden delights of a culture long-lost.
Two entirely separate worlds.
Neither one is real.
On the streets, ancient illnesses begin to surface once more, mutated and back with a vengeance.
A baby dies of dysentery.
An old woman huddles in an alley with shreds of a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a crimson speck of blood on her lips, wracked by the violent paroxysms of tuberculosis.
A man wakes to find ugly red welts all over his body, and before he knows what has hit him is left lying in a puddle at the side of the road.
Medical offices and hospitals, once a service provided for all, stand dark and empty, broken windows gaping like hollowed-out eyes of a corpse. People line up outside just the same, rotting into the pavement before anyone takes notice.
At last, Evey comes to the ugly realization that she has seen every inch of the Shadow Gallery. Memorized it too, for she sees it all played out on the backs of her eyelids when she finally gives in to the weariness weighing her down.
In her dreams, she hears the music of the jukebox playing—it hasn't been off since that night, for neither of them thought to do it before, and she has no will to now. She feels leather in her hands and silk against her cheek. She sees a cloaked figure standing on a wall, watching as below crowds of people evaporate into a black powder. A wind comes up and the powder blows away, filling the sky and blotting out the sun.
Evey wakes with a cry, her entire body trembling and drenched in sweat. For days now, she has wandered the Gallery with only a candle in her hand. Now, after a moment's hesitation, she reaches out and switches on the lamp beside her bed.
Around her, the stacks of books cast weirdly slanted shadows on the walls. The door hangs open, and she sits up, staring down the empty hallway. The jukebox has stopped playing.
Out of nowhere a fresh strain of St. Mary's Virus arrives, and people begin to die by the hundreds. Bodies covered in alien-looking lesions fill the streets and the stench is nearly intolerable on a hot afternoon.
For the first time in nearly a month, Detective Finch ventures outside. He walks through the rubble of what was once Parliament, and passed the burned-out buildings that were the Ear, the Eye, and the Nose.
At first he expects the people to reach out to him, to try and hold onto any semblance of power left in their world. When they don't, he is struck by the realization that he is glad.
Evey finds her way to the roof eventually, and sits back on the balcony, shielded by the overhang of the roof. She watches the people in the streets below, her heart aching for them, and for far more selfish reasons.
The people no longer dance or sing in the streets. The violence has all but died out as well. Somehow, though, she does not think this is how it is supposed to work.
Instead of building anew, the people lie dying on the side of the road. Their bodies are covered in red lesions, and Evey thinks ironically how much they look like burn victims. Ravaged from the inside out.
In her mind's eye, she sees a pair of hands.
The masks now lie in piles, heaped in alleys, peeking out of dumpsters. The painted smiles chip and flake off, leaving even the white visage pock-marked and scarred. People shudder at the sight of them now, no longer seeing the rosy cheeks as a symbol of their salvation but of their death.
Coming upon a stack, Finch pulls one out and dusts it off. He cradles it in his hands, swinging it lightly up and down. It feels cold and heavy, and he cannot imagine learning to live beneath it as a second skin.
Below, Evey finds her way into the makeup room. Here, of all the rooms in the Gallery, she has never felt at ease. She finds what she is looking for on a hook against the back wall—at first it seems impossible that there might be more than one, but then of course there must be—and makes her way to the counter.
Sitting before one of the mirrors, she stares into her own eyes and sees reflected in them the pain of the people on the street. They are betrayed as she is, led into battle and cruelly abandoned by the one man who has dared give them hope.
Forcing herself to breathe deep, Evey puts the cold metal to her face and fastens the elastic straps over what little hair is beginning to grow back.
Opening her eyes, Evey finds that she has fallen into a dream world.