The mask felt unnaturally warm in Maya’s hands, as if it had been resting in sunlight, not packed in a dusty crate from a forgotten tomb. Its wooden surface was smooth, carved into a serene, feminine face with empty eyes that seemed to watch her. An archaeologist by trade, she knew she should report the find. But a compulsion, a low thrumming in her blood, made her lift it to her face.
The moment the worn wood touched her skin, the world dissolved.
She was no longer in the sterile storeroom. She stood in a torch-lit chamber, the air thick with incense and the coppery tang of blood. A priest chanted in a guttural tongue, and before him, a bound figure struggled. Maya felt the victim’s terror as if it were her own, a cold knife twisting in her gut. A vision, a memory not hers.
She tore the mask away, gasping. The storeroom was back, silent and cold. But a whisper lingered, a sibilant voice at the edge of her hearing. *More.*
Driven by a morbid curiosity, she put the mask on again. This time, she saw through the eyes of the priest. She felt the ecstatic power as the ritual dagger plunged down, the surge of life force flooding into her—into *him*. The whisper was clearer now, a possessive, hungry presence coiling around her mind. *We are one.*
Panic finally broke through her fascination. She clawed at the mask, but it wouldn’t budge. It was fused to her skin. In the reflection of a glass cabinet, her own face was gone, replaced by the mask’s placid, carved features. Her hands moved without her command, picking up a letter