My voice, that silken, amused purr still laced with undeniable menace, hung in the air after my pronouncement about "party favors." The students and adults, trapped by the supernaturally sealed doors that had boomed shut with such satisfying finality, stared up at me. Their faces, illuminated by the single, stark spotlight that held me, were a delightful canvas of stark terror, dawning disbelief, and a pathetic, flickering ember of hope that this was still, somehow, merely an elaborate, cruel prank. As if I, The Great I, would stoop to mere pranks!

"Oh, the anticipation!" I chuckled, the sound a dry rustle that seemed to echo from the very corners of their rapidly shrinking world. I savored their fear, a vintage I never tired of. "You look so… expectant! Like little children waiting for a particularly exciting birthday gift, a brightly wrapped package promising untold delights. And in a way," I continued, my voice dripping with mock sincerity, "these are gifts. Gifts that will unlock your truest potential! Gifts that will strip away the mundane, the predictable, the utterly boring shells of your former selves and reveal the… wonder… the glorious, terrible ID… that festers beneath!"

I made another grand, theatrical gesture, sweeping my robed arm out as if presenting a masterpiece to an audience of connoisseurs – though, in truth, your species, Humanity, rarely appreciates true art and has come to the notion that anything can be or is perceived as art. "And I went to so much trouble picking them out for each and every one of you. Custom-fitted, you might say! Tailored to your very souls!"

As I spoke the words, the air before each and every cowering human in that gymnasium – student, teacher, chaperone alike, no one was to be excluded from my generosity – began to shimmer. It was not the shimmer of heat, but a cold, ethereal, almost uncaring light, like moonlight on disturbed, diamond dust, or the gleam from a freshly unsheathed blade. Then, with a soft, almost inaudible pop – like a distant soap bubble bursting – a mask materialized before each face. They hovered perhaps a foot away, suspended by no visible means, a silent, waiting legion.

There were over a hundred of them, each one a blank, white canvas of smooth, polished bone, similar in basic form to the one I wore, though lacking; a couple do hold a more polished design for those I hold high hope for the destruction I hope they cause. Sadly, that is what happens with a rushed build order. The majority were mainly featureless save for two dark, empty eyeholes that seemed to drink the ambient light, and they pulsed with a faint, internal, sickly luminescence that cast strange, dancing shadows on the terrified faces before them.

A wave of screams, not merely of fright, but of a profound, soul-deep wrongness, ripped through the gymnasium. These were not the shrieks of startled children, Humanity, but the primal utterances of minds brushing against a horror they could not name, a reality too alien to comprehend. "What… what are they?!" a voice choked out, laced with an unutterable dread. "They're… they're looking at me!" another wailed, though the masks had no discernible gaze. "No! It's not… it can't be!"

People recoiled, a tide of flesh stumbling back from the impossible apparitions. Some tried to swat at them, their hands passing through the cold, shimmering aura with no resistance, yet the masks themselves remained, solid, implacable, their polished surfaces beginning to gleam with an inner light. And in those mirror-like surfaces, each student, each adult, began to see not their own terrified reflection, but a horrifying, translucent glimpse of what lay beneath their own skin. Bones shifted, organs pulsed with unholy light, and the very essence of their humanity seemed to twist and warp into new, unspeakable configurations within the reflection. Their own flesh began to glow faintly in response, a sympathetic resonance with the impending transformation. This was not a reflection of the present, but a terrible, inescapable prophecy of the self that was about to be unmade and remade. The screams intensified, raw, abject terror giving way to the gibbering fear of the truly damned.

"Don't be shy!" I said, my voice of indifference like that of a calm surgeon before an amputation. "They're for you! A little something to help you truly… change. To shed the drab, ill-fitting cocoons of your former, insignificant identities! Embrace the change! It is, after all, your new, unalterable truth of self and the new you."

And then, as one, with a synchronized, terrifying grace that spoke of alien geometries and purposes beyond mortal ken, the mass-produced masks launched. They shot forward with a horrifying speed, like starved beasts leaping upon unsuspecting prey, each one homing in on a terrified face which they reflected with an unholy, single-minded hunger.

Some of the teachers tried to calm down the students, even in the moment, so I had the masks attack them first, so the horror of the other masks attaching themselves to the rest of the masses here can enjoy the despair even more.

I will paint a picture for you, tired masses back at home. Let us look at the P.E teacher and the student teacher first, they will make wonderful collateral damage as they seem close to the freak Shirou.

Ladies first. Mrs. Linz walked forward, trying to calm the crowd, as it were, to look away from her mask and meet the desperate eyes of those around her. "I know you're scared, but listen to me, if we stay together," she said, just before her mask rushed and attached itself to her as she let out a scream, falling to her knees. "Ah, I have to protect them!" Her dress rips in several places as massive white wings extend from her back, and her eyes glow like molten gold. Strange she should be more animal than man, and she looks more like an angel as Humanity imagines than a monster. It truly is sickening, but let's get back to the moment as she stands up and lets out the call of a swan while extending her arms out as if to embrace all those around. Strange, she wasn't supposed to transform fully until later. Maybe there is a problem with my work after all this time.

Hmm. She isn't rampaging. I guess the mask is leaving her in an inert state, as it was meant to. Well, that takes out some of the fun of the moment, but there is still some more fear starting to fester, and the aroma is good, but it could use some more seasoning.

Now for the next example to be made of. We see that the fool of a teacher is also trying to step forward, but facing the other side of the gym. He shouts, "Stay calm!" His mask slams and starts fusing to his face. He tries to keep his composure and continue to speak even as the pain takes hold of his body. "Everybody stay… Graaahhh!" His body enlarges. His skin below the neck turns a greyish purple as his shirt rips off his body, and he finally gets the muscles and build that he always wanted. "Get it off… Arggaaah." Looks like this curnal might pop too. "Stay…" His mask fully enters this new host, and the head of a hippo erupts into being, screaming, "CALM!"

The rest of those who saw this moment now truly start to panic and scream as they don't want to turn into monsters or what they see within the reflections of their masks, but that is not for them to have a say in the matter. They will receive my party favors whether they like it or not. I have decided not to give them a choice in the matter.