Cyrus wakes up to see a faceless man less than three feet away from him. “Hey” the man said, “you fucking hit the dirt in that hotel last night”. Cyrus jumps to his feet instantly, he takes a few cautious steps back, “fucking faceless scum what do you think you’re doing” he hisses. Then it all comes back to him, the pair stare at each other, the silence drawing out, until the faceless man starts laughing. “Haha good one, you sound just like a faced”, Cyrus laughs along with him, begrudgingly. Cyrus takes a seat on the edge of the dusty mattress he just woke up on, “so where am I?” he asks the faceless man. The man responds wittily, “oh hi nice to meet you too, my name's Benjamin”.

“Oh sorry about that” Cyrus chuckles, “my name is Chris…where am I?” Cyrus hacks out in his best attempt at a polite voice. Benjamin sighs, “you’re in a run down little hole in the 9th, and this little hole is home to the unification group”. “Unification group?” Cyrus asks. “Oh just a group of faced and faceless people who come together in the name of a unified future”. Cyrus’ jaw drops, he had never heard something so utterly nonsensical in his life. “So…wait, there’s more people living here?” he manages to say. “Yeah” Benjamin responds, “with you now that makes 19”.

Benjamin stands up and walks towards a staircase, he gestures for Cyrus to follow him, “guys, the newbie’s awake” he calls out, which causes a small gathering of people to enter this dimly lit, dusty living room. Cyrus feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see a faceless woman holding a faceless baby. Cyrus could feel his heart clench, a faceless baby? He had never seen one of those before, the idea of one existing never even crossed his mind. He takes a long hard look at this baby, a baby who can’t walk, a baby who can’t talk, such soft skin…such brittle bones. Without the help of a grown faceless this baby would be toast, dead, so many things could kill this baby. Every gun Cyrus has ever held could kill this baby, any hunting animal could kill this baby, the guard dog that took his face could kill this baby, a falling brick could kill this baby, a single well placed punch or even slap from Cyrus could kill this baby. A faceless clinging to another faceless for dear life, no choice in committing the sin of being born. Cyrus seethed, how dare two faceless bring an innocent child into this world, a child who has no choice but to be faceless. This is why he hates faceless, they're selfish, an innocent child with no choice but to be a stain on this brilliant world. Cyrus continues to stare at this baby, he can feel tears stream down his face even though none are coming. “h…hi” the lady holding the baby awkwardly mutters, “this is Daniel”. “Don’t you dare fucking talk to me you wretched old broad” Cyrus thinks to himself, he can’t say this out loud obviously, he’s outnumbered. 

Cyrus snaps out of it, he looks around at the numerous faced people and faceless watching him. “So…what do you guys do exactly?” Cyrus asks sceptically. Some blonde, faced guy chuckles pretentiously and emerges from the crowd, “spread positivity, that's what we do” he says with a smirk, “one thousand years ago faced and faceless people all lived together, same streets, same types of houses, same rights…so why were the faceless at that time fine, but are now a second class? Surely they couldn’t have changed that much. So we, the unification group, want to bring back the good old days. Simple really”. 

“But”, Cyrus says with a punch, “we’re so different…how can we ever unify”. The pretentious looking guy looks at him blankly, shocked that his well meaning was being challenged. Benjamin puts his hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, “woah Chris, is everything ok?”. “FUCK OFF!”, Cyrus shouts, pushing Benjamin away from him with enough force to knock him to the ground. Cyrus walks towards the front door and looks back at everyone, “sorry about that, I need a minute”

The pretentious guys face scrunches as Cyrus leaves, “what the fuck is that guys problem” , he punches the wall, “you try to be nice to a fucking faceless and look what happens…typical!” Benjamin stands up, clutching his jaw, “and what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”