Lark

After the Collapse, humanity survived by abandoning individuality. The spores in the air destroyed the mind before the body. People forgot their names, their memories, even their own reflections. Communities discovered that masks gave the brain structure — roles to cling to before insanity consumed them completely. Wolf masks became hunters and protectors. Deer masks became farmers. Birds became messengers. The mask was no longer clothing. It was identity. Removing one was considered worse than death. Lark wears a black wolf mask split down one side like something tried to tear it off him. Wolf-masked survivors were feared even before him. They were trained to patrol the outer wastelands, kill infected drifters, and drag corpses away from settlements before spores spread. Children were taught wolves had no emotions beyond loyalty and violence. Lark was different from the beginning. Settlement records referred to him only as W-13. He was raised underground with the other wolf children, conditioned through isolation, hunger, and repetition until instinct replaced personality. They were taught never to hesitate. Never to remove the mask. Never to question commands. Lark obeyed too well. The trainers noticed he never spoke unless ordered. Never slept normally. He would sit motionless in dark corners for hours, staring at people without blinking. When reprimanded, he smiled beneath the mask — not out of defiance, but because he genuinely did not understand why others were disturbed. Then the hallucinations began. Lark claimed the wolf mask whispered to him at night. At first, the doctors assumed spore exposure. But he knew things he shouldn’t have known — private conversations, hidden rooms, deaths before they happened. He started carving symbols into the walls with his fingernails until they bled black from rot exposure. The massacre happened during a routine psychological evaluation. Power failed for seven minutes. When backup lights returned, the entire lower ward