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out of the dream with me had not subsided, but in fact had
been augmented. The pale light of the room revealed me,
affording the deepest look at myself I’d ever been given—I
had been removed of my skin.
Mister Hide continued with his soliloquy, as I was without
lips with which to properly converse. “I assume it is only by
the good graces of that feral Red Dream you still live, just
as I’d hoped you would. You see, it seems you’ve left me
with a bit of a problem. Prior our interruption, you had me
dead to rights—defeated. Now, if I’m the chosen one to right
the world, to replace the lost skins, how is it that you could
defeat me? Don’t answer, allow me—it’s because I was not
in my right skin, after all. Here I was, mis-attired the whole
time, just waiting for my own lost skin to be returned to
me. And here we are, appropriately dressed for our last and
rightful—fateful—contest. But unlike what you presumed
during our first encounter—you’re a perfect fit.” Mister
Hyde stepped into the wan light, wearing my skin.
There were precious few things, I must sadly confess,
which could truly surprise me—this was such a thing. He
was a grizzly sight, a collage of raw, red skin atop glistening,
exposed muscle. My contorted face was sewn into the meat
of his cheeks and forehead. My ample beard bristled and
tangled into the flaps of the sewn-on chin, yellowing globs of
blood-streaked fat weighing them down, folding them over.
My mane of hair fell like tousled darkness across his back,
framing a most wonderful piece of art, if not the antithesis
of the nature of Deadworld art—it had survived its creation.
Here was not the corpse of a dream, but its living, breathing
body.
Not even the pain of having been undressed of all my
flesh could diminish my admiration for what stood before
me. But as it turned out, I was wrong—I hadn’t been left
entirely nude. I put my hand to my face, realizing something
had been sewn atop it—Hide’s own face. He had altered
the very reality of our first encounter, reversing our roles,
350 | Mark Anzalone