The World's Greatest Actor.
The world’s greatest actor does not need a stage.
I have never needed one.
There are no spotlights, no roaring applause, no curtains to mark the end of my performance. And yet, every day, I step into the role, slipping into the skin of someone who does not exist. A boy with easy smiles and weary eyes, with laughter that sounds just real enough. A boy who is nothing but a masterful lie.
And they never notice.
They see what they expect to see, what they want to see. The fool who survived, the hero, the anomaly wrapped in human skin. They do not question the cracks in the mask, the way the lines of the performance have been rehearsed a thousand times over.
And why would they?
I have been playing this part for so long that I no longer know where the performance ends and I begin.
The mask was once a shield. A way to exist without truly being seen. But over the years, it has fused to my skin, warping, reshaping, until I can no longer take it off. Until I no longer recognize what lies beneath.
But it does not matter.
The years roll on, and the act continues. I wake. I smile. I speak in a voice that no longer feels like my own. I move as I should, react as they expect.
And I hate it.
I hate the ease with which I wear this face, the way my own thoughts are drowned out by the character I have become. I hate that somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was supposed to be.
But there is no stopping now.
The curtain does not fall. The audience does not leave.
So I turn to them, to the world that has molded me into this, and I give them one last, perfect smile.
I bow.
And I wonder if I was ever real at all.