The Holder of Being

In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house you can get yourself to. Once there, ask the staff member in front of the desk to take you to "The Holder of Being". He will look at you with sorrow and tell you that the Holder has long been away. Ignore him, and continue asking this. The staff member will only look at you with more sadness, and will begin a long, slow moan. Do not stop asking the question; if you do, the moan will cut into your soul and leave your body as nothing more than an empty spiritless husk. Eventually, the moaning will stop, and the staff member will look up at you and clasp your hands. The room will fall into darkness. During this time, you must speak nothing, move nothing, and think only of yourself, your shape, your form. If you do not, your soul shall be lost forever in a sea of chaos.

Eventually, light will appear, and you will see a small lantern embedded into a post on the ground with a man standing behind it. You may look at the man's face, but do not look around the room, or else you will suffer like no one else ever has. The man does not have a face, only a mass of gray, and responds to nothing other than the question, "What made them what they are?"

Once the man hears this, a twisted, horrible face forms upon the man, and he begins screaming, whispering, and muttering. He speaks of loss of self, of nothingness within a man's heart, and of the life within stopping, leaving nothing but a cold dark fate. You may hear sobs from behind you as he is recounting this. Do NOT turn around, or you will see yourself and forever be affixed to that spot, watching yourself cry. Once he is done, his face reforms into nothing, and he holds a mask out in one of his hands. Take it in both hands, and clutch it close to your chest.

The mask is Object 531 of 2538. Your being is now changed irrevocably by what you have seen. Only by looking through the mask can you see their true essence, what they once were.