The Mask

Charizard TF.

"By Azura, I hope it's here!" said Martin, the 14 game geek, rephrasing the lines from Oblivion. What was Martin so excited about today? Was it his annual Minesweeper update package to reduce the fault of clicking on a mine by one? Or it might be the ultimate new mod controller for the Xbox 360. It might also be his one of a kind, Charizard mask! Martin, like his recent friend who mysteriously disappeared, William, Martin has always been a fan of Pokémon for a very long time. More than he can even remember so perfectly. Reason being for the Pokémon mask he had just purchased for the more expensive price of $500, was made by a company called Life Change.

Life Change, or LC for short, was a company that made products that are supposed to "Change people's life forever." They specialized in almost everything. Any mythical creature, Pokémon, animals, you name it. But alas, LC has been going through hard times now. Almost all of their products never work with anybody, and those who claimed it worked for them others believe to be insane. The actual price of the mask that Martin was getting was $2000, but since LC is going bankrupt, he managed to haggle it for $500. Even though Martin has heard of LC, he has never used it before, for he was not an "outgoing person."

Regardless to the reports and claims on how much LC supposedly sucks, Martin never let his hopes down on anything. Racing down the stairs and almost slipping on the rug at the bottom, Martin looked on the ground to find a package. Quickly picking it up, Martin observed the label, titled to Martin Hill. He carried it into the kitchen and set it on the table. "Hey, what's that Martin?" His father asked, sipping his coffee.

"Umm, a new Gameboy." Martin lied. Another thing about him is that he was very self conscious about what he does. He never let his dad knew what was going on, due to him hating LC for failing on him. "Alright. I'm going to the store in a little while, you want to tag along?" His father asked, getting up from the squeaky chair and going to the sink. "No, I'm going to try my new Gameboy out." Martin replied, picking up the box. "Fine, you need to get out of the house more often Martin, I'm telling you, it isn't healthy for you just to stay inside all day playing video games and watching Pokémon." His dad had a stern look on his face.

"Once I try out my new Gameboy, I'll go ride around the block." Martin replied. "Good boy! Ok, I'll be back in an hour." His dad said, slipping his coat on and snatching the keys up from the counter. "Wait! When is mom getting home?" Martin yelled out to his dad as he was walking out the door. "Like two hours, she's at a meeting. Why?" His dad knew that Martin was suspicious now; he was waiting for him to bust.

He knew that Martin's friend told him about LC, and he presumed that what was in that box was a product of theirs. "Martin, open the box for me." Martin was nervous now, why would he want to see what was in the box. "Fine, I'll open it." Martin said, placing the box down on the blue carpet and running into the kitchen to get a knife. Martin came back with a large steak knife in his right hand. "I'm waiting." His dad barked. Martin crouched down and slowly ran the tip of the knife down the crease of the box.

As he got to the end, the box flung open, sending some packing peanuts flying across the room. Martin's dad crouched down and began to rummage through the box. "Aha! This is what I was looking fo-"When his dad pulled the item out of the box, it wasn't what he was looking for, rather it was a black and gold Gameboy Advanced. Even Martin had a surprised look on his face. Did they send him the wrong product? Or was this some sort of trick? "Well, sorry about that son." His dad said awkwardly, walking out the door of the house, leaving Martin alone with his Gameboy. Martin was in a state of confusion. This is definitely not what he ordered. Martin shoved the Gameboy back into the box and carried it into his room.

"Ok, maybe there's something in here that will explain this." Martin said outloud. However, when Martin reached into the packing peanuts to pull out the Gameboy, he instead pulled out a Charizard mask! "What the?" Martin yelled out. He started to dig through the packing peanuts to find the Gameboy, but only found a small piece of paper buried inside. Annoyed, Martin lifted up his glasses and read out loud what the paper said. "Charizard Mask, made by Life Changers. WARNING: Use at your own risk. Changes made to the wearer are unchangeable."  Martin scratched his head in confusion. Did the mask magically change into a Gameboy? What sort of black magic is this? Martin lifted up the mask to further inspect it.

The mask itself wasn't made to entirely cover the head, all that was on it was the mouth part, eyes, and a neck flap to cover the skin. The eyes had no holes in them to see, neither did the mouth have anything to breath. All it was is an orange mask with big blue eyes, staring back at Martin. At this point, he didn't even know what to do. The skin of the mask was rough and had small scales on it, while the teeth were pure white and vicious. Martin slowly started to pull the mask towards his face, eager but cautious to put it on.

Suddenly, the mask jumped onto Martin face, making him stumble backwards into the wall. Martin began to try pulling it off but it wouldn't budge what so ever. As he was struggling to pull the mask off, Martin felt as if his mouth were being pulled in front of him, fitting to the shape of the mask. He tried to rip it off by tugging down on the neck flap but when he put his hand their to find it, he felt it fuse into his skin, making the rest of it orange as well. Martin felt his teeth beginning to grow much sharper than before, causing him to bite his gums and bleed, as he felt his tongue being pulled out into a tip.

Before he could shout for help, Martin felt his eyes start to lift upwards to where the eyes on the mask were. When he opened his eyes, he could finally see what was going on. Pain and heat was now surging through his entire body by now, coursing through his veins and organs. Martin felt his now dragon like snout in front of him, as well as the razor sharp fangs. When he put his hands behind his head, he felt two enormous horns on the opposite sides of his head.

'What's going on?' He thought, scared out of his mind. Before he could even continue to think, he started to feel his spine bone extend lower and smoke. Martin looked down at his pants to see a huge orange tail rip of them with a flame on the tip of it. The event of all of the transformations happing to him made Martin fall down on to his side, breathing loudly in agony. Martin felt his neck beginning to extend upwards, causing him to grow a good two feet taller than before, as well as his belly expanding causing his Halo 3 shirt to rip into pieces off of him. Yellow scales started to climb down from the lower part of his neck, to the end of his tail, making a slight ripping pain in its wake.

Martin let out a huge roar that broke one of the windows in his room, making glass fly in every direction. 'Yikes!' Martin thought. The next part of the transformation was the most painful, as two blue bat like winds bursted out of his back, causing him to roar even louder. To add insult to injury, his arms extended and his hands turned from human to dragon like claws. Martin started to feel the pain inside of him turn into power, as his legs became more shorter and stubby, ripping the remains of his pants off of him, as well as making his socks explode off his dragon feet. Martin was able to get his self onto his feet and looked at his new body. His room suffered damage too, when his wings bursted out, it created a huge hole in the wall leading outside. The flame on the tail touched his bed too, causing that to combust into flames. Martin picked up the paper from the box to see if there were any more details.

His hand was much bigger than the paper now, making reading the paper even more difficult to read. The only other detail it said on the paper was "Hope you enjoy the new you!" Martin ripped the paper in half, angry on what they did to him. He never did want to leave his life behind, but the changes made to him were unchangeable. Martin was stuck as Charizard forever now. Martin found a piece of paper and a pen and managed to make out a crudely handwritten note to his parents, explaining what happened. He folded it up and shoved it under the door of his room into the hallway. Martin flapped his wings a little bit, getting used to the blood flow of everything. In one swift flap, Martin crashed through the roof of his house and soared high above the clouds in a matter of seconds. 'Woah! This is weird!' Martin thought. Martin wanted to try out a power that he knew Charizard had. Drawing out powers from himself, Martin released a huge blast of fire into the sky, illuminating the clouds in a orange light. 'Wow!' Martin thought, impressed on what he had just done. The heat didn't even burn his mouth, it actually felt good to him, as if he had been doing forever. And with that, Martin took off into the sky towards the sun, to begin his new life, and a legend.