"Still. Just putting it out there." Billy ran his thumb down the back of Ragdoll's neck. His time with the cult was remembered as if through a fog, but not nearly as impenetrable as he'd like. He remembered a friendly shadow at his side constantly trying to draw him away from his induced obsession. It had spoken--refused to shut up, actually--but when he'd seen its real face it had clearly lost that ability a long time ago.

"Peter? What was that...thing you pulled the mask off?" It had been presented to him as Ragdoll reborn. They'd brought Billy before an altar and laid the mask across it, and to his eyes had conjured a living body from thin air. In retrospect he could see where trapdoors and stage magic gimmicks could trick a mind that had already begun to be corrupted, but that could not have been the whole of it.