Mask of Many Faces

Oh, my God, I'm finally here! Open Sesame Sesame or whatever it is!

I was standing at the edge of the dark sarcophagus and it had taken me a couple of hours to get here. The sound of water dripping from the ceiling had stopped bothering me. Cave was so cold that I could see my breath.
I pulled the black sarcophagus aside, I had managed to get past all the traps that had tried to prevent me from entering and I had to be the one to wake this genie.

I pushed the lid of the sarcophagus aside and was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of dusty smoke. I coughed.
When the dark smoke cleared, there was no genie in front of me. It was a succubus. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a demon. It would be absurd to wish from that creature and now I had set her free.

I thought, why are legends so wrong and stupid, if they had said that a demon was imprisoned here, no one would have bothered.

"You look surprised, handsome," she said in a soft voice.

It was like her voice was on the back of my neck. It gave me goosebumps. She had a very breathy speech. She seemed in no hurry. I thought, "Oh my God, what have I done?

"Yeah, I'm a bit surprised. I heard there was a genie imprisoned here."
"Ah yes, thanks to a lot of fools in love with me, would fool people like that for me ahahahah, I managed to change the rumors. It took centuries, and a lot of dream invasions... but oh well. Now baby, I don't really have to give you anything."
"But... but..."
"I see you don't mind making a deal with a demon ahahahah. All right. What do you want?"

I started to think. If it was a genie, I would want money or power. This woman was a devil, a master manipulator, a master deceiver.

"I want to disguise myself in such a way that no one will notice." I said, so I could pretend to be rich people and live their comfortable lives.

"Very beautiful," the succubus smiled. Her teeth were perfect, but her canines were very sharp. I could have sworn her tongue was forked.

She slowly moved her hand to my face and touched my forehead with her long fingers. I realized it was soft, but it didn't last long. Her thumb was touching my chin and I started to burn with an incredible pain. She was holding my face like she was holding a ball. She said something in Infernal language. My face continued to burn.

"There you go. Now you have more than one face. You can become the faces of the people you see. Good luck in life using your new mask! By the way, I hope you have a picture of your old face ahahahahahah!"

"Damn you devil! My face is still burning!"

I touched my face and it felt like a burning hard wooden mask. My own face was gone. I looked at the reflection in the puddle just over the edge.

I had a mask for face. Everburning, wooden mask... then I rushed outside.

On the way, I found the ranger man who died in the traps. I looked at his face. Then I wanted to look like him. My face moved like pieces of coal rubbing against each other. Sparks fell to the ground.

Then I looked back into the puddle and...

The person looking back at me, a brand new face.
I smiled.
The plan now was to start by taking his things and moving into his place.

A new face. A new life...
Now I had the mask of many faces.
I was, the mask of many faces.

...

Thank you so much for reading! This post was inspired from The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #140 - Mask.

Image 1 I have created using leonardo ai because I could not find any wood masks on pixabay etc.. I jope that is okay?
Image 2 is a screenshot from the game Baldurs Gate 3 that I took myself while playing.