People of the slums, downcast and broken.
Vision walks amongst them, they each have the painted smile of a clown plastered across their face.
“Look at them. Faces painted into a smile, forced to hang onto a false hope that through pain they will find their freedom.”
He kneels, running his hands across their faces. Taking in the truth that their eyes hide.
“But it takes a blind man to see behind that smile, and I see their eyes. For the eyes reveal the truth. That his crusade has cost them more than they would ever hope to gain. But they’re not the only ones hiding behind a clown’s smile.”
“Sad eyes hide behind the painted smile of a clown’s face.”
“I see the smile Arcadia hides behind.”
One flinches to Vision’s touch, his eyes flashing red for a moment.
“Felix Foley fooled the world into believing in the smiling face of what he portrayed to them. A forced smile. But whenever that red light would flash, Arcadia would see what truly lay behind that innocent exterior when his family’s curse was revealed.”
“Desperate men will wear all sorts of masks to hide the truth. But the truth has a habit of being revealed anyway. Felix needed to become that which he feared the most, to live the truth of his curse before his reality could be restored. Did those waters wash away your clown’s mask entirely Felix? Or did they merely paint a new smile right over the very same curse you’ve always hidden from the world?”
One man hides his face from Vision entirely.
“What of the man who seemingly saved Felix from himself? See the smiling façade that his Doom’s mask. Hidden behind works of scientific discovery, technological advancement and the pursuit of knowledge. There’s always a fine line between genius and madness, and once upon a time, Stubbins Doom walked that line as a tightrope.”
“Arcadia turned a blind eye to horrors done in the name of science, the smiling face that the truth hid behind. Ironically, it was his own creation, The Odyssey Pool that washed that smile away.”
“Now hidden behind a mask as sinister as his true intentions, what we see before us can no longer claim actions in the name of science. We see the monster that Doom always was, hiding behind that cool exterior.”
“Arcadia needs not be fooled by the Clown’s Smile any longer. For if one has sight that looks deeper than the surface, the Third Eye will reveal the truth.”
“I can show the people of Arcadia the true path to freedom, if only you are willing to see the way. Or be left in a fool’s paradise, believing that one day your suffering will be rewarded.”
“See that which lies behind the façade of Scandium Sulfur. Painted smiles designed to trick the foolish, but no longer can their lies be blindly followed. An eye for an eye and whole world goes blind.”
“Look into the eyes of the clown to see the true sadness that he hides behind that smile… only then will you truly see.”