Beauty Is Only Skin Deep (Part 1)

It started off as something fun, a way to enhance beauty, a way to express your inner emotions, a different kind of art. Using eyeshadow and blush instead of watercolor and pastels. But now, it's a way to hide your true self from society, a way to shapeshift. It's become a weapon, and a powerful one at that. We're in Pennsylvania, it's the year 2055 and our world has been destroyed. By makeup.

No one knows how it all truly started, but there have been hints along the way.

Artists started playing around with the forbidden face paint, increasing peoples' beauty, using tricks and toys to make someone's eyes and lips bigger and their cheekbones more pronounced. I believe that it all started off as a joke, people having fun, men wanting to look like women since they could get surgery to look like one everywhere else. Why not join the women and put shimmers on your eyelids, burgundy on your lips, and bubblegum pink on your cheeks? Makeup products became more than beauty enhancers, they became a way to change your face size, skin color, and at this point, a way to change your whole being.

I wish I was joking but I've seen it firsthand. My friends and family buy all these crazy products from North and South Korea; Tape stronger than super-glue, but won't harm your skin, to change the shape of your face. Giving you a chiseled jaw and slim face. Special paper that you stuff in your nose that does God-knows-what. I've heard that it can change your voice and make you sound sick. You'd think there'd be another reason for it, maybe not. And now, there are magical prosthetics that can turn you into whatever you want to be. Furry's can now actually be furry, looking like real cats, dogs, lions, you name it. Those who believe in aliens or the people who dream of being 'lizard people' can look like ET or have the appearance of florescent scales inching their way across your flesh. This planet has creatures walking around, you can no longer identify people by their IDs because on Tuesday they could look like a little girl with a big lollipop and on Wednesday, they could look like a homeless man begging for some change.

It’s scary, living in a world like this. Although, there are some pretty epic pranks, friends acting like you don’t know them and asking you to come home with them. Sure, there are a few plus-sides. You can look like whoever you want to. You can create awesome Halloween costumes. But with the good always comes the bad. People try to kidnap you, and most times, they succeed. Although, they never get caught. Certain places are safer than others, but Pennsylvania is one of the worst places to live.

Lately, there has been quite a bit of theft, and of course, no one has been caught. Who is going to catch them? And how? Are police officers or store owners going to check the cameras? Even if they do, what's the point, that person will have changed their image once again. But the police officers can't check camera footage because they've all quit. This imposter-infested world has no use for anyone who upholds the rules, they'll be broken anyways. No one cares anymore. Trying to stop those who wish harm upon others is useless, and at this point, all you can do is blend in. Throw on a disguise and go through the motions, be a different person by the next day.

That's just how it is now.