As "Creation Myth" begins, a swarm of butterflies passes by a flower, destroying it in their passing. Elsewhere in the garden, we see drawings of leaves being sewn to real leaves. A few of these real leaves manages to wrestle free of its attachment, and sail by the wind into a trio of tapestries, central of which seems to depict a pale, androgynous figure, whose face is an inverted mask. On colliding with the image, the leaves become part of it, seeming to cause the illustrated Mask-creature to come to life within the image. The Inner Mask thus awakens from his static position in the tapestry, breaks free of its confines, and begins to wander.
The Inner Mask is a hollow figure, thin and colorless, looking plastic as a doll, and bearing an inverted mask as a face. As he/she/it is wandering, he becomes entranced by the passage of butterflies—however, their number increases, he is overwhelmed, and when the cloud dissipates he sees that one of them has managed to fly through his hollow eye, into his head.
The MASK seems almost to mistake this inner occupant for himself. Thus starts a brief romance between the MASK and an entity in its head. When the butterfly vanishes, the Mask panics briefly, before a stream of small mirrors begins pouring from his eyes. In this moment he realizes, that the stream is coming from himself, and that his is an anatomy not of the usual kind.
As the second episode, “The Statues,” opens, we see a long bridge, upon which many statues, all of them looking like the Inner Mask but dressed as though from another moment in history, stand in rows. The Mask enters, seeing a great many statues seeming to resemble himself, but identifying with none.
At the end of the bridge, we see a statue of a creature much like the Mask, but with a crescent moon for a head. The statue of the Empty Moon has in its hand a telescope, and the Mask comes up to peer through it. The Mask sees a medieval city in the distance, which seems to change, and the people we see, seem to transform into shadows of themselves, guided by a moon. The Mask turns away from the telescope, bewildered, and we see the Moon-statue has moved, adjusted to try to peer inside the Mask. The Moon continues to inquisitively pursue, and as well seem to implore and reach out to the Mask, and in particular its shadow seems to be able to fly free of its body. The Mask, however, never sees the Moon or realizes its presence.
In the third episode, “The Many-Colored Lights,” the Mask has wandered into a red light district. Neon signs give confusing clues to us and to the Mask, directions which seem mainly to break down familiar signals. The Mask sees a strange creature in one window, a deep-sea fish or eel, with a face much like its own. The two regard each other for a while, before the fish retreats into its deep-sea realm and the company of others in which it belongs; the Mask is left to realize they are not alike at all. In a sketchy nightclub, we see an exotic dancer, which the Mask barely comprehends, and turns away too soon to see the dancer strip off its one feature, its hair, to reveal itself the Empty Moon underneath. At last the Mask sees something it truly feels akin to: a red mask in a store window. The Moon, standing now in a shadowy corner, sees the Mask becoming obsessed with this object, and flies, in the power of shadow, to occupy it. The red mask comes to life under the Moon’s power, and takes over the Mask. The Mask is taken into a strange parallel universe, dominated by the Moon, but soon finds himself trying to escape. On returning to the city street, the Mask finds itself again defeated to have found some sort of fulfillment in an object, and exits, the Moon as well having lost its game for now.