2: Home Invasion

Chapter 2: Home Invasion

I could do little but let the body fall to the floor as I recovered from the mental assault I had endured. Whatever that thing had been, what it could do wasn’t normal. It was as though it was feeding on my memories, or my emotions. No matter what it could feel, it was trying to hurt me and I had to kill it, right?

I shook my head, sheathing the knife and muttering, “Focus, you've killed before. You've fought in a god damn war, why is now any different?”

‘Experiencing death from the opposite end of the hallway can be jarring.' What in the actual fuck? ‘You seem surprised by my arrival.’ It was the same woman’s voice, the one from before. The voice I had associated with the thing I just killed, and it was in my head again.

‘My name is Mirror Image, and yes you did just kill me. Let’s not focus on the bad memories though, shall we?’ Sorry, what? I jumped to my feet, recovered my things and opened the bedroom door, drawing my pistol. This place is getting to me, have to focus. ‘I’m sure I could help you.’

I growled, “Okay first off, even if you exist, how could you help me and why the fuck would you want to? I did just kill you, what’s to stop you from trying to do the same to me? And if you do exist, how are you here?” I wasn’t sure if I expected an answer, but I got one, to my surprise and annoyance.

She sounded as annoyed as I was, ‘Yes, I exist and yes, you did just kill me, There you go with the bad memories again. And as to your how I can help you, I can help you focus. As to the why… I’m stuck here. I don’t know how or what happened, but I was sort of transferred here, when you killed me. So if anything, killing you would just kill me again.’ I couldn’t really argue with that. ‘No, you can’t. Also, you don’t have to talk out loud for me to hear you, this is just fine.’ Thanks for the information, but I don’t plan on indulging my crazy side.

‘Well, you should be thanking me, but I assure you that I’m not the product of something gone wrong in your head.’ I swear to god I heard her chuckle. ‘Although, now that you mention it… I’ll need time to figure this out, go back to staying alive or whatever you usually do.’ I didn’t want to know what she was doing in my head—‘Yeah, you probably don’t. Not that I would lie if you asked.’ –so I didn’t ask, instead turning left down the hallway, straight down the stairs and into my living room.

The room was hardly anything special. There was a flat screen against the wall, a sofa against the opposite wall between two end tables, and an Xbox. The walls were a faded grey, and without decoration. All in all, it was a boring room to fit my boring life.

I was contemplating packing a bag when I was rudely interrupted by Mirror. ‘Listen, I may have found something. As it turns out, I can do more than sense what you sense, I can also sense what I would normally be able to sense.’ Right… This sounds like it’s gonna be bad. ‘We might be… Fucked, as you would put it?’

I turned, running up the stairs and back into my bedroom. How so? I grabbed a bag from my closet (not sure how it survived whatever happened, but I won’t complain) and quickly stuffed some of the clothes strewn about the room into it.

‘I smell Diamond Dogs, and they’re angry about something. I can’t tell what, but they should be in the house any—’ A throwing axe whizzed past my ear, lodging itself in the floor inches from my outstretched hand. ‘—second. Okay, now’s a good time to run. You have a plan, right?’ No. Yeah! ‘Liar.’

I felt a large paw slam into the back of my head, propelling me through the wreckage and nearly out of the room, though I just barely managed to keep from falling off the edge. I was dazed however, and my attacker took advantage of that, grabbing my ankle and pulling me across the floor to them. In seconds I was off the floor, hanging by my ankle, being held by god knows what.

But as I slowly rotated, I found myself less and less enthusiastic to find out. It was covered in grey fur, wearing a leather vest and sunglasses. It had to be at least seven feet tall, with muscled arms and muscled everything else.

It noticed my frightened look and grinned, “And here I thought I found something worth fighting. I guess I just found another scaredy cat, eh?” It took me a moment to register that the question wasn’t rhetorical, and I shook my head, reaching for its hindlegs and pulling my head forward, slamming it into its groin with as much force as I could muster.

I felt myself slip from its grasp as it screamed in pain, falling to its knees. I heard pounding coming from the hallway as I rolled to my feet, and I noticed two more of the “Diamond Dogs” enter the room, both varying in size compared to the one curled up on the floor. I felt my burst of courage taper off as the two produced knives longer than my arms, but I felt a burst of something else coursing up my arms. I held them out to observe them, and marveled as they glowed a dark blue, similar Mirror’s horn originally.

“What the fu—HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” I screamed as two bolts of red lightning shot from my hands, striking the dogs and throwing them through the bedroom wall. My hands also went numb, and I suddenly lost the will to move. I fell over, and I felt reality begin to slip away as the edges of my vision go dark…

No. Stay awake, stay alive. You can’t sleep now… As much as I hated to admit it, I was right. I didn’t try to move, although I did everything I could to stay awake as my energy slowly returned. Very slowly, I felt just able to stumble to my feet. The moment my hands touched the floor, however, I realized they weren’t numb anymore. And boy did that hurt.

I fought to stay awake against the brutal pain now flaring up my arms, avoiding any contact with anything and my hands as I retrieved my bag (painfully, but just able to manage it) and hurried down the stairs, and out the front door (which, thankfully, had been smashed down.)

I never found their bodies, but I did find that the hallway had a strange coating of dust when I did return…

*--^--*

Two hours of stumbling through the forest later, and I was heavily considering suicide. The pain in my hands hadn’t retreated, no matter what I tried to do to ease it, and to make matters worse I had Mirror in my head.

‘Seriously, you need to find some help.’ She suggested, though her tone of voice leaned more towards a command.

“Yeah, I know.” I responded out loud, not giving any fucks. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two god damn hours?”

‘Wandering aimlessly through a forest, not asking your friend, who just so happens to be native to the area, for help?’ I almost stopped when she said friend, but I decided to let it slide. Slip of the tongue, I’m sure.

But she had a point, as much as I hated to admit it, which I did very much so. “Fine, where the fuck should I go for help?” There was silence for several minutes, until I got fed up with waiting and continued going straight.

Ten minutes later, I was considering self mutilation just so I could see if Mirror could feel pain.

‘Actually, I can but it’s dulled. What you consider painful is only uncomfortable to me, luckily.’

“Where in the fuck have you been?” I demanded, slamming my fist into a tree in anger, only to bite back a scream of pain as I stupidly stared at my hand.

‘Trying to find a solution to your problem, and I think I have. There’s a mare in a town not far from here, she has a lot of experience with magic and would surely be able to help you. Just keep going straight, you’ll find it eventually.’ I was ready to scream, but held it back. She was trying to help, I couldn’t yell at her for that.

“Thanks.” I granted her a curt reply before walking the rest of the way in silence.

As it turns out, the forest is really boring. It was trees, trees, trees and, you guessed it, mushrooms. I did notice several pairs of glowing eyes watching me carefully as I passed, but I ignored them in light of my situation. Eventually, the forest began to thin out, until I was walking up a grassy hill with no trees in sight.

There were, however, buildings. And denizens of the town going about their business. And in that instant, something Mirror had said earlier hit me.

“Wait, you said mare. Did you mean mare as in female horse?” I didn’t hear a reply as I saw one of the denizens of the town look in my direction, in all his horsey gloriousness. He was tan, with brown hair and a matching tail and an hourglass on his ass.

I could have sworn he looked familiar, though how I couldn’t guess.

The moment his eyes locked onto mine, his calm expression changed into one of fear. Oh shit.

“M-M-MONSTER!” He cried, and just like that every equine in eyesight escaped the area, fleeing into homes and down alleyways. Just under a minute later, the streets were empty. A tumbleweed rolled across the street, and I swear I heard crickets, despite the sun directly overhead.

“This will be fun.” I said flatly, starting down the dirt path which led into town.

‘Your definition of fun is confusing, Cian.’