MirrorWorld

Fifty yards from the cemetery, I lay at the fringe of a fern patch, totally concealed by the lush, three-foot-tall foliage. Of course, all this effort might be for nothing. I have no idea how the Dread see our world. While my eyes can see like them, I’m still human, and still have two eyes instead of four. For all I know, my presence might shine like a beacon, though I don’t think so since I’m still alone.

I put a pair of binoculars to my eyes and check out the real world first. If there are any human beings guarding the place, I want to know about it. The graveyard is ancient, the headstones smooth, slate-gray, worn by time and rain. The names are weathered, some of them erased completely. The remains of a church lay to the side of the cemetery, having been consumed by fire long ago but never rebuilt. Given the amount of graffiti and shards of broken glass, it’s probably been a teenage hangout for years. The graveyard is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Black paint curls back from the posts, revealing patches of maroon rust. There isn’t a single flower by any of the graves. The dead here have been long since forgotten by whatever distant relatives survived them.

Keeping my body in the dimension it belongs to, I let my eyes gaze into the mirror. I feel my eyes shift, the pupils splitting and stretching. It’s like moving a colored lens in front of my eyes and then removing it. The pain is negligible. The clearing is still there, but the cemetery is gone and everything else has changed. The forest is now a moist, black jungle streaked with luminescent veins of color, not just green. And the sky is purple, casting its weak glow through gathering storm clouds. I haven’t seen the sun here. Maybe there isn’t one. Or maybe the strange sky just filters out different wavelengths? Could be why nothing grows green here, other than the veins. But really, who knows how this place works? No one, that’s who.

What I do know is that there isn’t a Dread in sight.

The giant wart that is the Dread colony sits atop the cemetery’s location. Closer this time, I can see that it’s a dry husk of a thing, like a beehive. It looks almost brittle, but it’s big, a diameter of two hundred feet, at least.

I sit still for a full minute, each second putting Neuro in greater danger. I consider some of them new friends, and, while I can’t remember her, one of them was—is—my wife. I’d like to think I’m honorable enough to fight for her, memory or not.

I stand from cover. Leaving the bow and arrows clipped to the ATV, I unsling my assault rifle and jog toward the nearest arched colony entrance. Armed with two trench knives, a machete, a P229, a Desert Eagle, and the Vector, I’m close to a walking arsenal, but there’s no way to know what I’m going to find in the darkness beyond or what it will take to kill it.

I step inside the colony without a second thought and let the rest of my body slip into the mirror world. The sudden pain staggers me, but my body soon adjusts to this distant world just beyond our reach and I’m moving. My eyes adapt to the shade with typical human efficiency—slowly. But it’s not entirely dark inside. Veins of color line the walls. It’s like everything in this world is alive, pumping luminous blood through exposed veins.

The floor is hard-packed, dry soil, not like the mush outside. Countless oddly shaped footprints litter the dusty top layer. It’s normally a busy place, but right now no one seems to be home.

Whispering rises in pulses powerful enough to daze me. Whatever is generating the mental “sound” is nearby. I can feel it, and I’m pretty damn sure it can feel me. Probably did the moment I slipped fully into this world.

The shuffling of scurrying feet confirms it. While most of the colony is away, probably part of the assault on Neuro, some pugs have remained behind. It’s a horrible defense, and the sound gives me a direction to head. Assault rifle up and against my shoulder, I head left, toward the scratching.

The sound of small feet ebbs and flows through the tunnel, but the small creatures making the noise fail to manifest out of the gloom. They’re just out of sight, darting away before I can see them. But I can hear them. The passage leads downward, following a subtly tightening spiral. Alcoves line the outer wall, each one filled with a variety of mirror-world brush twisted into nests. I take aim into each as I pass, but the chambers are devoid of life.

Ten minutes later, toward the end of what I believe is my fourth full revolution around the colony, at least fifty feet underground, the incline levels out. The air is like a giant’s armpit: warm, moist, and rank. The smell is hard to describe. Part ammonia, part rotten egg, part decaying flesh. There’s nothing redeeming about the odor.

The whispering surges and then stops.

The scampering quiets.

They’re waiting for me.