My First Time Being Employed

The orientation chamber had begun to dissolve.

Where once loomed impossibly tall bleachers and skyless stone, the figures who had watched in silence were fading, their presence slipping away like a half-remembered dream. Even the statues—those great stone monoliths that had issued their silent judgment—now dulled, the glow in their eyes dimming as if slumbering once more.

Aeris rose to her feet beside me. She glanced down at her bracelet, then up at me, her expression gloomy. “I'll see you later if everything goes well.”

I barely had time to ask before a guard emerged behind me. I hadn’t even heard footsteps. He wore the standard slate-gray armor of the Warden Corps, though his helmet was more mask than helm. He had no eye holes, no visible face. Just a void.

Aeris gave a small wave, her eyes softer now. “Don’t get lost.”

Then she turned and followed a separate path that hadn’t been there a moment ago. I was left alone with the faceless sentinel.

“This way,” he said, voice modulated and sterile. He didn’t look back to see if I followed.

We moved through a corridor that lead to where the cafeteria once was but now I understood what Aeris had meant by everything shifting. The room was sterile, seamless. The walls curved ever so slightly inward, the floor subtly sliding beneath each step as though the ground were adjusting for us. Eventually, the corridor gave way to a wide opening. What lay beyond felt... wrong.

A hallway, long and yawning, stretched into the distance but it was moving. At first I thought it was just like all the other instances of weirdness here, but the end of the hall shimmered, pulling back farther and farther like it was recoiling from our presence.

“This is your first assignment,” the guard said, standing still as stone. “Reflection Duty.”

I stared down the corridor, which shouldn’t have even existed. I resigned myself to just accepting my fate, staring down the nauseating hallway I asked “What am I even supposed to do exactly?"

“You’ll know when it’s done.”

“That’s not very...”

I turned to face him, but he was already gone.

Just like that, I was on my own.

I swallowed and turned back toward the corridor. The air near it buzzed faintly, like static before a storm. I took a breath. Then I walked in.

The deeper I went, the more the world bent.

The walls stretched and curled, ceiling flickering between concrete and stars. Doors that should’ve led to storage rooms now opened into black voids or infinite libraries. And all around me, memories began to rise, like smoke from cracks in the floor.

“Promise me you’ll remember.”

A voice I recognized but couldn’t place echoed down the hall.

Then another: “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

The air grew heavier. My head throbbed as scenes played out in fractured glimpses around me. Not all the memories were mine, nor had they all happened yet. I wasn't sure how I knew this, but I was sure I was right. A glimpse of Aeris, except she was wearing different clothes, older maybe, and speaking to someone I couldn’t see. A child’s laughter fading. Blood on stone growing. A hallway I knew from a dream I hadn’t had yet.

Shadows lingered at the edges, flickering between recognition and denial. Each presenting their lives as if I had lived through them myself. It was all too much to take in.

Then I saw it.

A fractured mirror.

It stood at the end of the corridor, tall and cracked through its center. But it didn’t show me. Not really.

Flickering within were silhouettes, a slow rotation of faint, hazy figures dancing behind the fractured glass.

One sat calmly in an open cell, unmoving, even as the door stood wide and waiting.
Another stood frozen on a stage, surrounded by silence, a medal in his hand he didn’t seem to want.
A third lingered on a rainy street, watching someone walk away. They turned back once, waiting for a reason to stay. He gave her none.

None of them looked directly at me. None seemed aware I was there. Just figments behind the glass, like echoes of scenes that never fully happened, or maybe haven’t yet. I hated to think I was slowly understanding this place, why should I be able to?

The mirror hummed softly. The light inside it flickered.

I stepped closer and placed my hand against the surface. The mirages conjoined showing me as I am. My true reflection. 

My bracelet pulsed once.

The corridor behind me folded like paper. Light bent, collapsing in on itself. The mirror repaired itself then vanished. The hallway shortened in an instant, as though exhaling. I was back at the entrance.

The assignment was over.

A new door had appeared. Without a word, I stepped through and found myself in a different corridor, one I vaguely recognized. A guard waited at the end and gestured me back toward my cell.

They said nothing the entire walk.

I didn’t realize how tired I was until the cell door sealed behind me, maybe I was gone longer than I had realized.

The silence was almost comforting. Almost.

Then, from the wall beside me, a soft knock followed with a voice.

“You made it back.” it sounded teary and relieved.

Aeris.

“Barely,” I muttered, leaning against the wall. "I saw things I rather wished I hadn't. Does everyone go through that?"

There was a brief silence before she opened her mouth again "It was the same for me at least." Her voice grew quieter as she spoke.

“I saw... something. In a mirror. Is that standard for this job?”

I heard something that sounded like she had bumped her head against the wall, from the little I knew of her my guess was she jolted out of shock.

"Was the mirror fractured in anyway?" Her words came out quick, then softly "You shouldn't have encountered something like that so soon..."

“Yeah,” I said. “The glass was definitely shattered. It still reflected light, a bit distorted and yet still like a regular mirror." I felt a bit stupid trying to explain how a mirror works. "But it didn’t show me. Not really.”

Aeris didn’t respond right away. I could hear her breathing on the other side of the wall, shallow and deliberate. I may have only known her for less than a day but something about her frailty and kindness made me feel sorry for her fear. 

“You’re sure it wasn’t just because it was broken?” she asked eventually.

“I don't think so. It acted sort of like a window at first, showing... people?” I tried to think of a way to explain, there were memories floating all around but something about that mirror seemed different. 

After a sigh for how meaningless my Liberal Arts Degree seems to be, I continued trying to find the right words but it didn't seem to matter for Aeris seemed to know exactly what I meant to say.

“When I first saw it,” she said, “I thought it was just a trick. This place loves its illusions. Hallways that loop. Clocks that run backwards. Voices that whisper things you almost remember." She gave a slight laugh as if to comfort herself. "But the mirror... 

I leaned back, sliding down to a sitting position. "Is it some sort of test?" I had said to try and help her complete her sentence.

“No.” Her answer came quick. “Not a test, rather, a warning.”

I frowned. “Of what?”

The wall between us offered no hint of her expression, only her hesitation.

“Of what was,” she said firmly, “or what will be. The mirror doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t explain either. It shows lives, sometimes your own, sometimes not. And if it is your own… it always shows the same thing. Every time.”

“You said I wasn’t supposed to see it yet,” I said. “Why not?”

“It's only meant to show up later,” she murmured. “Much later. After the place has had time to… wear you down. After you’ve started to forget what normal felt like. And most definitely after your training.”

“So I’m ahead of schedule it seems?” Part of me was rather proud to think this could be true, another part dreaded that my own incompetence might shine through and it'll be known that I'm nothing more than a failure.

“No,” she said. “You’re out of schedule.”

Silence again. I was confused at what she meant. I didn't want to be special, I never was. Sensing my feeling Aeris shifted to a more caring and compassionate tone.

“You don’t have to make sense of it all right away,” she said gently. “The ones who try to… they’re the ones who lose themselves first.”

Her voice was softer now, like she was speaking more to herself than to me.

“You’re still here. That’s what matters.”

I let that sit for a moment. The thought was strangely comforting. Not heroic. Not dramatic. Just… surviving. Maybe that was enough for today.

“…Thanks,” I said, almost a whisper.

“Try to get some rest,” she replied. “We’ll need it.”

I exhaled, slow and quiet. My fingers drifted to the bracelet on my wrist, the eye now closed. A slight smile formed as I processed her saying that We'll need rest, not just me or her. I was glad to know I wasn't going to be alone here. And for the first time I felt like this was something I could accept without worries of "if I deserved it or not".

Somewhere in the walls, a distant chime rang. Not a typical buzz but more like a lullaby played too slowly. I went to lay on the cloth this place called a bed and as I stared to the ceiling I found myself speaking.

“I think I miss being able to understand things. I never had to try too hard to make sense of reality before"

Aeris gave a small, breathless laugh before going to bed. “Yeah. I remember feeling the same way.”