A Strange Encounter

For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Despite my limited time here, I thought I had seen it all, but what I was seeing now somehow took the cake for being the weirdest thing I had ever come across.

“I’m not seeing things, am I?” I rubbed my eyes as I looked at the figures before us, standing perfectly still.

Before us stood exact versions of ourselves, but also different in every single way. Jaeger was wearing aristocratic clothing; his normally disheveled facial hair was clean-shaven, and his hair neatly tied into a bun.

My messy, blood-stained, torn-up suit was perfectly preserved, my hair slicked back instead of falling on my face, my glasses sitting neatly on the edge of my nose, and instead of carrying a bag full of living essentials, a legal codex gracefully sat in my arms.

Faelar was clad in a simple white tunic, the Elvenstone around his neck glowing. Farm tools replaced the sword in his hand as he stood there with a smile bigger than I had ever seen him greet any of us with, sending a shiver down my spine.

Lastly, Amber, who wore the same clothes as she was wearing now. Nothing had changed about her except for the fact she was very visibly pregnant as she had her arm wrapped around my counterpart.

Jaeger chuckled to himself, pointing at his well-dressed counterpart. “Would you look at that? That’s actually pretty funny.”

“I’m assuming this is some kind of illusion,” Faelar asked Amber, his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking at her for a command.

“They’re just ideals, basically—”

“Ideal versions of ourselves,” I said, walking to the front, standing mere inches away from my counterpart as I tried touching the suit, only for my hand to fall through as if trying to grab mist.

Faelar eased his stance as he walked up to his own counterpart and slashed with his sword, which passed right through. Amber walked up to her own counterpart as well but stopped her hand just short of touching the belly.

“We need to keep walking,” Amber scurried past her counterpart. “No matter what, don’t listen to a word they say.”

The rest of us obliged as Jaeger tried giving his own version one last smack across the face, walking forward as these ideal versions of ourselves followed closely behind.

I could see the counterparts speaking to each of us, but I only heard my own version speak to me.

“Listen, man,” he said, “you’re way in over your head. Just turn back and go back to Luxion. You and Amber could have had a good thing going.”

I continued walking, paying no heed to what he said, as the rest of my companions did the same. Although occasionally, I did hear Jaeger mutter rather unpleasant words at his counterpart.

“Look at what you’ve gotten yourself into,” the ideal version of me pulled out a packet of cigarettes from within his coat jacket. “You could just kill yourself, too, and then that white-haired girl would be forced to send you back.”

It’s not like I hadn’t wished to be in the confines of my apartment, lying on my sofa instead of the floor, as I worried about some mundane case, but catching Amber walking with her head low from the corner of my eye just further entrenched my belief.

“I can’t, and you know that,” I chuckled to myself. “And you need to stop pretending like you’re so perfect. I was miserable back then, and you know it.”

“I mean, I wasn’t dying almost every other day like you are now.” He took a drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke at my face. “Just book it, man.”

I shook my head and continued to walk past my counterpart, reaching just a few feet away from Faelar, whose voice was barely above a whisper, but still audible.

“And live a lie without having compensated for my sins?” he muttered under his breath. “Absolutely not. I created that monster, and I have to take him down.”

Amber now walked with her hands clamped over her ears, moving swiftly, almost running off into the darkness until finally, we reached a room that seemed to be lit by torches all around as the ideals started to vanish one by one.

“Just think about what I said,” my version gave me a half-hearted salute as he turned into nothing but smoke.

I clapped my hands as the rest of my companions gathered around. “So, none of you turned back, so I guess we’re all sane for now?”

Faelar massaged his brow, letting out a slight chuckle. “I’ve been through worse,” as he looked toward Jaeger, who seemed to be trying desperately to tie his own disheveled hair.

Amber, on the other hand, appeared more lost in thought than anyone else, her hands fidgeting as her gaze fixed on the stone floor beneath her.

I walked over to Amber, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched for a few seconds as she came back to reality. “We need to keep going; it only gets worse from here on out.” She scurried off into the long labyrinth that awaited us once more, I and the others closely behind.

We continued onward for hours on end, the dark stretching endlessly before us once more. The sound of water droplets dripping somewhere in the distance and our footsteps echoing made the hairs on my neck stand up just a bit.

The passageway turned and twisted, rising and descending, and even narrowing so much so that we all had to walk in a single file, with Jaeger having to worm his way through until eventually we reached a place where the air started getting colder, light seeping in through cracks between bricks.

As the light spilled through the cracks, we broke into a run. The air hit me like a knife; cold, sharp, and clean after hours in the choking dark.

When we finally stumbled out into the open, I gasped, dizzy from both relief and exhaustion.

Before us, stretching into the distance under a sky bruised with twilight, lay the open country. The air was sharp, carrying the scent of pine and frost, a stark contrast to the damp weight of the tunnels. The mountains loomed on either side, their peaks jagged against the fading light, as if guarding the secrets we’d just escaped.

“Finally,” Amber exhaled, standing at the exit of the tunnels as we made our way behind her. “We’re here.”

I blinked a few times to adjust my vision to the light outside as Jaeger and Faelar went to stand by Amber.

Amber pointed over the dense forests. “That’s where we’ll be going,” she said. “Erevayn.”