Statics in the Mirror

Eldrinch's laughter still echoed in Lion's ears as they parted at an intersection in the hallway. She turned left, toward the cafeteria, in search of a late night snack and he turned right, toward the barracks, in search of a silence that he hoped would bring him peace.

He did not find it.

The corridors of the Gigi-1 base, normally filled with the echo of human activity, were submerged in the artificial stillness of the night. Only the hum of air purifiers and the blue glow of emergency lights broke the monotony. He walked alone, his footsteps echoing on the metal.

And then, he felt it.

A shiver. A bristling at the nape of the neck. The unmistakable and primitive sensation of being watched.

He stopped short, turning around. The hallway was empty. Total silence. He shook his head. "Too much stress," he thought. He resumed walking, but the feeling didn't go away. It intensified. It was like feeling the weight of an invisible gaze digging into his back. He came to think that Eldrinch, with his twisted sense of humor, was playing a joke on him, hiding in some corner.

"Very funny, El," he said aloud, his voice sounding strange in the empty hallway. "You can come out now."

There was no response. Only the hum of the ship.

That's when the lights flickered. Once, twice. The blue illumination died for an instant, plunging him into near total darkness, before coming back to life with an erratic buzzing sound. And in the distance, at the end of the corridor, he saw it.

A silhouette. One that was and at the same time was not. It was taller, or at least it seemed so, with slightly longer, more finished limbs, as if the body had been stretched over a frame. And the face... it was his, but twisted into a sadistic, inhuman, toothy smile.

That body squirmed, joints creaking with an unnatural sound, and then... he ran.

It ran towards him with nightmarish speed, not like a human, but like a broken puppet whose strings were pulled by a mad god.

Years of combat training did little good. Lion's mind screamed for him to move, but his body was paralyzed by sheer disbelief. At the last instant, he lunged to the side, the air hissing where his head had been. that thing didn't slam into the wall; it stopped with impossible agility, cornering him.

It did not attack him. It didn't even touch him. He simply brought his twisted face close to Lion's, so close that he could feel his breath, the smell was burning. And then, as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.

Lion stood there, back against the wall, heart pounding, panting. The hallway was empty again. The silence was total. It felt like a fever dream, a hallucination. "A bad joke of my mind," he said to himself, though he didn't believe it. He straightened up, and with a quick, determined step, headed for his room, closing the door behind him as if that might keep the ghosts at bay.

That's when the voices started.

They were not words. They were whispers at the edge of his hearing, the screech of metal against glass, the whisper of sand in an empty skull. A distorted language he could not understand but whose meaning he felt in his bones: chaos, ruin, the end.

I'm going crazy.

He ran to the bathroom, the need to see his own face, to confirm his own sanity, was overwhelming. She leaned against the sink, taking a deep breath, and looked up at the mirror.

And panic consumed him.

His right eye was normal. But the left... the left was an abomination. Its pupil and iris, normally a vivid color, now glowed with an intense and unnatural violet color. And the sclera, the white part of the eye, was a deep and absolute black, like a hole into nothingness.

All his training, all his discipline, all his facade of an unflappable leader was shattered. A choked scream escaped his throat and he recoiled, stumbling and falling sitting down to the floor. He crawled backwards until his back collided with the opposite wall, his breath coming in erratic gasps.

Several seconds, or perhaps minutes, passed. With a trembling she could not control, she dared to look again. He crawled back to the sink, braced himself with trembling hands and looked at his reflection.

It was him. His two eyes were normal.

There was no trace of violet. There was no trace of black. Only his own terrified face staring back at him.

He stood there, trembling. Tiredness, he told himself, clinging to logic like a castaway to a plank. The lack of sleep. The news of Kenji. The stress. It had to be that. A hallucination. A very, very real one.

He got up, rinsed his face again and, without even taking off his clothes, collapsed on the bed.

"Tomorrow," he whispered to himself in the darkness of the room. "Tomorrow I'll talk to a doctor."