The door rippled with pulsations of dread power. A portal of broken mirrors and drooling blood. The black impression of a bell leaked. As welcoming as a crocodile’s mouth to a plover bird.
“You’re crazy,” Bella wiped sweat from her brow. A spiderweb tattooed on the back of her hand. “We can’t go in there.”
The college girl nodded.
“I agree. I’d rather risk the trees than wherever that door leads.” She gripped the edge of the door, looked out at the dark snow beyond, and paused. “Someone’s coming with me, right?”
Anton stared at the dungeon door.
“We’ve already learned this world punishes the cowardly,” he grinned. ”Maybe it rewards the brave?”
And he sprinted for the door. The creatures surged. Clawed fingers reached for his legs, but he leaped and sailed over the grasping monsters. He twisted in the air to face the survivors. With a jaunty wave, he struck the door.
The mirror gave as though it were water. Shards bobbed on the bloody grout. For a moment he floated inside the reflection, waving slowly, shrinking, before he vanished.
Immediately, the system’s ethereal voice chimed.
[A member of your party has entered the Mirrorbell Dungeon. This is a Black Star Dungeon. Enter within 60 seconds to join them at the dungeon entrance.]
[60]
[59]
[58]
Damn.
Now Zoe had a time limit. She envied Anton’s decisiveness. No, she envied him entering first. Would he get a title for being first into a dungeon?
The monsters gave the dungeon a wide birth. But just because it was dangerous to them, did that mean it was dangerous to her?
She knew there was risk involved, but what really made her envious of Anton was how he ignored the safety of the group.
But should she care? Why was it her responsibility? Just because they looked at her?
She turned to Bella.
“I’m going in there.”
Bella nodded.
“I’ll follow you.”
Zoe smiled if only to hide the weight those words placed upon her shoulders.
The college kids looked at them like they were crazy. The redhead clutched his swollen jaw and pointed to the trees. He mumbled, incoherent, but easy enough to guess the meaning.
Zoe shook her head. The pines were an illusion of safety. She knew the mantis stalked those shadows. Waiting for them to flee into its serrated arms.
But more than that, she agreed with Anton’s words. The only way to survive this new insane world was to embrace it. The world had changed, but one of those changes was the power coursing through her. That let her swat away monsters. That let her bitch slap annoying people. That let her survive a gruesome wound.
The door was twenty feet away and surrounded by crawling heads. She could make it.
Time to commit.
“Keep close to me,” she whispered to the survivors. “And I’ll keep them away from you.”
Bella placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Right behind you, mate.”
The college kids looked warily between her and the darkness outside. Zoe put them out of her mind. They would follow, or they wouldn’t. She couldn’t make them her concern.
She clutched the wriggling power. The Skein. It felt like a firehose flailing, and she directed it toward her skin, toward repelling the smiling monstrosities. Her dark skin flushed silver.
And she charged.
Monsters hissed as she neared. Fingernails skittered along the carpet. They fled her approach but were too slow. Her steel feet crushed smiling faces like balloons of maggoty pus. Black ichor sizzled and steamed against her skin.
She felt more in control of this strange power. She didn’t need to lash out as hard to destroy these creatures. She could be more frugal, more precise.
Nevertheless, her Skein plummeted.
[20/57]
Only ten feet to go, and the heads struggled to create a path amidst the shadows and swirling light.
[15/57]
Five feet left. She tried and failed to quell the rising dread. What happened at zero? Would she die?
[10/57]
The leader leaped from the roof toward her face. Fingers splayed like grotesque wings. It latched around her throat. She stumbled back, hit Bella, and slid to the floor. Her pulse hammered.
The creature grinned like an old man pulling a slot machine.
Why even fight? Why rush into the unknown? Better the devil she knew…
Her limbs went limp. The fleeing creatures turned. Smiling, they swarmed the survivors. Singing despair. Reaching anemone of withered fingers.
Bella slapped at the leader's head. But her hand passed straight through and slapped Zoe’s cheek.
Foolish to fight these things. Foolish to even try.
Nobody could hurt them. Always more. Can’t fight shadows. Better to lay back. Easier to accept…
Bella slapped her other cheek.
“Get up, Zoe!”
Pain flickered through her thoughts. A tiny tear in the curtain of despair. Another slap across her cheek. Zoe snarled.
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Her skein pulsed.
[8/57]
Steel flashed with light across her throat.
[6/57]
The leader hissed.
[4/57]
Whispered.
[2/57]
Begged.
[0/57]
Died in an explosion of greasy smoke. Zoe’s gasped as cool energy spiked in her guts.
[Level up! You are now level 3.]
[Your first step was a stumble, but now you stride. Open your eyes and behold your new world.]
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Metal: Might +4, Willpower +4 (Lodestone Title applied)]
* [Blood: Vitality +4]
* [Shadow: Willpower +2, Insight +2]
Zoe’s vision swam. Her body was heavy. Stiff. Before she could think about the information streaming through her mind, Bella hauled her to her feet. Zoe leaned against her, but Bella pushed her in the back.
And into the dungeon door.
Zoe struck the fragmented mirror and fell through the light.
Fell through darkness.
Fell through a space between worlds.
###
Sunlight slanted through the blinds and struck her eye. Zoe paused as she walked into her clinic’s operating room. A moment in the doorway as a dream faded.
But the climate-controlled room beckoned. She stepped beyond the threshold into eggshell walls. An old man sat on the operating table with his legs swinging. He wore a lavender gown. Zoe remembered the argument with Ben. He wanted teal gowns, as though that color would soothe anybody.
The anesthetist hadn’t set up yet. There were no nurses. She couldn’t find the patient's chart, but still, she smiled with practiced formality.
“Hello, sir. Are you ready for your procedure?”
He smiled. A tired thing. Grey eyes weary as a sinking ship.
“Which procedure was that, Dr. Chambers?”
She bit her lip.
“I’m sorry, the nurse hasn’t prepared your chart, Mr…?”
“Rue.”
“Well, Mr. Rue. Maybe you can tell me why you’re here today?”
He smiled again.
“I’ll leave it up to you. Consider me a blank canvas.”
“That’s not really how this works —”
“I want you to mark me,” his finger trailed along his cheek. “How would you make a man’s face reflect his sins?”
She stepped back, glanced toward the exit, toward the surgical tools lined neat and stainless on their tray beside the operating table.
“I think you have the wrong kind of doctor.”
“No. You’re here. How would you perform your work of face shaping, doctor? How would you mark the man who destroyed your world?”
The dream resurfaced. Heart-clenching horror. A screaming plane. Kaleidoscopic sky. Monsters.
Despair…
She stared at him.
“What?”
He smiled.
“I initiated the system on earth. Now, I ask you what you —”
She grabbed the scalpel and plunged it into his eye. Razor tip met pupil, but the pupil dilated. Wider and wider until she tumbled into an endless pit. Swallowed. Zoe fell.
The memories of a dream, slowly fading.
###
Zoe fell.
Raced down.
She went skydiving once for a friend’s birthday party. The way wind whipped her hair. Pulled her limbs up. Caressed her skin. This felt similar, but the space she fell through?
A vast nothing. Not dark, but an absence of anything. She saw forever, and the empty horizons hurt her eyes.
She glanced down.
Forever extended in every direction.
Bile at the back of her throat. She wretched, but her stomach was empty. Nothing within. No heartbeat in her ears. No pain in her side.
She mentally nudged at the feeling of the system. Summoned her status.
Nothing.
Was she dead?
A vast hand rose and caught her. She should have shattered, but she landed soft as a feather upon a palm the size of a basketball court. A woman loomed over her, a face appearing out of the dark nothing, and Zoe wept.
For the woman was beautiful.
Zoe spent her career reshaping flesh. Making the aesthetic aspirations of her clients a reality. She knew the goals and the theories and the practicalities of physical perfection.
All this torn asunder as she gazed up at the goddess. Long hair framed colossal eyes. Plush lips smiled ever so faintly. Impossible to describe the colors of hair or skin or eyes. What color is love? What color is affection? What color is tantalizing desire?
It should be horrific, seeing a face wrought so large. So out of proportion. But Zoe only felt disgusted with herself, that she should appear before such a being.
The goddess laughed. A joyous ripple passed through Zoe and cleared all doubts and revulsion as though a monsoon swept away cobwebs.
“You should have been one of mine,” the goddess said. “You lingered on Blood, even as it flowed from your side. And yet you dismissed me?” She laughed again. “I should be dismayed.”
Her vast eyes twinkled, and Zoe fell in love with that gaze. She never considered another woman like this before, but those eyes… They didn’t see the grimy calloused fist, but the golden coin clenched so tightly.
So fiercely clutched against the grabbing horrors of the world.
Zoe knelt. Tried to speak.
“Who are you?”
The goddess smiled.
“Just an observer, for now. Later? Who knows?”
But before Zoe could voice the hope sparking in her breast, the goddess’s palm tilted. Zoe tumbled head over heels and fell once more.
Into the endless nothing.
###
A wooden floor appeared beneath Zoe. Before she could blink, she smacked down. The impact blew the air from her lungs. She rolled over, stunned, wheezing. Nothing felt broken, but everything hurt.
The wound in her side spiked with every heartbeat.
It took a moment, blinking tears from her eyes, before she realized where she lay. What she mistook for a wooden floor, was a table. She stood. The table stretched out, flat and even, as wide as an island. Surrounding her, tall as trees, were glass bottles. She couldn’t recognize the symbols or designs on the labels, but the overpowering smell was unmistakable.
She stood on a table surrounded by bottles of beer. This must be the perspective of an ant. Vaporous alcohol warped the rims of the bottles. She felt lightheaded just breathing, or maybe that came from the impact of landing? Her whole body pulsed with pain.
She looked about. Walked a few paces. Scouting. She wasn’t alone. Where there is beer, there are drinkers. She saw them and her jaw dropped.
Faint as mountains. Six titanic figures surrounded her. A strange haze surrounded the table, like the blue atmosphere of distance, that prevented her from seeing them too clearly. From hearing them.
One of them was the goddess with the face of love. Sensuous mouth opened with laughter she couldn’t hear. Four of the other figures she couldn’t recognize. Their skin faint with color. Heads and limbs in shapes her mind refused to understand.
But one figure sat unclouded. He leaned forward until his head filled the sky above her. A young man with a handsome face and ancient eyes. Eyes as tired as a sinking ship.
She never saw this face before, but she recognized him in an instant. The way one recognizes a person in a dream.
The one who called himself Rue.
The one who destroyed her world.