-Ice Eyes-

The path under Drew’s feet was packed dirt, which seemed at odds with the long, wild grass growing up around and in the broken houses. But closer to the buildings on either side of him were paved paths made with flat stones. These paths were much thinner than the large dirt path in the middle, almost like the stone path was designed for people to use and the larger, less formal path was for some kind of animal; maybe something as big as a rowder, but rowders flew almost everywhere, more akin to massive birds of prey than anything else.

After he’d walked for a mile or more, lighting the way before him, Drew decided to enter one of the buildings instead of only observing the exterior walls and features.

Leaving the dirt path behind, he stepped up onto the raised stone path and approached a three-story house, lighting the glass boxes in front of the door, which had broken in two. Half of the wood was still attached to the door frame, while the other section was rotting, its bright yellow color fading back to the brown of the forest.

Stepping over the large piece of broken door, he pushed past what remained of the door and into the house. The various windows on the front of the building had been broken years before, and vines and other plants grew through the square holes.

Unlike the usual stone or wood of buildings Drew was now used to seeing in Deporta, the ruined house featured some kind of soft flooring with artistic designs seemingly painted over it. Crouching down, he felt the flooring, surprised when it felt soft, like a thick, sturdy kind of blanket.

Intricately carved, wooden furniture filled the space, but the chairs and tables were coated in a shiny veneer Drew didn’t recognize, almost like the various pieces had been dipped in some kind of sap that gave them a hard, almost stone-like quality.

Everything here was similar, but nothing was the same. This was nothing like the world he’d grown up in.

On one of the tables was the most astonishing piece of glass Drew had ever seen. It was framed by more of the carved, shiny wood, but instead of allowing him to see through it, the glass showed a tall man in ruby armor, staring at him in confusion and disbelief.

Was someone else in the house with him? But the strange piece of glass was mounted to the wall. Crossing the room quickly, avoiding the furniture and debris scattered about, he looked for the intruder.

After sweeping the entire first floor of the house, Drew had to conclude that the man had either ran off, or had been a figment of Drew’s overactive imagination.

But when he approached the glass again, there was that man! He summoned more Orenda, preparing to defend himself if needed, and the figure in front of him did the same, their Orenda matching shades of ruby, their armor identical, down to the last detail.

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“Who are you?” he called out. He couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

The stranger’s mouth moved at the same time and seemed to ask the same question simultaneously, although Drew didn’t hear anyone else’s voice in the utter silence of the condemned home.

“It can’t be…”

He reached out and touched the peculiar glass, and the figure in front of him did the same until their hands were touching.

As impossible as it seemed, the figure staring back at him could only be one person—Drew himself.

Drew had only seen his reflection in water before, a hazy representation of himself. But this glass displayed him perfectly, like he really was looking at another person.

His eyes, which he’d always assumed were a dark color, maybe brown, were actually a deep blue, like the bottom of the ocean.

At odds with the doubts and hesitation that still surfaced from time to time in his mind, the man in front of him looked confident and mature. And his eyes—they looked like they’d seen a world of things he didn’t even have a name for.

Drew was still examining himself when he caught a glint of icy blue in the glass. He jerked his head around, looking for the source—

There, in the shadows of the ruins on the other side of the street, two large, icy blue orbs, almost as bright as his Orenda.

Without warning the two lights winked out, only to reappear a moment later.

It took him several moments to realize what he was looking at. And what was looking at him.

The icy blue orbs were eyes, the largest eyes Drew had ever seen. He couldn’t see the creature’s body or outline, only its unnerving eyes, which seemed to gaze at Drew with a high level of foreign intelligence.

Still sheathed in his ruby armor, Drew walked back out of the house he was in as quietly as possible, never taking his eyes off the alien presence scrutinizing him.

Even as he got closer, leaving the house and stepping into the dirt path, the creature remained still, as though nothing more than a statue.

He should have been terrified, but he continued to inch forward until he could vaguely make out its outline now. Surprisingly, it seemed human.

It was clad in something as dark as the night, but he could make out the outline of long, muscular legs and arms wavering in the glow from the lit glass box behind him. The figure appeared to be holding something thin and dark… a weapon of some kind?

Drew was about to step from the dirt road to the stone path when a second pair of ice-blue eyes joined the first. The pair stared at him inquisitively, like he was just as foreign as they were. Drew could still only make out their eyes and a basic outline of their bodies.

Coaxing his Orenda forward, Drew lit the glass box in front of the house the figures were hiding in the shadow of.

As soon as the light ignited, a vibrant wall of ruby light flashed in front of the pair, completely hiding them and their luminous eyes from view.

When the ruby Orenda dissipated, they were gone.