This time, I was given no time to react. The dog came at me in a flurry of gnashing teeth, intent on ripping me to shreds.

The only thing that kept me alive was the fact that it wasn’t aiming for any vital organs. Instead, teeth that were more like glass shards than actual teeth dug into my arm, sending white hot pain searing up my arm. Not that I would have it for much longer, as it clenched its jaws tighter and whipped its head around insistently. Digging deeper and further and severing nerves and muscles and bones.

I couldn’t help it. I screamed, the agony overriding every thought I was capable of having. I backpedaled, stepping out of the wide room, and by some miracle, the dog followed my lead, bowling me over into the mirror-filled corridors as it finally released the death grip it had on my left arm.

It hurt. Worse even than the biting itself, the retraction of those teeth hurt. Blood was pouring out of the gashes on my arm, and I swear I could see some of the wounds glittering from leftover pieces of glass. It felt like it, too.

The dog circled around me, a strangely translucent pink tongue poking out to lick at its lips. I was prey, and not even particularly important prey, either.

“Hey, doggy.” I whispered, crouching low, “I don’t have your uber-special paper. Don’t attack me, okay?”

It sniffed the air, and I wanted to believe that it was checking to see if I was telling the truth, but more likely, it was just following its own instincts. And whatever it smelt in the air, it must not have liked it, as it bounded forward, growling all the way.

This time, I was able to brace for it, and when it knocked me into the wall, I didn’t collide with it. Instead, I melted straight through.

I landed in a heap in the mirror hallways, my left arm hanging useless from my shoulder. For a second, there was only heavy breathing, and I had the hubris to think I was safe.

Then the mirror in front of me rippled, and the hound broke through. Not good.

What had been a bad situation got steadily worse as the dog backed fully into the mirror. The hallways actually shifting and expanding around it to accommodate its size. And then it moved.

Silent as a ghost, faster than light, it warped and twisted around me in a manner that should have been impossible for a creature its size. Indeed, our altercation in the real world had suggested that it wasn’t nearly as strong or fast to pull off such a feat.

No doubt about it, the creature was stronger in the hallways than it was in real life. And it was only when I had dared to blink, and suddenly the dog was behind me, reaching for a strike on my neck, did I realize how majorly I had messed up by leading it here.

Still, it wasn’t as if I was useless here, myself. Fourteen plus years of reflection-hopping and you learn a trick or twenty. Before its teeth could clamp down on my neck, I reached out with my only functional hand, dipping my fingers into the liquidized reflection walls. A flick of the wrist, a clench of the fingers, followed by a sharp yank, and an array of needle-sharp spires erupted out of the wall, colliding with the dog in a sharp clunk.

Glass clashed against glass, creating a screech that almost made me yank up my other hand to cover the sound, but the harsh protests of shattered bone and torn muscles made me freeze in place. But it seemed to be doing the trick against the dog, as it snarled and bit out at the needles.

I watched, mesmerized, as the needles pressed deeper and deeper into its fiberglass fur, praying for a hint of blood, or mercury, or whatever it is this creature would have running through its veins. For my spires to win.

They shattered. As if they never even were a threat.

I cursed and willed the floor to shift around me, transferring me to the ceiling, several feet above the height it could reasonably jump to. It lunged up, and I pressed myself against the chilly surface, glee arcing through me when it fell short.

Not wanting to see whether it could manipulate the hallways like I could, I turned tail and ran. Best not to get too cocky, because this thing was stronger than anything I had ever went up against.

Current threat diverted, I had to draw up a new plan of attack. Take advantage of my surroundings and turn it against the beast.

A mirror caught my eye. Cracked and covered with a veil of grime, but just enough was visible to show a figure in a hat walking through near-complete darkness, torch carving a beam into the emptiness around it. I needed to use my surroundings, and my allies.

I tucked and rolled, making a wild dive into the mirror and through to the other side, coming out of the roll directly at Riley’s feet, who squeaked and lifted her axe almost on instinct.

“Woah, woah, friendly fire!” I told her, waving my functional hand frantically in the hopes of not getting decapitated by my friend of all people.

Riley relaxed immediately, “Oh, Maddy, it’s just you.” Her eyes caught onto my messed up arm, and all the tension returned, “What happened to your arm?!”

“Unimportant.” I told her, as briskly as I dared. Moving my head too much made my brain spin. Wow, the blood loss was really hitting me hard now. Gotta deal with this before the shock and hormones wore off or I was going to crash like a four-car pileup, “Can I have your axe?”

“Uh… sure?” Riley blinked, holding it out to me without even asking questions. I would have commended her for her focus and prioritization, but my one hand buckled under the weight of the axe, nearly dragging me to the floor alongside it. The pain was so intense, I nearly blacked out. She had to take it from me as I wheezed for breath.

“Okay, new plan.” I announced, “I’m going to lure it out using the reflection in your axe, and then you kill it for me.”

“I don’t think an axe is going to do the trick.” She muttered, weighing out doubtfully.

“Well, do you have any other ideas?” I snapped, “That thing is tougher than insides of mirrors. We’re going to need something incredible to kill it and right now, that’s you.”

Riley shifted her neck so that it cracked obnoxiously, “Okay, then.” She decided, face set “Let’s do this.”

We hashed out a clearer plan quickly, and then I turned towards her, concentrating intently, and then leaned in, my body folding itself up and slipping through the small reflection in the axe’s shiny blade and back into the corridor.

I didn’t announce my presence recklessly, instead I secured myself in a tiny alcove high up in the ceiling. There was no sign of the dog, but that wasn’t any reason to assume it wouldn’t sneak up on me easily. With that speed, I wouldn’t be surprised if it killed me the moment I landed on the ground.

So, why hadn’t it?

The question bore down on me as I cowered, waiting for any signs of movement. Any dull whimpers or brushes of glass against glass.

It obviously wanted to kill me. But it was holding back. Why?

Was it being more cautious because it perceived me as dangerous? I mean, I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t dangerous, I could totally hold my own in a bar fight, even though I haven’t ever. But it’s just that… this dog is twice as big as a human. An average sized human. So, for mousy, spindly me, it’s more like thrice as big, with even more muscle. Not exactly a fair matchup, was it?

Self-pity wasn’t a good look in the middle of a confrontation, I decided. It was sooner than I would have liked, but now that I had the dog cornered and ready to fight, I had to finish it here. Destroy it, preferably, but if I could capture it then that wasn’t too bad either. That way we had evidence.

Decision made, I pulled out a scarf from the inside of my jacket and used my one good arm to tie the decommissioned one into a sling. It was tight, and clumsy, and made the broken bones grind together in an agonizing fashion, but it was the best I could do right now. Maybe Riley could have helped me, but she had to go now and work on the ambush we had cooked up. There wasn’t any time for her nimble fingers to tie knots around my quickly swelling arm, geez, why was it hurting so bad?!

To distract myself from the pain, I got up, and began walking. I had stabilized myself as much as I could, and now the dog noticing me wasn’t just the worst-case scenario, but the expected result. As I did, though, I found the reflections morphing around me. The mirrors, here to show me a vision out of time.

Or maybe just the present, I considered, as the image of Fold appeared through the musty screen, looking around himself suspiciously. He was clearly in the corridors of the experimental project, I could tell, so this must be happening in real time. Except maybe not, as he seemed to be still in the entry corridor rather than one of the deeper passageways.

I waited for him to head in deeper. Except then, a sense of certainty fell over him. The thought bleeding through the glass, he knew what to do. And he turned tail and ran out the door.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Before I could freak out anymore, the mirror hastily added more thought projection, and Dave’s voice began echoing in my head.

“Oh, you lived in Francisston?” He laughed, and woah, was this a flashback within a flashback? Trippy.

Nevertheless, the Dave of Fold’s memory continued, “Man, I could tell you stories of that place. I spent early training there, so I saw all kinds of wild stuff there. Not a lot I can talk about, but this one time, we had to do emergency evac at a metalworking factory when the sprinkler system went on the fritz and flooded the entire place. It was so scary! Turns out they were cutting all kinds of corners, anyways, so the factory shut down after we suggested a safety inspector to take a look.”

Thrilling story, but why was Fold thinking about this now?

Metal working. Falling water. All available nearby. The puzzle pieces clicked in my head. He planned on using the water as a way for the dog to jump into the factory. And then he would pour molten metal onto it, killing it instantly.

This detective shit was easy.

Fold hadn’t been gone long enough to have heated up the metal to any degree. Normally, I would have hopped over to check how much time he needed, but then, a cautious step sounded on the edge of my periphery. I tensed, already anticipating the savage blur that threw itself at me.

Nothing to be done about it. Me and Riley would have to buy time for as long as needed.

“Hey, come on, dog!” I cried, barely managing to pull myself out of the way of its claws and teeth before they went in for the kill. Needed to get out of here. Back to the axe’s reflection. Hopefully, Riley had gotten into position by now.

Time, time, time, we needed so much more of it, and yet there barely was any left.

I tried to lead it around in a circle, but it cut me off before I could even try. This thing knew its way around, even with something as amorphous as the mirrored hallways. I had to commend that, even if right now, it seriously pissed me off.

Riley had been given as much reprieve as I could manage, I decided, as I threw myself at the shifting, silvery reflection that was no doubt her axe. It was in an accessible location for the dog, and I had given it a good long look on how to do it. When I landed on the other side, there was nothing to do but breathe heavily and wait for it to take the hint.

Was it wise to not only risk a beast as strong as this to learn another trick, but also count on it doing that? Probably not. But, it was our only shot right now. And if it didn’t work, then at least we had an idea on how adaptable it was. And it wouldn’t be able to kill us either way.

Once I landed in the real world, I backed several paces away from Riley, patting myself down hurriedly to check if all my bits were still in place. She stared at me, and for the first time, I thought that I could see a bone-deep fear echoing out of her face. This wasn’t an act or an exaggeration. She was well and truly scared. Seeing it scared me, too.

Riley was younger, quieter, less confrontational. For all that she put on an act of airs and graces, she kept it up because it was comfortable. Familiar. In her element. And this? This was as far out of everyone’s element as you could get. She wouldn’t be able to hold her own against the dog. Not for a second.

I only got to feel that mixture of guilt and terror all compounded at the same time for a brief second. And then the dog came bursting out of the blade after me, and the world sped up all over again.

Its target was me, that much was obvious by the way it wheeled around for a second, and then honed onto me. I still didn’t know why it was so obsessed, but it all worked out, as that fixation left it completely unaware of the spirit of vengeance bringing down her axe from behind it.

The sound of a hundred breaking plates rang out as heavy steel made full contact with glass, sending glass shards splintering across its body. Fiberglass fur broke and shattered with that single swipe, dealing an incredible amount of damage.

The hound whined and turned around to look at this new, unexpected foe, but Riley didn’t hesitate for even a second, her axe in the air again as she swung and swung and swung. Each blow caused more glass to be knocked loose, more fur sent flying.

Any fear in Riley’s eyes was gone. Replaced with raw, bitter grief. She wasn’t backing down, not until she got revenge for the loss of her sister.

Something cold and glistening and wet oozed out of the spot on the back of the dog’s neck and dropped onto the floor, metallic and reflective. Against all odds, Riley had managed to draw blood. She might even manage to finish it off!

Once the shock of the initial attack wore off, the dog immediately tried to retreat, looking around for an escape. There was none. This room had no mirrors in it, and was a tight, enclosed space. No room to put distance between them, and the only escape was the weapon which had wrought all this pain unto it. It was cornered like a rat.

And we might have finished him off, too, if it weren’t for yet another paradigm shifting development.

Riley had her hands extended for yet another strike, but once the axe was its peak, it shook erratically in her grip. Once, twice, and then the full weight of yet another glass-carved dog burst out from the axe.

It was smaller than the other, by a huge margin, but it had the same glossy bluish green fur, and reflective eyes and teeth. The markings were the same, too. Shepherd like, in appearance. There was a collar around its neck. Raggedy, but new. As if it had gone through a lot of strain in the past few days only.

The police dog from a few days ago rang clear in my mind. Was it the same one?

I found that I didn’t care, as both dogs turned on Riley, who had frozen from the shock. This wasn’t good. They were going to rip her apart.

It was like the world had slowed down around me as I swam through the air. Maybe my bloodied arm protested from being used as a battering ram against the dogs, but I found that I could feel none of it. All that mattered was getting to Riley and reaching into my pockets to grab a practice charm.

I slapped the charm onto her arm, right before diving into the axe’s reflection. It’s hard to do this, even when the body is already used to reflection-hopping. With a complete newbie? I wouldn’t have done it except in the most drastic circumstances. And this was a drastic circumstance if there ever was one.

Dragging someone through the mirrored hallways is much like swimming with a dead weight attached to you. Both of you are likely to drown if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I didn’t particularly know, but after Lian the Ranger had done it for me, I had looked into it.

Thank God for that, too, otherwise I would be completely lost instead of only slightly lost.

We landed safely, but highly winded and short of the only weapon we had. Not very good, but it could have been so much worse.

I had barely but shellshocked Riley down when it proceeded to get so much worse.

A full squadron of police came marching down the hallways. Armed with police dogs with those cursed tags around their collars. We were all going to die here.

“You!” Officer Sam called, heading the group as the one most experienced in the mirror world. They took in the scene, me and the horrible state Riley was in, and made all the assumptions they needed, “How dare you! Get your hands off her.”

“Sam, not now.” Riley whispered, weaving on the spot, “I… this is serious. You need to get those dogs out of here. They’re a danger.”

“This- this woman is a danger!” They replied, waving at me incredulously, “She’s been meddling with police affairs this whole time and I haven’t been able to prove it yet, but this makes it so obvious!”

“Yeah, well, maybe we have to, because you guys weren’t doing your damn jobs!” I shot back. My arm was licking fire up my nerves. It wouldn’t have happened if they’d just done their jobs. None of this would have happened.

The rest of the police squad all took a step back, looking vaguely uncomfortable with the whole situation. The argument didn’t escalate, however, as the dogs leapt back into the mirror world. The second they stepped inside, the police dogs all kicked up a huge ruckus, barking and howling.

The glass-frosted ones froze, looking over the normal beasts. No sooner had they made eye contact that the police hounds collapsed, bluish green covering their bodies like fungus. Even Officer Sam had the good sense to take a step back, shocked into silence.

Weakness didn’t grip the newly turned glass-dogs for long. They pulled themselves to their feet, growling ferociously.

“Run!” I called out to the others. But the beasts only turned to look at me. I was their only target.

Every mirror around me had morphed into that same muddy brown landscape I had been trapped in before. With little other option, I ran straight at it, letting myself get whisked away into the torrential rains.

Once again, there were no mirrors. No glass, no metal, and no still water. It was a real locked room situation, once again.

But the dogs burst out from the rain, nonetheless. The situation was so simple, I felt an incredulous laugh building inside me.

Of course, it was the rain!

It was basically the combination of a pond and a chandelier. Trickier to do than a waterfall, but I had heard of those being done, so why not?

It was all for naught, anyways, because I was going to die here. The dogs lunged from every direction at me, and it took all I had to dodge them. I needed to get back into the mirror world, even if that was their domain. There was only one hope I had, and I needed to get to it.

Going out of a chandelier is easier than going in. When you can really see all the fragments splayed out in front of you, your mind freaks out and doesn’t process it properly. Or at least, that’s what I had read.

Despite my choice in hobbies, I was not an adventurous soul. I didn’t do reflection-hopping for the spirit and the adventure and the thrill. I wasn’t the type who would ever do a jump through a chandelier. Let alone through a moving, watery one. It was madness.

Except they were snapping at me, getting in each other’s way in their eagerness. The younger ones were small, and had become overexcited with the chase, which had led to them becoming undisciplined. They were tripping the bigger ones up. I needed to make my move before they fell in line.

So, I threw caution to the wind. The mirrors were my home, my confidante, and now my allies. They wouldn’t let me down like this.

I closed my eyes as I let myself fall in, and bone-soaking wetness soon subsided into silent muffles. I was back inside. A clatter of claws confirmed that the dogs were on my trail.

Now, I had to run.

It was like the halls were bending to my will, twisting around like snakes, with enough bends to make sure the dogs never quite caught up, but also didn’t lose me. Finally, I saw a giant mural taking up an entire section of the halls, red and hot, sending the image aquiver with the amount of heat radiating off from it.

An entire pack of dogs behind me, I didn’t hesitate to jump through, leading the monsters straight to their deaths.

Fold startled above me as I broke through the waterfall.

“Maddy, what the fuck-” I heard him scream, even as I put the last of my energy in widening the gap between me and the rampaging beasts below.

“No questions, spill, spill, spill!” I told him. Thankfully, he didn’t hesitate, taking a lever and pulling it down. A vat of glowing hot liquid poured directly onto the monsters, immediately wiping them all out. The heat was so intense, it nearly scorched my skin off, even from how far away I was standing.

Momentarily, a collective, anguished howl went up. And then nothing. They all lay still, hulking blobs of glass and metal, finally downed.

“It’s over.” Fold whispered as if he hardly believed it, “They’re gone.”

A small, squeaky bark sounded that nearly froze the blood in my veins. And then one tiny dog came out, one of the newly turned ones. And the only surviving dog.

It looked around at the carnage around it, and then scampered over to me, tongue hanging out.

I reached my hand out to uncertainly pet it, but the creature had decided to not let any bad blood hang between us as it leaned into my hand. The fur, though bristly and sharp at the ends, was surprisingly soft.

“You’re not keeping that thing.” Fold told me.

“Yeah, I’m not.” I confirmed, “You want it, instead?”

He was suspiciously quiet on that front.