The paramedic sprinted through the car park, his feet thundering on the asphalt as he raced towards his partner. That guy was always fucking with him when they were on call, and now he'd assaulted him over a neck brace. He slapped his partner on the back, who was kneeling down in front of Sapphire.

“You've gone too far this time,” said the paramedic. “This isn't about the neck brace, it's about your continued behaviour and campaign of making my working days miserable. Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

His partner was shaking. The neck brace clattered to the floor and rolled away. The paramedic got closer to the body. Sapphire's neck had snapped; her spine was all twisted up like those wireframe toys you get in waiting rooms.

“I couldn't save her,” said his partner.

The two hugged.

“It's not your fault,” said the paramedic. “It's not your fault.”

*

“Oh shit, that ain't it, chief,” said Fortnite, spasming around in mid-air to try and pull himself back into college.

“Help me, Jake,” he pleaded. “Morris, make xem help me!”

Morris fell back onto the desk, bumping his head on the computer. His heart was pounding.

“What--what's wrong?” asked Mr. Dense. “Morris?”

Morris turned over and dropped to the carpet. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering where it had all gone wrong. Instead of giving a speech for a Nobel Prize, he pictured himself in front of a jury.

“I just--I just did what she told me to,” said Morris. “I didn't know what would happen. How--how could I have known?”

“Please, I can't see from here,” said Mr. Dense. “What's happened to her? Is she--”

Gunhilda marched into the room. Her right arm was dripping wet, and covered in grime.

“I am now under no illusions that some deity has set out to make a mockery of my institution,” said Gunhilda. “Stop wriggling around on that carpet, Morris, you're making it cleaner!”

“Who cares?” said Morris. “What's the point?”

“Calm yourself!” she snapped. “You receive a weekly salary to answer those kinds of questions.”

Mr. Dense slapped his belly like a drum. “Could somebody please tell me what on god's earth has happened to Sapphire?”

“Sapphire now resides in the cubicle adjacent to Violet. That is to say, she is also now stuck around the U-bend.”

Mr. Dense fainted again.

“But her body is out there,” said Morris, drawing open the blind. “Look at it. What the hell are you saying? That she's in two places at once?”

“I confiscated this from a student. It looks like your little Lolita was two steps ahead of us this whole time.” Gunhilda held out a trendy phone, showing him a picture of a twisted up Violet bleeding out in the flowerbed outside the college. It looked like something had picked her up and wrung her out. The sight was too much. Morris retched into the hole in the floor.

“Get up,” she barked. “It is wholly against the rules for anyone, staff or student, to die in this college. Now I'm up to my shoulder in shit, are you going to help me pull them back around or not?”

He stood up, sweat running down his forehead. “I have to. I started this.”

“What about me?” said Fortnite. “And the fat teacher?”

Morris shrugged. “You're not going to fall. We'll figure this out, don't worry.”

The pair marched back into the bathroom, skirting around an 'out of order' sign, and sure enough, Sapphire's glassy eyed corpse was bubbling someway down the toilet's pipe. Morris grit his teeth, pulled up the sleeve to his pinstripe suit, then realised that everything was going to get grubby anyway. Gunhilda leaned against the taps as she watched him take off everything he was wearing up top.

“Your muscles really aren't very toned, Morris,” said Gunhilda. “When this is over and done with, I expect you to take more advantage of the college gym.”

“If you're just going to stand there, then shut up,” said Morris, shoving his hand down the toilet bowl and feeding his arm down the pipe. It was wet and stank of piss. To make matters worse, the water was lukewarm. He groped around for Sapphire, but it just felt like he was swishing through sludge. Even though he could see her when he pulled back and looked down the pipe, the moment his arm went up there, it was like she wasn't really there.

“I don't think she's actually physically in there,” said Morris.

“I know,” said Gunhilda. “I just wanted you to go through what I just had to do so that you could properly understand my frustration.”

“You psychopath!” Morris rushed to the taps and hosed down his arm, lathering it up and down with soap. “What's wrong with you?”

“Because I just did what you just did. And now you're about to notice what I just noticed.”

“Huh?” Morris looked up at himself in the grubby mirror. The mirror was aligned in plates along the wall, one square facing opposite each cubicle.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Hurry up and move around your head.”

Morris did so. Whenever he looked at the mirror from different angles, all but two of the plates reflected what he should actually be seeing.

He said, “Those two mirrors... their viewpoint is fixed directly on Violet and Sapphire's cubicles, no matter where I stand. But what the hell does that mean, Hilda?”

She handed him his shirt. “You're the Philosophy teacher. I expect you to figure it out before classes end. Although, considering my watch hasn't budged for the past five minutes, I have to wonder if they ever will.”

Morris got dressed again, then wetted up a wad of tissues and brought it to the glass to clear off some of the grime. As he went to touch it, his hand passed through the glass as if it wasn't there. He dropped the tissues into the sink on the other side and they landed in front of his doppelganger. When he looked down at the sink this side of the mirror, however, it was empty.

“How singular,” he murmured.

“What was that?” asked Gunhilda. She came to stand right beside him, appearing in the mirror.

“Watch this,” said Morris.

He grabbed Gunhilda’s arm and guided it to the mirror. Her hand passed through, taking up the space where the image of her hand had been. She jerked her real hand back in surprise.

“What do you suppose that means?” said Morris.

“I don’t know! As I said, you’re the philosophy teacher here.”

“Alright then I’ll tell you my guess,” he said. “Your watch will start ticking if we cross through this mirror. That’s what it means.”

“You’re saying we’re behind the mirror? Because our world is like this?”

“Yes.”

“But the world was normal before. So we haven’t always been the ones behind the mirror, surely,” said Gunhilda.

“Well now, I thought you were leaving the philosophising to me. What a good student you’d be.”

“Oh shut up, Morris. Tell me what we should do now.”

“Go through the mirrors?”

“Are you joking? Do you even know what sort of a breach of health and safety is? You haven’t even done a risk assessment!”

“You asked me what we should do!”

Someone knocked frantically at the door to the bathroom. A voice was calling from behind.

Gunhilda strode over and swung the door back so that it banged hard against the wall.

“Alfie Jr.,” said Gunhilda, “what are you doing knocking on the girls bathroom door?”

“Miss! MISS! MISSS!!”

“What is it boy, tell me before I feel the need to misconduct myself and slap you in the face.”

“Uh, well,” said Alfie Jr. “It’s Tolliver miss.”

“Tolliver?”

“Who, is that Fortnite?” said Morris as he walked into earshot.

Alfie Jr. looked up at his teachers with big green eyes. “He fell, miss.”

“Another one?” said Morris.

“We can’t be sure,” said Gunhilda. “Alfie Jr., is Tolliver… alive?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Alfie Jr., a tear visibly rolling down one cheek. “He was maybe breathing when I left.”

“We should check,” stated Gunhilda. “It’s our responsibility to the students.”

“Of course,” said Morris.

Alfie Jr. led the way back to the classroom, where the group of remaining students were huddled like penguins and sobbing. Despite there being nobody to hold a blanket in front of Mr Dense, it didn’t look like any of them cared.

“Look,” said Alfie Jr. while pointing out the window.

Almost on top of Sapphire, they saw the kid starfished over the pavement. The paramedics had just managed to cover his body with a white sheet.

“What happened?” asked Gunhilda.

“Well,” began Alfie Jr., “He was saying something about having figured it all out. Then he wriggled a lot and fell. I swear to god he said he would respawn.”

“Do you know what that means?” asked Morris.

Gunhilda clapped Morris on the shoulder. “Are you joking, Morris? Everyone knows what respawning is.”

“Everyone?”

“Don’t you have a niece or nephew or something?”

“No.”

“Ah, well that explains it I guess. It’s a gaming thing,” explained Gunhilda. “When you die you teleport back to the start.”

Morris’ eyes widened. “We have to check the boys’ toilets!”

“What?”

“Think about it! Sapphire and Violet are both, well, you know. So this kid could be in the boys’.”

“Why not the girls’?”

“I don’t know for sure obviously, but the two who are in the girls’ are both female. So he might be in the boys’ toilets instead.”

“But we didn’t check the cubicles again after we found Sapphire. And by your logic, Sapphire should be in the staff cubicles!”

“Okay, okay,” said Morris. “I just have this hunch. Please, Gunhilda. Let us check in there.”

“I suppose there’s no harm in trying,” said Gunhilda. “Alfie Jr.! Stay here and stop anybody else leaving, whether it’s through the window or otherwise. And don’t go anywhere yourself.”

The two teachers left the room once again. Morris really hoped he was right. Actually, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be right but at least it would mean something beyond a simple death of a student. He didn’t want to begin thinking of the paperwork.

And then they reached the boys’ toilets. Inside it was pretty much a miniature version of the other loos. Gunhilda coughed as the smell of late adolescent teenagers filled her lungs. It definitely wasn’t Hugo Boss, she was sure.

Two mirrors hung above two sinks. A row of urinals were set into the far wall with a prison style window above. Two cubicles had been built against the other wall.

“Go and check them then Morris,” said Gunhilda.

“Why don’t we check one each?”

“No thank you,” said Gunhilda. “Besides, this was your idea.

But Morris didn’t have to check both. Fortnite was bubbling away in the first cubicle. It looked like he had been brained with his cap. Morris turned in disgust and found himself looking at his reflection. As he moved away, Morris saw that the mirror refused to show anything but the cubicle with Fortnite. It was the same.

The second mirror had retained its function. Gunhilda was watching herself in it.

“I sincerely hope no more people end up in here,” she said.

“Who would want that?”

“Someone… sick.”

“You’re making it sound like someone is doing this intentionally,” said Morris. “There’s no way someone could magic up this shitshow.”

“Careful with your words, Morris. One of the students is in here.”

“He’s not even alive, Gunhilda. In fact, he seems to be dead twice.”

Gunhilda turned to face him. “That’s what I mean. How can he be like that, twice? Isn’t it just as likely that all of them are actually fine?”

“What, are you saying that being dead in two places works like a double negative?”