Over a trillion? Were they crazy? At least they were willing to compensate for the time. 100 dollars a day wasn’t that bad of a salary if she just closed one a day. But one a day? No. That would be far too little. With 150 million people, assuming they all agree, and all do their part, they would each have to do about a million each. That was far too much for any person to do. It was an inevitability that the doors would open. It was an inevitability that people would die. Assuming all of this was real, of course, and she wasn’t in the middle of a prolonged, and very complex, mental breakdown. She’d work on the assumption this was real, however.

She spent the day spending the last of her savings to gather supplies she thought she might need; a backpack, first aid supplies, food and water that could easily be carried, and the like. During this time she peppered the mirror with questions: what should she expect? To fight. Should she just start out by going into any random door that she came across? No, the mirror told her, if she asked the mirror, then she would be given a response if she could tackle the challenges beyond. What did the anchors look like? Depended on the door. Something of a religious nature was likely, however. The mirror also warned her not to go into anything that looked more like a gate, than a door. A gate would have to be tackled by more than one person.

She didn’t get back home until about 8 in the evening. At that time she set an alarm for two, and called into work, telling the old lady on the other end that she wasn’t feeling well. She had saved up a lot of sick days throughout the year, after all, if she used them all at once, however, she knew there was going to be a knock on her door by an agent. She slipped off into a light

Two hours passed in anticipation. What should she expect? She adjusted the elastic band of the hockey equipment she bought, and made sure her two-sizes-too-large black leather jacket hid it from view. Whatever it was, she wanted to be prepared. Her brand-new backpacking bag — a black canvas bag with a metal frame in the back, and the image of an eagle with its wings spread out on the front, bulged with the supplies she thought she’d need. Water, food, first aid kit. If she was going to do this, then she would make sure she would survive.

During those two hours, she cut herself for the first time in nearly half a decade. The athame was sharp. The blade didn’t take much pressure to slice a long, crimson line across her palm. It hurt for a second, but the wood the blade was made of must have had some sort of numbing property, because the pain quickly faded. She let her blood pool on the tabletop.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Now how do I do this?” She asked the mirror.

Direct your will into it.

How vague. She glared at the puddle and pointed her finger at it. Something tingled in the air, and she felt as if some sort of line connecting the tip of her finger and the pool of blood. She followed this connection and moved her finger. The pool of blood moved at her whim; going back and forth like the ebb and flow of a tide. A lapse in concentration had it spread back out in its natural state. She grinned. Progress. She checked her book. Two New entries had been made in the book on the page opposite the page with the three spells. Blood Manipulation and Mana Manipulation.

“So all I have to do is get the blood in the enemy’s eyes and it blinds them?”

If you will it.

She clenched her teeth. Okay. This was probably going to be the stupidest thing she’s done in her life. At least up there. She walked over to the table, dipped her finger into the blood pool, and smeared the blood across both of her eyes. It stung, but no more than normal blood, and she was still able to keep her eyes open, despite the pain.

Blind. She thought. Blind. Blind, blind, blind blind blind bl—

The stinging intensified, as if someone had poured boiling water over her eyes. She placed a hand over her mouth as she muffled a scream and ran to the sink, fumbled around inside of it for an empty cup and filled it with water which she dumped over her face. She did it again and again until the last of the blood had been flushed from her eyes, and still, the stinging lingered.

“Shit.”

She steadied herself on the edge of the counter.

“Shit. Never doing that again.”

Her legs stopped trembling after ten minutes. Twenty minutes the last of the stinging faded. By that time, there was only half an hour left until midnight.

“So, it starts at midnight here, right?” She spoke to the open mirror to pass the time.

Yes.

The mirror responded in its foggy whisper.

“How about the east coast?”

It has already started there.

“So is it, what? Following the sun? The moon?”

Neither. The magic was first felt by the Gods in Iran. It is moving in a wave-like manner westward across the world.

“Why Iran?”

We do not know. There are a few theories. A rogue God on our side. A cult that has already been in contact with Roki, and the fact that your civilization began there. These are the most popular opinions among the Gods.

“A cult? Would I have to be worried about it?”

We do not even know if it actually exists.

Rosaendra nodded and clicked the mirror shut. She took the remaining ten minutes or so to readjust the straps on everything, slung her bag over her back, and adjusted those straps as well. She slid the mirror and the pocketbook-sized grimoire into the pocket of her leather jacket, she stepped outside of her door at 11:59 and locked the door behind her.

“Okay, here we go.” She took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, and waited for the day to change into the next.